At this point, I have a 21,5% refund rate when selling watch faces on the Google Playstore.
This seems astonishingly high. The customers I’m in contact with assure me there’s nothing wrong with the product.
Are these normal numbers or is there something wrong with my watch faces? Does any one know how to reduce the amount of customers who requests a refund? In cojunction with the “Your device is not compatible” bug there seem to be a lot of leads left on the table…
Yeah I get a lot too, yet I have had no comments/reviews that suggest there are any problems with my faces. I read somewhere that the customer has a window of time where they can buy an app and refund it with no issues. If that’s true, maybe some would rather just actually try it on their watch and see if it’s something they actually want. However, something else also tells me that customers for the most part, aren’t that savvy to know that feature if it is a thing, so who knows.
I don’t. It’s beyond my abilities at the moment but I know it probably isn’t helping me that I don’t. I know that there are free ones out there with pretty comprehensive instructions but I am worried about all the account terminations lately so I’ll just keep it to WFS for the time being.
Normally, users with an incompatible smartwatch cannot buy or install our watch faces.
However, when we combine our watch face with a companion app, this filter is overridden.
The Play Store suddenly ignores the incompatibility of the watch face and allows users to purchase and install our apps because the companion app is compatible with most phones.
Suddenly, anyone with an incompatible smartwatch can buy our apps, resulting in many people having to return the app.
In your case, however, this is not a possible explanation as you don’t have a companion app.
Seems like a normal rate to me. Apps are easy to refund, it’s just a one-tap action for users. It’s natural for them to try products and see if they like them.
If this is true, thank you for sharing this, this is good information. I did not know about this or even consider it honestly. I am using a companion app only because I noticed right away that it’s very inconvenient to use the play store on my watch, and I found out that I can make a companion app installed on my phone send a link to my watch that brings up the watch face’s Play Store listing on my watch so all I have to do is press install on the watch.
However, if this could cause issues with watch compatibility, I guess there’s more I need to look into. I’d rather not have potential customers downloading the companion app only to discover they can’t install the watch face on their watch. New research project!
After discussing with customers, I’ve figured out they get this until the face is completely downloaded. Took him 10 minutes of having this before it switched to the real one.
I haven’t had time to evaluate my experience yet. I have been too busy updating the endless policy requirements/changes and then just crossing my fingers in the hopes that my faces pass without being rejected for some unknown issue that they do not care to share with me.
This “problem” for the Play Store users was what made me decide for sure to go the companion app route. I noticed this myself when testing my first free watch face on the Play Store. Initially, I just wanted customers (like myself) who do not want to use the tiny screen on the watch to browse the Play Store app to be able to easily browse for watch faces on their phone or tablet and download them without seeing the “Incompatible” message that is actually telling them their phone/tablet is not compatible.
So the companion app takes care of the phone/tablet compatibility issue by being compatible with that device. The “long install” issue you mentioned, was the final thing that pushed me in the companion app direction. I myself was confused by this long install process because it is not instant (like every other action is) and because there is no progress bar or spinning graphic, it looks like nothing is happening. So, the sensible assumption for anyone to make is that there really is nothing happening. If I had paid for something that behaved like this, I would try to get a refund too.
The companion app provides a more intuitive user experience (in my opinion) because you can bypass this weird Play Store “quirk?” that makes it look like the faces are not installing, and instead provide a button to send the face’s Play Store listing directly to the watch so the user can press the install button on their watch and get a progress bar/spinner there, where they can see it is actually working.
Regarding being “happy” with the Play Store seller experience… I’ve not made any sales yet so I can’t comment on that, but not having experience with any other online store to compare it to, I’m not terribly upset by it so far. I do find the whole process cumbersome and the several days long code review times are a bit frustrating. But, all things considered, it could be much worse!
Hi @Kev.Partridge google allows user some time to test the apps after installing. If they dont like any apps they can process for refund. After a certain period of time refund is not possible by user. hope clear. As you wrote, from customer end there is nothing wrong with the prodcut - so your product is ok but not like by customer after use it.
To reduce the refunt % - you need good design and good marketing as well to increase users.
About device is not compatible - WFS latest version is not supported to solve this issue. i wrote in other topics to attention @Jakia.Sultana to solve.
So far my customers seem happy with my designs and from my standpoint I couldn’t pinpoint anything wrong with my marketing - That said it is around 14 years since I studied graphical design and visual communication, maybe a lot has changed since then. You are very welcome to help me go through it, I would appreciate any feedback.
I can’t however shake the feeling that the initial period before the watch face has loaded when there is just a plain digital clock might scare people off (see my last entry in this thread). I would feel scammed those initial 15 minutes when I had nothing…
Yeah, it seems to be a struggle with having a companion app and risk getting suspended or not having it and losing out on sales…
Probably you are getting new customers with new watches shipped with os wear 5 that previously used third party watch apps like facer and watchmaker looking for alternatives on the playstore. Do the reports tell you what devices the purchases and refunds were made on? I bet they are all galaxy watch 7 and ultra.
I read about this problem somewhere on this forum, I can’t remember at the moment which thread though, I’m sorry. But from what I remember, apparently for some people it can take a very long time for the face to show up, much longer than 20 minutes. The only solution I know of is to have the person search for the watch face in the Play Store ON their watch.
In my opinion, that solution is highly inconvenient since it’s much easier manage watch faces from apps on the phone, like the “Galaxy Wearable” app. However, from what I understand, if they use the Play Store on the watch to find the face, they can install it there with no issues. Hope that helps!
As a costumer, that is probably why I also made mine myself, is the tiny bitty of calculation that made me refund some watchfaces.
Some watchfaces show calories burnt only on step_count while here in the forum is a good approximation formula for it. Step_Goal only shows up to 100% not over it. I made a formula with help of another user here (his comment got deleted or was deleted though, at least I don’t see it anymore) that goes over 100% represent the number of SHealth even better. Some show miles, and kilometers and not switch automatically.
Yet it is my own preferences and as it seems, it is not the initial problem you have encountered.
While on the refund process it would be helpful for you developers/designer to comment why we as a costumer refund. Do you get any hints or is it just for Google?
