Vexatious Warranty Issues

Partners are a troubled lot today because of vexatious warranty issues. The

fact that majority of the vendors do have a warranty policy does not bring

relief to them because they are concerned about issues that go beyond policy

guidelines. It is here that partners look for greater flexibility from vendors.

One of the important questions that partners have been trying to get an

answer to is: From which date the warranty is effective? Is it from the date of

manufacture or from the date of purchase by the end-customer? Many vendors say that the warranty is effective from the

date of manufacture.

This makes the lives of partners difficult because products tend to remain

among channel circles for many days and months before they are actually bought

by end-users who always insist on warranty from the day a product is bought.

Partners want vendors to be flexible on this issue because for a customer, the

date of purchase is the date on which the warranty begins.

Take the case of turn-around time in warranty. It is taken for granted by

vendors and partners that 14 days is the maximum period within which an exchange

between a defective and a working product has to take place. But the reality is

that more often than not, this period gets extended and partners remain at the

receiving end from customers.

Vendors of course have their excuses for delays caused. But these do not

satisfy partners because end-users always look for across-the-counter

replacements. When this does not happen, payments for subsequent orders get

blocked.

DOA is another issue that partners look for a resolution. Within what

time-frame should the products under DOA be replaced? Is it three days, or seven

days or 14 days? There seems to be no consensus between vendors and partners on

this. The result is that there is dissatisfaction on partners’ side as they

are not in a position to inform customers definitively on when would the

defective products be replaced.

Warranty on the parallely imported goods has become a hot issue. While

vendors say that they would not support parallely imported goods, partners have

questioned this stand because they say that these goods have been imported after

paying necessary duties. Partners claim that international warranty should be

applicable to these goods.

But vendors say that they can support goods bought only from their authorized

distributors within the country. But then what is the validity of an

international warranty? If a product is legally imported into the country, why

shouldn’t that product be covered under international warranty?

To discuss these and other pertinent issues, DQ Channels India joined hands

with Traders’ Association of Information Technology, Mumbai, to organize a

panel meet on warranty in the city which saw lively exchange of views between

vendors and partners. The occasion gave vendors an opportunity to articulate

their warranty policies and fine-tune them to the needs of partners. While

partners got an unique chance to ventilate their grievances as well as update

vendors on theirs and end-users’ warranty expectations.

sylvesterl@cmil.com