I try to monitor the industry message boards as time permits and it amazes me how in our industry this seems to be the overwhelming theme for most people’s questions about buying equipment. It is possible to buy a good product and it is possible to buy a cheap product, but rarely do the two mix. I know it happens in other industries as well and we are all guilty of trying to get the cheapest price possible, but there is a reason that there is a saying for this. “You get what you pay for.”
Good: Excerpts from dictionary.com “satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree. Of high quality; excellent.”
Cheap: Excerpts from dictionary.com “costing very little; relatively low in price; inexpensive. Of little account; of small value; mean; shoddy. Embarrassed; sheepish. Stingy; miserly”
So after looking at those definitions it seems to me as if those 2 words should not be used together when asking about equipment or goods. Buying the cheapest model doesn’t always save you money and if you want something good, sometimes you have to pay for it.
All too often I have heard the horror stories of customers who have just looked at the price tag and invested their hard earned money into the cheapest model. The problem is they get that cheap item back to their location and it doesn’t work, doesn’t hold up to the normal expected use or just downright SUCKS. So now was that item actually cheap? Not really! It is now an expensive mistake and an even larger headache to eliminate the problem since you have probably sold your customers the service based on that piece of equipment.
So let’s all try to start looking at how we shop for items in a different way. Let’s replace words like good and cheap with; valuable, sturdy, efficient, useful, return on investment and my favorite; bang for the Buck!