>people trying to sell you a thing are unlikely to give you extra time past the "I need to buy this" impulse to decide not to buy it
In the EU, the consumer has the right to cancel any order or return any purchase, for any reason, within 14 days.
So in the EU, you already have that extra time in law.
Given that, from a retailers perspective, having a timer could actually make commercial sense, as the cost from lost sales could be balanced out by a reduction in cancelled orders and returns.
It may make commercial sense anyway, out of customers liking the feature and that translating into goodwill over time, but that would be much harder to put a figure on.
I really do wonder what the cost/benefit numbers are for a company putting more friction on their return/refund process while adding to the processing cost.
I'm sure I've made plenty of purchases where a big ticking "Are you sure you wanted to do that, Dave?" undo button might have worked but it wasn't worth it for me to go through the effort to return or refund.
In the EU, the consumer has the right to cancel any order or return any purchase, for any reason, within 14 days.
So in the EU, you already have that extra time in law.
Given that, from a retailers perspective, having a timer could actually make commercial sense, as the cost from lost sales could be balanced out by a reduction in cancelled orders and returns.
It may make commercial sense anyway, out of customers liking the feature and that translating into goodwill over time, but that would be much harder to put a figure on.