Siras: 'Super Bowl' TVs Unlikely To Be Returned

By TWICE Staff -- TWICE, 1/30/2012

REDMOND, WASH. — Siras reported that consumers are no more likely to return TVs purchased in the week leading up to the Super Bowl than they are TVs purchased anytime in the 30 days before or 30 days after the big game.

In an exclusive report for TWICE, Siras said that this dispels a popular notion that consumers are more likely to purchase TVs prior to the Super Bowl with the intent of returning them immediately after.

Siras provides product registration, return validation and lifecycle tracking services for retailers and manufacturers. Peter Junger, Siras president, said, “There’s nothing in our data to suggest retailers need a special return policy for TVs purchased in the week or weeks leading up to the championship. While we looked at the 30-day window on either side of the Super Bowl, the results are also consistent with rates we see throughout the year.”

The new report, based on information from thousands of retail outlets and covering hundreds of thousands of TV purchases, compared the 90-day return rate of TVs purchased within 30 days of the Super Bowl in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Siras did not disclose the actual percentages of products returned, only the relative trends for each year. According to Junger, the analysis shows that return rates in each of the last three years remained within the predictable range for TVs purchased at any other time that year.

“Our data for the last three years do show a slight year-over-year increase in 90-day return rates of TVs among our participating retailers, but that reflects an annual trend, not something related to a singular event during the year,” said Junger. “We think the increase stems from consumers paying closer attention to retailers’ return policies and from a continuing decline in TV prices, but we would need to do more analysis before drawing any conclusions about that. As far as the Super Bowl goes, though, there’s no reason to change from doing business as usual.”