Cheap Thrills
I’m always on the search for a cheaper alternative for anything I’m trying to buy. I’m pretty good at knowing all the sites to find the cheapest airline tickets, discounts or whatever and I pride myself on always being able to pay bottom dollar for stuff. However, I’m starting to figure out the difference between getting stuff for cheap and getting a good deal. Case in point, I was cleaning out my garage the other day and came across a bunch of vacuum cleaners I had bought over the last couple years. What struck me is that pretty much none of them lasted longer than 3 months before packing in. I mean, vacuum cleaners are the only products that you hope suck!
Whenever I had to buy a new vacuum cleaner, my decision making process simply boils down to a) does it look good? (yeah, we all know how vital it is to be stylish while clearing those cobwebs. b) it must be a bit more expensive than the cheapest model but not that much more (we all know the cheapest stuff is crap so I steer clear of those!).
However it is quite clear that history has not cast a kind eye on my decision making skills in this area. The cunning marketers of vacuums, being the clever devils they are, have figured out the strategy of people like me and started pricing their crap a little bit higher than normal as a way of signaling that it’s a bit higher quality. But, of course, it’s still crap.
The really curious thing is that I have never bothered to go really high end and buy one of those really fancy cleaners that you see being demonstrated in a wind tunnel or something. Now, those tend to cost about four five times as much as a regular cleaner but I suspect may work much better. I have probably spent way more on regular cleaners at this point anyway, so I might as well give it a shot. Hopefully, they just haven’t taken the old marketers ploy to a whole other level by jacking up the prices to the sky in the hope that you’ll think it’s even better than all the others. I hope that’s not true though because I’ve got my eye on a cute looking Dyson that looks downright fetching.
I understand that thought process but am wondering why you haven’t thought to actually research what you buy like vaccuums. Consumer reports is a great resource for this. Also when you search for a certain model or brand online, just simply look at the reviews. This will give you a good idea if a product is good or not. Just a thought…
@juliaandjesus
True, there’s a ton of information out there to help you make a decision but there’s a cost of the time required to look it all up. So I do actually do a lot of research for big ticket items like TVs, camcorders, etc. Just never got round to doing them for cheaper stuff like vacuum cleaners.