Unwirtschaftliche Abwicklung von Gewährleistungs- und Garantiefällen bei defekten Geräten

Definition

Under the Australian Consumer Law, suppliers must provide repair, replacement or refund where products fail to meet consumer guarantees, especially for major failures in appliances and electronics.[3][4] This drives high volumes of RMAs and warranty claims. In wholesale chains, many units returned as "defective" are later diagnosed by service centres as no-fault-found (NFF), often 20–30% in electronics, creating pure cost with no true defect being remedied.[4] A manual, poorly governed RMA process means: (1) insufficient fault information from retailers, (2) weak up-front validation against warranty terms and ACL thresholds, and (3) lack of automated rules for when to repair vs. replace. This leads to conservative decisions (full replacement instead of low-cost repair), duplicate freight, and unnecessary refurbishment or scrapping. For a wholesaler moving 20,000–40,000 units/year with a 3–5% return rate, just 1–2% of sales volume in NFF or over-generous replacements can equate to AUD 150,000–400,000 in annual avoidable cost (freight, handling, testing, write‑downs), assuming an average landed cost of AUD 200–300 per unit and double‑handling on NFF cases. Because ACL remedies must be provided within a reasonable time, many wholesalers choose immediate replacement rather than controlled triage, which improves customer satisfaction but inflates cost of poor quality and inventory write‑offs.

Why This Matters

The Pitch: Wholesale appliance and electronics distributors in Australia 🇦🇺 routinely waste AUD 100,000–300,000 p.a. on avoidable replacement, freight and handling in their RMA process. Automation of fault triage, warranty validation, and credit/replacement approval eliminates a large share of these costs.

Affected Stakeholders

Head of Operations, Warranty & Service Manager, CFO, Supply Chain Manager, Customer Service Manager

Related Business Risks