Well if it does get put into the game then there should be a partial refund cause of taxes cutting out of the original purchase. So basically a restocking fee for the product.
That way at least the shop owner gets to keep some of the coin from the original sale. Then again, these should all be settings a shop owner would need to have the flexibility to set. There would be a lot of them. Like a slider for restocking fee.
As far as not knowing what machine uses what crafting material, I think this kind of responsibility is the same that applies to someone buying something from a store in real life. Double check, triple check, etc. There needs to be a little bit of responsibility on the customer of a shop in Boundless. If you don’t know what machine uses leather or what crafting recipe uses something then it’s helpful to ask or look it up with your crafting character in game using the Knowledge tab.
Honestly, even if return and refund functionality was given to shops, I probably would want to turn it off. It’s just too much of a hassle to deal with in real life and I much rather not have to let coin sit in a shop stand or item sit in a request basket just to make sure I am refunding people and accepting returns. That’s slowing down projects, making it more difficult to keep the shop stocked, etc.
So I’d just turn the option off if it was actually available in game to use.