Store brand policy problems.

Many companies are tightening up their return policies as they try to cut costs. Companies that don't respond to complaints are paying a high price for their failure to respond. Today's consumers expect their complaints to be taken seriously. When their make-good expectations aren't met, consumers are quicker than ever to obliterate the brand from their family of acceptable brands. "Armour Bacon didn't respond to a complaint I made several months ago and I haven't purchased it since."

Store brands pay an especially high price for rules that focus on protecting the store instead of satisfying customers. When a consumer returns a defective store brand without a receipt, or with a receipt that is not dated within the store's requirement period, she or he expects the store to make good on it because it's their product.

The same consumers who grudgingly accept rules of return and exchange for national brand products become very angry when a store sticks to its rules even when the unsatisfactory product is a store brand. When a store refuses to make good on a defective product of its own because the consumer doesn't have a receipt or the receipt date is prior to the 7, 14 or 30-day period the store requires, consumers try to strike the store from their list of regulars. "Up until six months ago, I was spending over $50 a month at Vitamin Specialties. Then I took back a bottle of glucosamine sulphate that had a whole lot of misshaped capsules--really disfigured and crazy looking. They refused to take them back or give me a credit because I didn't have a receipt. I found it hard to believe that they didn't care that one of their products was really defective. I haven't gone back since and won't go again for sure."