Are you saying that happened, or that it's a fear that it will happen? You know that it's going to have a $2000 repair bill? One of the biggest costs on TVs is a tube repair, and certainly here in the UK, that is already an extended part (like 5 years).
I buy almost nothing on insurance because the mathematics is something like:-
Premiums - government tax - store commission - insurer costs - insurer profits = payout.
In other words, any company paying out more than it takes in is going to lose money very quickly. You may hit a strange anomaly, like your brand of TVs are all duff, but I doubt it. Insurance companies employ a lot of actuaries to assess risk to make sure that they don't completely screw up.
OK, you can buy one item, and it might go wrong. But, unless you are extremely unlucky, over time, your repair costs will be less than the warranty costs.
I've bought a lot of things in the past 15 years, and a lot have either died out or required repairs over that time. But, I know that if I'd have had my heating, TVs, VCR, Computers on warranty plans, I'd have paid out a lot more than I have for individual repairs.
IMO the only things worth insuring are those where the loss of them would be too significant to not do so - that's stuff like your house or your car.
Save your money on the warranty and buy some shares with it instead. Generally, over time these actually make money.
Bookstores are still going because there's a lot of books that are sold on an impulse buy. I know people who go into bookstores to pick up a holiday read or just want to look for a novel.
One thing that seems to have really gone down is the space devoted to computer books, though. The price difference means people buy online. I'm sure sometimes that they used to have a lot of people browsing who would find the book that looked good and buy it online for less.
I remember going into stores as a 17 year old kid and asking about products and after a few minutes, the guys attitude was basically "are you going to buy something or not?". I never went back to the shop.
Instead, I went to another shop, asked lots of questions which got answered and then later went home, and told my dad that the computer could do all the things he needed and the shop to buy it from.
In that case, do one of two things. Either don't take returns on open, non-faulty goods or restock them elsewhere.
They are offering what they offer to people. Don't be surprised if people accept it.
As for the "these things cost customers money", that is such a crock of shit line that retailers spin. If that were true, then why don't things sell for prices except for around certain price points. Why do things cost $99 instead of $101 or $97.35. Things cost what they cost because of a marketing-based price, not a marginal price. If something costs a retailer $55 or $60 to buy, they charge $99 regardless.
People are influenced by where their friends and network goes.
One online store in the UK has dropped phone support. You can only converse by the web. I found this out only when I needed to get something returned. The first thing I did when I got it resolved was to email my whole address book to warn them that this was going on.
My "profile" with that company was quite small (only a few hundred dollars of sales). However, I'm a guru to my non technical friends. I'm the guy they ask about buying a new PC/laptop/monitor.
We have a big thing with "extended warranties" in the UK. When I go into a store and start talking and agree to buy I always tell the sales guy "I'll take it, but try and offer me an extended warranty and I'll walk".
They even get a second warning, and on a couple of occassions I've had to go elsewhere!
I offered a local store a deal where the price was actually higher than an online store price. Along the lines of "if you can go to within £20 of this price, I'll deal with you".
I really like the shop, like to have the local retailer, and the after sales service is great.
Sadly, in that case, they were over £130 more expensive and the guy wouldn't move enough. I still buy plenty of stuff from them, though.
The idea of "price match" always makes me laugh. You mean that given a better price by someone that you'll match it? Well, sure I'll give you the money for offering me something, under pressure at a price as good as someone else.
If I go into a shop with a price, I expect it bettered, not matched.
How much does it actually cost to replace a broken processor with another?
I'm not advocating that overclocking and then returning is a good and honest practise.
BUT a lot of businesses know that occassionally things are broken by customers abusing the product. Know why they exchange it?
If you don't exchange it, you might stop people from abusing and sending them back. Also, you'll probably get some guy who didn't. Now, that guy is going to tell all his buddies what utter fucktards you are. All because you wouldn't exchange a product where a lot of the costs of the goods are in everything but the manufacturing costs (R&D, advertising, plant).
Even for the bad customers, maybe they fry it. But at least they'll probably buy another of your processors. How much does an CPU physically cost to make?
I agree 100% that those things are all the causes of errors and all should be done.
However, the tools used can also make a difference. I used to work on a 4GL which was designed around forms interfacing with a database. The 4GL had certain behaviours by default that meant that the testing of certain things just didn't need to be done (main one being testing of rollbacks - if you got an error, the changes had been rolled back).
If coders don't have to code in every rollback, but that the language just does it, there's an error gone (and also time not spent on testing it that can be used to test something more related to business logic).
A lot of code is written for businesses in languages that often don't suit what businesses basically need to do - input, validate and display data. Coders should be able to focus on delivering client requirements and the language/compiler should do a lot of the donkey work.
