What's It All About?

A well known journalist who has a regular Watchdog style column in a national newspaper once described me as a ‘real consumer champion.’

I’m not. I just want things to work. And if they don’t, I don’t understand why it can’t be straight forward to get it replaced, or get my money back. I’m British, so don’t like to make a fuss. But I work hard for my money too, and so if I make a big purchase, I expect it to work and be guaranteed against faults. But I’m also style conscious and against my better judgment am often swayed to buy the sexier product over the technically better product.

Damn me and my fickle consumer ways!

Once I’ve made the mistake, and bought the pretty product that won’t even switch on, I realize that more than anything all I want it to do is work, and work well. I’ve spent my hard earned cash on the product that won’t do the job it was built for. And why won’t it work? Is it a one off fault – hey it happens – but if so, why did it have to be the one I bought? Now I have to drag myself back to the shop, which typically is somewhere I’d rarely go or is awkward to get to.

However, more often than not when you do drag yourself back to the shop it’s a simple and fairly painless exchange. As long as you still have the receipt and a copy of your mother’s birth certificate.

The real challenge comes when you’ve had a product longer than the 14 or 28 day store refund policy and you have to deal directly with the manufacturer… *psycho music plays*

I won’t go off on one just yet with some horror stories; instead I want to take a moment to think about why this keeps happening to me – why do I seem to buy so many faulty products? I’m very careful with things I own, I’m material, and I like them to stay nice and shiny.

My step-father hit the nail on the head: “They don’t make things like they used to.”

And he’s right. They don’t. But he was talking about the manufacturing process. Sure – that’s changed too, but mass consumerism means that had to change. But that doesn’t have to affect build quality. The reason these products don’t do what they’re supposed to do is because manufacturers put their entire R&D budget into whether a silver casing would sell better than a black one and forget about making it actually do the job it’s supposed to do. The irony is that their research about design is usually off too, especially when trying to make a product appealing to a female consumer.

Although I must admit my Olympus µ-mini is a beautiful silvery pink…sent from the Gods of Handbag-Sized-Sleek-Gadgets…but it’s a bloody good camera too, so that makes it OK.