The economy of crap

Posted in: Mag 100 Home > DP[r]M | On: July 14th, 2010 |

I have to say I am a prudent shopper…. I just don’t buy stuff! Seriously though, I like to take the time to research what I buy and make sure that I am buying from an informed standpoint. So the in the back of my mind, a little “I told you so” keeps on playing on infinite loop.

Recently we had the very odd experience of having to spend money. Something about receiving gift vouchers last Christmas, a lot of them, and then something about the retailer in question going tits up. Through a bit of persistence I managed to cash in the vouchers on a 12th hour situation, so ended up spending a Saturday morning walking through a store trying to find things to buy. It was very strange indeed.

So we ended up with a new TV, which we didn’t need but actually really like now, as well as a coffee machine and bean grinder. After going around and around, those were the only three things we could think of spending the ‘money’ on and it’s the last two choices that are the source of some angst.

On the shelf they had a range of big automatic coffee machines from a number of brands, as well as few ‘manual’ machines – manual being the ones where you have to put the shot of coffee in the machine yourself and ‘do things’ to make the coffee. I wanted a manual and there was a small little model from Italy sitting there ready to go, until we find out they have lost a part (typical!). So we were down to some locally produced models and here is where the angst began. Why? It’s not that I do not want to buy Australian, quite the contrary but I have only heard tragic things about the locally produced machines, both from people who have bought them (and returned them) and from actual insider sources. Pretty much the general opinion is that they are total junk. But there I was, faced with a choice of having to pick one, despite that I said I would never go near a locally made coffee machine.

And home one came.

Out of the box it looked good. Great actually. Nice colour, nice design, the sort of thing that looks good in the kitchen. But I was apprehensive, I just had this feeling all the good looks were too good to be true. Monday morning comes along and coffee time comes around, so time to pull some coffee. I read the simple instructions, grind some fresh beans, do all the right things and end up making some really bad coffee. Maybe it’s the grind.

Wednesday, time to try again. Regrind the beans, prep as per the instructions and… out comes some really quite bad coffee. Up until the arrival of this machine,we had been using a stove top which, while rough, produced ok coffee. This machine was making coffee that was near undrinkable.

Right…. getting annoyed.

Thursday, last try. I had been reading on various coffee forums that the overall view of the machine I had bought was lower than low, with most people returning them after a few months, some even within a week so I am quite glum about the propects. I repeat the process, do everything right and out comes…. crap. Really, I have never had such bad coffee.

Was there a discernible issue with the machine? Where to start? It didn’t get hot enough, but occasionally it did. The steamer spent 20 seconds squiring water. The pump lacked ‘go’ and the ‘magazine’ (the thing you put the coffee in) really was not very good. Also the paint seems too thin, the assembly while it seemed ok, showed flaws that meant with a bit of use parts would start breaking. Overall, while on the shelf it had the look, in actuality it was total junk.

Just like everyone said the local machines are.

So I start getting really annoyed. Not because I bought this thing, deep down I knew it would be a dud and I am bringing it back, but because a company will invest the time, effort and capital to produce something that is total rubbish. I feel it’s not only deceptive on behalf of the company in question to knowingly produce junk and sell it to unsuspecting consumers but worse, to waste resources and produce only more land fill. From further investigation, it’s not as if the company does not know this stuff is rubbish, based on the number of complaints and returns it would be hard not to, but they also refuse to offer reasonable customer support, which by all accounts is so bad it’s led some customers to complete despair.

Is this the price we, the consumer, pays for cheap and affordable appliances? When our parents bought things, they saved for it and when it arrived, it lasted a very long time. Now everything is driven by the bean counters, and I have been told stories where the engineers and designers of said company specify one thing and the bean counters demand that they replace it with the cheapest option. It seems to me for the long term, this is the loosing option. I know based on this experience I will never buy a product from said company again…. and I have a good chunk of buying years ahead of me. It does not appear that this is a sensible brand building approach to winning over lifetime customers. One has to ask, is this more, cheaper, and disposable consumer market we have developed actually working? And I don’t only mean from a longevity point of view, I am also thinking environmentally. How much dirt do we have to dig up to be turned into materials that get made into junk before something goes seriously wrong? Some would say that it already has, we are just not smart enough to have worked it out when it happened.

The coffee grinder is better. In essence it’s so simple it would be hard to get totally wrong, though they failed to get it quite right. Luckily I found a guide to perform a simple modification that will actually get it to do what it’s says it will do on the appliance – grind fine grains. Again though, why do I have to do this? They went to the effort to design it, make it and market it. Why couldn’t they make sure it does what it’s supposed to off the bat? At least I’m keeping it, it works and with the mod is supposed to work quit well.

I know I am one lone voice and ultimately these companies will keep on going. Consumers are supposed to vote with their feet but disturbingly it seems there are enough people who happily adopt the disposable mentality, so I guess the machine keeps going. All I ask is that next time you buy something where a lot of time and effort has supposedly been invested to make it, spend the time and do the research and make sure you buy something that is quality and lasts. Maybe if enough people do this in everything they buy, companies will start to get the idea that producing crap is not acceptable by any standard.

Tags: coffee machine, consumer products