I'm wondering about this, because I ordered the wrong size band on 1 of the 2 watches I ordered.
Apple having to refurbish the watches at their expense for the sake of avoiding a customer having to purchase an additional, high-margin watchband at their own expense and resell the original band... seems like kind of a hassle/waste either way. Given the retail handling of watches with swappable bands and try-ons and all that, it seems like swapping bands of different types/origins wouldn't be a huge issue. You could maybe just return a band of the equivalent value in the other's packaging.
With that said, any returned watches would have to be refurbished and repackaged by Apple... so it's not like they don't have the logistical system in place to handle band reassignment. So, for returns, bands aren't necessarily permanently paired to their original packaging/watch.
What do you think?