Purchasing a product can be either very pleasurable or
stressful. It can be simple, but the years and money spent on product and
customer research will tell you otherwise. I started out as a beauty blogger
for sponsorships, I’ll let you in on this clearly. I found it very chore-like
and thought everything I bought was good enough and recommended everything with
as much enthusiasm as a TV infomercial.
Later when I stopped blogging for the sake of
blogging, ironically only then was I able to choose products with better
criteria for myself. Because I was choosing for myself now, with no pretentions
and no sponsor to please (though in truth I never had paid sponsorship deals,
just a few gifted products to be reviewed).
With a limited budget, as one should move in, and an
eye for true value, I set about my criterion post-blogger/post-influencer
(though I was never really a significant one) life.
Cost performance
I’ve had my spending sprees and miserly moves when it
comes to shopping for everything. I’ve had regrets and great buys. Cost is
nothing and everything at the same time, so I guess it’s something at the very
least. Starting with a small budget allows you to explore at the lowest price
points and understand why they’re priced that way, it’s humbling and when you
move on to higher price points, you’ll understand why they’re priced that way
too. Now cost precedes other factors for MANY people. It’s complicated, that’s
another topic. A bigger budget allows for more leeway with purchases, meaning
one can buy something expensive that could suck but won’t get so hurt about it
compared to someone who HAS to make the right purchase decision because they
have a more constrictive budget. If one has more options, it’s either going to
be easier for them to choose the better product or harder because they might go
in a loop of trying everything out compared to someone with limited choices.
Cost does not necessarily reflect quality, several
factors still play out in putting a price of something. From advertising,
research, rights, and tariffs, it makes one’s head spin very fast. There are
truly mysterious great products out there at a low price point and phenomenal
products at a high price point, at the same time spectacularly terrible
products with spectacular prices. It’s really a mix of “you get what you paid
for” and or “not all that glitters is gold”.
Necessity
What a product
costs and its value to the buyer can be very close or very far. Something may
cost a few dollars but if it’s proven itself to be useful to me than it has
basically paid for itself. Like natural selection, nature tends to economize on
certain traits or if it’s unnecessary, they tend to become recessive traits or
extinct.
A thousand dollar
hair cut just for my day to be better since a divorce? I’ll pay in cash. McDonald’s
to comfort my crying child after not passing a school play audition? No
problem. A million dollar life-saving operation for my husband? Yes even if it
bankrupts me.
Humans tend to have
different definitions for valuable things and whether the price reflects that
or not, seems to not matter in the face of dire need. They will spend on things
they view as vital to their life, whether it’s an operation, a vacation or
their personal vices, even if it means missing their mortgage payments. It’s
crazy, but it’s also a dark reality.
If I think I need
something I’ll chuck out the cash and go to the store ASAP. But every once in a
while a good value restructuring is necessary. What’s important today might not
be what’s important tomorrow.
Quality
Quality seems to objective, but it’s actually
subjective.
Someone could tell you any shoe is as good as another,
as long as there’s something on your feet. But some people have standards, some
higher than others, admittedly. You can live without the feeling of a designer that
lambskin leather bag in that dyed Tiffany blue with a few Swarovski crystals on
its golden hardware. But a bag by many standards now is a necessity, where
would you keep all your tear stained receipts from your ATM withdrawals
otherwise?
Quality to be is the ability to withstand the drudgery
of regular usage in the dreariness of daily life. Whether it be a car, lipstick
or a shoe horn. If it’s reliable and won’t fall apart after “the unspecified
number of uses”, then it is quality stuff.
But stuff is stuff and it’s inevitable it’ll all be
replaced whether we like it or not. Minimalist or not. But in order to lower
the turnover rate, save some money and energy, stick with something that won’t
fall apart so easily in the era of Made in China.
Availability
After careful considerations of the things listed
above, it’s time for the acquisition. I’m writing this during the pandemic, in
the midst of quarantine. It’s not exactly a wonderful time to go to several
stores to look for the best deals, everyone wants to minimize travel. So it’s
off to the wild world of the interweb or the nearest place where a product is
available.
But there will still be those plucky few that will go
to every physical or online store to find the best deals, these are brave
heroes post-pandemic, but back in the old days, they’d be the neighborhood
miser, coupons and gift certificates under their sleeves and several store membership
cards carrying a strange number of points borne from bulk-buying when they
couldn’t resist getting that buy 5 gallons of milk and get 1 liter free deals.
The rest of the population like me are getting lazier
and lazier. We would like to buy from a stable, reliable source when we run out
of mustard-flavored almonds, where the prices are predictable and it can be
delivered in a predictable time table.
Bottom-line, if it’s going to be more inconvenience to
buy something, people will learn to live without it. As people evolve and give
up their mustard-flavored almonds!
Quite the contrary from the Necessity section I wrote
but what’s an article without a little contradiction?
So there’s my philosophy on perhaps better consumer
habits. I won’t be tackling other ethical issues here since that’ll be another
complex topic. And I am off still watching or vicariously living off these
local YouTubers with their strange rationalized hauls. This is a strange world.