It also seems to be something that is quite often done on open source projects - people will just rewrite how something works because they've got a "better" way of approaching it and the code is maybe just annoying them. That's one of the beauties of OSS - the consumer is often the creator.
Try convincing a manager with a budget that they should rewrite something to no significant pay rise benefit.
I've got a feeling that some of the participants didn't get involved in Spaceship One because of the financial reward, but because it was cool. My guess is that this is going to cost a huge amount of money to do.
If I see someone going for this prize (particularly the Rutan team), I'll send them some money. OK, it will only be something like $50, but a lot of little guys and a small number of big donors, and you could get something like a billion in donations for a project like this.
The problem is, the people reading what you are saying are "your" people.
It's like political meetings. Decades ago, political meetings were the way that politicians convinced people to vote for them. Now, they're just a form of marketing. Bush or Kerry says what he wants to say, and the people cheer.
The people seeking out the information from diverse sources are the already well-educated, tolerant and informed.
You want to change things? You have to get out there to the people who aren't informed and convince them. If you aren't going to use TV soundbites, you have to have a huge grassroots machine addressing people in their thousands.
The other thing in this (and America should learn this well) is that people will move to freedom. The people with "get up and go" will "get up and go".
I see a lot of sickness in America - corporates trying to change law to their advantages, for instance. The UK equivalent of this used to be nobility - they owned the land and often the rights to do certain things.
If you don't sort it out, the next group of creative people will simply go somewhere where they can be freer. Somewhere else will become the new USA (I'm starting to wonder if Scandanavia, South Korea or New Zealand are the future).
I'm not doubting what you are saying, but do you have a link to those stats about Broadband usage? I've heard there's some IQ ones going around, but some people say they are fake.
Likewise, I hardly ever return items unless they are faulty.
However, I always like the option, that if by accident I pick the wrong thing off the shelf, that the store will see it as an honest mistake and as a gesture of goodwill, will exchange or refund.
A few stores I know don't. I don't quite know why, because all it does was piss me off and turn a $20 printer cartridge into the loss of thousands of dollars of business. Maybe they are hoping that they can make another sale on the item I really did want.
I can already think of a few ways around it, and without lying.
And a side note, I hate it when forms ask me for a phone number, in a required way. I do NOT have my own phone line. And no, I don't like putting down someone else's phone number that I have access to.
Try my favourite answers to web forms "confidential", "unavailable" and "not telling". sometimes though, you have to find the right words to bypass the validation.
I'm reminded of a discussion I had where someone told me that regardless of a fault, think what a great deal I got. Rather forcefully, I explained to the fuckwit that the price I got was the price they sold it for and should still fully function at that price.
Sale stuff is the retailers, not the customer's problem.
As for freeloading, I agree. It's a shitty thing for customers to do. However, retailers concentrating on such a small number of people have an attitude problem - how about concentrating your energies on growing at the good end instead of seeking out the criminals?
Slashdot Mirror
I buy almost nothing on insurance because the mathematics is something like:-
Premiums - government tax - store commission - insurer costs - insurer profits = payout.
In other words, any company paying out more than it takes in is going to lose money very quickly. You may hit a strange anomaly, like your brand of TVs are all duff, but I doubt it. Insurance companies employ a lot of actuaries to assess risk to make sure that they don't completely screw up.
OK, you can buy one item, and it might go wrong. But, unless you are extremely unlucky, over time, your repair costs will be less than the warranty costs.
I've bought a lot of things in the past 15 years, and a lot have either died out or required repairs over that time. But, I know that if I'd have had my heating, TVs, VCR, Computers on warranty plans, I'd have paid out a lot more than I have for individual repairs.
IMO the only things worth insuring are those where the loss of them would be too significant to not do so - that's stuff like your house or your car.
Save your money on the warranty and buy some shares with it instead. Generally, over time these actually make money.
One thing that seems to have really gone down is the space devoted to computer books, though. The price difference means people buy online. I'm sure sometimes that they used to have a lot of people browsing who would find the book that looked good and buy it online for less.
Instead, I went to another shop, asked lots of questions which got answered and then later went home, and told my dad that the computer could do all the things he needed and the shop to buy it from.
Are Best Buy a bit like PC World? Not exactly on topic, but just curious.
In that case, do one of two things. Either don't take returns on open, non-faulty goods or restock them elsewhere.
They are offering what they offer to people. Don't be surprised if people accept it.
As for the "these things cost customers money", that is such a crock of shit line that retailers spin. If that were true, then why don't things sell for prices except for around certain price points. Why do things cost $99 instead of $101 or $97.35. Things cost what they cost because of a marketing-based price, not a marginal price. If something costs a retailer $55 or $60 to buy, they charge $99 regardless.
