I totally get that and these things aren't cheap.
But i see a LOT of complaining from people who want no NRD to they can "safely" cancel without it costing them anything.
If they want to order everything but buy nothing, they shouldn't be Preordering in the first place.
I agree with you. Don't pre-order unless you plan on keeping it. The only scenario where I can see it as a problem for the buyer would be if an emergency came up and they can't go through with the purchase. But perhaps they can work with Sideshow and move the order to a payment plan.
Well there are a couple of different scenarios here to consider. First, collecting habits and preferences change. With SSC or Hot Toys, it can take upwards of a year plus for figures to come out. While you might have bought right away if the figure were released right away, in that interim between pre-ordering and shipping, you may decide that this Michael Bay Transformers film wasn't the masterpiece you thought it was. Or, you may want to spend your money on something else that wasn't announced until after the NRD was paid (say, the new, fancy Vader from Last Jedi instead of the cruder version from Rogue One).
Secondly, and this is something I would do in times past, you could pre-order something you really want based on prototype. But there is uncertainty in production. Usually, early samples would get out before shipping, and the potential buyer who pre-ordered could review similarity of prototype to production to decide if they want to keep the order or not. My 'courtesy' NRD refund was in a situation like this, for a Hot Toys figure that looked nothing like the prototype. You lose that option with NRDs. And you could go through the song and dance of trying to return it for a refund, but that's extra cost and hassle for SSC, and sometimes now they won't approve it anyway.
Of course, neither of these arguments discounts the right of SSC to charge NRDs, or says that they are wrong in any way. But it's a bit simplistic to say that buyers shouldn't pre-order unless they are committed to buying IMO. Who among us hasn't at some point in the past changed our mind about a pre-order, for one reason or another? The alternative option here still out there, however, is BBTS. And they don't charge much more than SSC most of the time, so there is a low risk means of going without an NRD in some situations. Though their stock is much lower than it was in the past, and they don't get exclusives.
