I'm finding a great many people buy my Android app in the google market and immediately return it for a refund. That works fine with physical goods, but for virtual goods, they have now acquired the app for free!
Has anyone else noticed this fatal flaw in the Google Android market for apps? What other markets are there without this problem?
Peter
Yes you are correct. As per Android Market policies if an user uninstalls the application that he has bought with 24 hrs he is eligible for a full refund. I think this policy might be for the benefit of end users. The user is given access to the app only after he pays for it and unlike physical goods he wont be able to examine it before. He may like or dislike it once he starts using it. But in this case he needs to first uninstall the application so that he can ask for refund.
http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=134336
I am sure that not all users will take this approach and as a developer i wont be interested in asking money for my application that an user is not happy of.
You're right, but it isn't a market flaw. I really like this feature 'cause I wouldn't like to buy an app and then discover it's totally useless.
If you're experiencing a lot of users buying and then returning your app, you should probably search for the reason of such a behavior. Probably they don't like your app. If I'm right you might get some feedback at uninstall time why the user did such a step. Analyze this feedback to improve your app!
One special feature of my app is that it delivers the source code to the SD card, on first being run. There is no way to recall that on uninstall. I can probably address most of the situation by not writing the source until 24 hours have passed. (Yes, yes, and checking for the clock being moved forward, if I want to inhibit all the cheaters).
I'm going to withdraw my app from the market, until I can implement this protection. – Peter vdL