One online store in the UK has dropped phone support. You can only converse by the web. I found this out only when I needed to get something returned. The first thing I did when I got it resolved was to email my whole address book to warn them that this was going on.
My "profile" with that company was quite small (only a few hundred dollars of sales). However, I'm a guru to my non technical friends. I'm the guy they ask about buying a new PC/laptop/monitor.
They even get a second warning, and on a couple of occassions I've had to go elsewhere!
Personally, I'd have asked the guy to give me a better price than $30.
I really like the shop, like to have the local retailer, and the after sales service is great.
Sadly, in that case, they were over £130 more expensive and the guy wouldn't move enough. I still buy plenty of stuff from them, though.
If I go into a shop with a price, I expect it bettered, not matched.
I'm not advocating that overclocking and then returning is a good and honest practise.
BUT a lot of businesses know that occassionally things are broken by customers abusing the product. Know why they exchange it?
If you don't exchange it, you might stop people from abusing and sending them back. Also, you'll probably get some guy who didn't. Now, that guy is going to tell all his buddies what utter fucktards you are. All because you wouldn't exchange a product where a lot of the costs of the goods are in everything but the manufacturing costs (R&D, advertising, plant).
Even for the bad customers, maybe they fry it. But at least they'll probably buy another of your processors. How much does an CPU physically cost to make?
I'm very suspicious of any deal with a "mail-in rebate". I find the whole thing a bit creepy.
There's something just plain wrong with getting rid of people who will spend money on your products at the deals you offer.
Mod this up to doubleplusgood!
What? The terrible dictator that was backed up for years by the USA?
Do you mean do your own volunteer projects funded by the local people?
It's a really interesting idea. I am involved in some groups that are volunteer based, but more focussed in particular areas.
However, the tools used can also make a difference. I used to work on a 4GL which was designed around forms interfacing with a database. The 4GL had certain behaviours by default that meant that the testing of certain things just didn't need to be done (main one being testing of rollbacks - if you got an error, the changes had been rolled back).
If coders don't have to code in every rollback, but that the language just does it, there's an error gone (and also time not spent on testing it that can be used to test something more related to business logic).
A lot of code is written for businesses in languages that often don't suit what businesses basically need to do - input, validate and display data. Coders should be able to focus on delivering client requirements and the language/compiler should do a lot of the donkey work.
Try convincing a manager with a budget that they should rewrite something to no significant pay rise benefit.
If I see someone going for this prize (particularly the Rutan team), I'll send them some money. OK, it will only be something like $50, but a lot of little guys and a small number of big donors, and you could get something like a billion in donations for a project like this.
It's like political meetings. Decades ago, political meetings were the way that politicians convinced people to vote for them. Now, they're just a form of marketing. Bush or Kerry says what he wants to say, and the people cheer.
The people seeking out the information from diverse sources are the already well-educated, tolerant and informed.
You want to change things? You have to get out there to the people who aren't informed and convince them. If you aren't going to use TV soundbites, you have to have a huge grassroots machine addressing people in their thousands.
I see a lot of sickness in America - corporates trying to change law to their advantages, for instance. The UK equivalent of this used to be nobility - they owned the land and often the rights to do certain things.
If you don't sort it out, the next group of creative people will simply go somewhere where they can be freer. Somewhere else will become the new USA (I'm starting to wonder if Scandanavia, South Korea or New Zealand are the future).
I'm not doubting what you are saying, but do you have a link to those stats about Broadband usage? I've heard there's some IQ ones going around, but some people say they are fake.
However, I always like the option, that if by accident I pick the wrong thing off the shelf, that the store will see it as an honest mistake and as a gesture of goodwill, will exchange or refund.
A few stores I know don't. I don't quite know why, because all it does was piss me off and turn a $20 printer cartridge into the loss of thousands of dollars of business. Maybe they are hoping that they can make another sale on the item I really did want.
I can already think of a few ways around it, and without lying.
Try my favourite answers to web forms "confidential", "unavailable" and "not telling". sometimes though, you have to find the right words to bypass the validation.
I'm reminded of a discussion I had where someone told me that regardless of a fault, think what a great deal I got. Rather forcefully, I explained to the fuckwit that the price I got was the price they sold it for and should still fully function at that price.
Sale stuff is the retailers, not the customer's problem.
As for freeloading, I agree. It's a shitty thing for customers to do. However, retailers concentrating on such a small number of people have an attitude problem - how about concentrating your energies on growing at the good end instead of seeking out the criminals?