Vending Blog #11?Shopping Prices (Short Term) versus Buying Right (Long Term)

[Uncle Sam]

After a long Blog hiatus I want to focus on equipment investment costs in this difficult economic environment. No one wants to pay or invest ?too much?. During my hiatus, my own focus has been on surviving all the price changes and quality judgments that impact the costs of production of the vending systems that we offer. ?Shopping prices? has been made very quick and easy with the internet being used to compare prices on almost anything. I will be the first to admit that I use online suppliers to buy many items that we use. I try to get a fair price, a very large choice of product, and very good service.

What I call ?Buying Right? or ?Value? is a term that is familiar, but sometimes lost in difficult economic times. ?Buying Right? takes a long term look at the Value of a sophisticated product or system which brings into the purchasing equation many judgment calls: what is the value of personal time to the purchaser, quality of materials, workmanship, R & D done, reliability, ease of operations, peace of mind of the purchaser or owner, and support after the sale for technical issues and incidental problems. Paying a higher price up-front may be cheaper in the long term than buying just on ?price?.

We need to separate ?commodity items? from the more sophisticated equipment or systems which use the best quality materials and the most advanced technology available.
Commodity items are available from multiple sources online and/or discount houses that are almost identical and are usually low technology. They all look or work the same and usually are ?private labeled? or have no label. Some are just copy cat ?knock offs? of branded successful products. The small differences in selling prices (customer cost) are usually determined by the seller?s sales volume and seller?s chosen margin.

Cont'd

 

[Uncle Sam]

When it comes to the sophisticated equipment or systems, we see the same online and/or discount houses attempting to get a piece of the business with ?low ball pricing?. It has been my experience that online and/or discount houses that advertise low prices leave more out than they put in when advertising these more sophisticated products. You can ?cheapen? almost any product by using lighter materials, plastic, and generic parts that are not obvious to the buyer. There are ?claims? and what I call ?weasel clauses? printed somewhere in very small print. You see online/catalog advertising that have asterisks that state ?does not include this or that part?, or you see wording that says ?can vend up to XX products but shows a picture with less products for a cheaper price, or includes parts that are the older, cheaper models rather than the latest technology.

But the most important thing you DO NOT GET is ?SERVICE AND SUPPORT AFTER THE SALE?. We have read numerous posts about efforts to get assistance after the sale for problems which is essentially impossible. So the ?shopper? is not comparing ?apples to apples? but rather ?apples to lemons?. The original cost of the equipment as advertised may be cheaper, but the long term costs for service and down time might be very expensive if you do not have some expertise to help you through the rough spots.

We at ShurVend continue to take the attitude that we will manufacture the best quality product we can make, the highest security we can design, and provide continuing support for the high technology systems that we sell. We may be priced higher than our competitors, but the long term value of our vendors (high sales volume, reliability, quality, current technology, and peace of mind for our customer) makes them a reasonable investment (cost) for many years and has a higher ROI in the long term.

Uncle Sam