My wife & I recently had the “pleasure” of trying to find our 12 year old daughter a catcher’s mitt for her fast-pitch softball league; which on the surface may sound like an easy enough task to accomplish, until you factor in the “genetic disorder” she inherited from me: Being left-handed. For the 10% or so of you reading this that also suffer from this malady, you already recognize the challenge of our task; but for all of you righty’s reading this & not understanding the problem, let me just remind you of how lucky you really are.
As 90%+ of the world is right-handed, items geared towards the “10-percenters” are few & far between; sporting goods stores – even those that claim to be specific sport “specialists” - don’t stock them; they’re happy to special order our glove of choice for us, but just like ordering clothes without first trying them on, this rarely works out as hoped. Nonetheless, with nowhere to go to first try on gloves, we were forced to do the online shopping thing to find a “34-inch left-handed throw (right-handed catch) girls/women’s fast-pitch softball catcher’s mitt” (and yes; you need to include all of those words in the search bar, or else…). We were able to find numerous options online; but as we had no intention of spending $100-$300 for a “stinkin’ piece of leather”, our choices were even more limited than previously explained.
After way too many hours spent searching way too many online retailers, we found what we thought was “the deal of the century”: A name-brand glove from a well-known online specialty retailer, both with numerous positive reviews; the glove “normally” sold for about $100.00, but was “clearance-priced” (“1 in stock”, so they claimed) for the ridiculously-low price of $27.88. Standard shipping was included, but they estimated a 2-4 week delivery time with that “free-of-charge” shipping; and as the softball season would be half over by that time, we opted to pay an additional $14.99 for “2-day delivery, guaranteed”. So, despite this extra charge bringing the total investment up to almost $43.00, this was still $20-$40 less than the next-closest comparable options we found, and we placed the order – and it never got any better than this.
The 2-day “guaranteed” delivery date came, and went, so we tried contacting the retailer to find out what happened (and request our $14.99 shipping charge be refunded, as they failed to deliver on that “promise”); our “Contact Us” email went unanswered, so after another day, called the 800 number prominently displayed at the top of their home page – and it rang, and rang, and… there wasn’t even a voicemail/menu prompt; just more ringing. Several days full of more ignored emails & unanswered phone calls went by; and when my wife finally got someone to answer the phone – on a Sunday afternoon, mind you – they were full of apologies: for the “ongoing technical issues” they claimed to be experiencing that prevented them from answering the phone calls or responding to the emails; for the glove “being in the box ready for shipping” but their “daily outgoing truck only being able to take “so many” boxes per day”; and so on. Nevertheless, they made all-new “promises” that they would take “every step necessary” to get the package out on tomorrow’s (Monday’s) truck, and “assured us” that we would have the glove by Wednesday the latest (as well as receive our shipping charge refund). But just as you might suspect, Wednesday came & went with no delivery; and more emails & phone calls went unanswered. We still needed the glove, and still wanted that $27.88 “deal of the century”; but then remembered the old adage about “something that seems too good to be true, usually being exactly that”, and finally came to the realization that we were expecting more, but were getting “what we paid for”.
So; we cancelled the $27.88 glove purchase (with our credit card provider, as we still couldn’t get anyone from the retailer to respond to our repeated inquiries), and quickly ordered what had been our “next-best” option – a $65.00 glove, with free 2-day shipping; and guess what? The glove arrived in 2 days as promised; it fit our daughter’s hand perfectly, and she has used it well every game since. She’s happy, and finally we are too; but the time & energy we put into this certainly wasn’t worth the $22.00 we would’ve “saved” had the 1st company delivered on its “promises”, and in fact probably cost us more as we tried to spend less!
The point behind sharing this tale with the world is that far too often we consumers make the false assumption that “all are created equal”, meaning the products/services we offer are no different than what another company might be offering them, and for a few dollars less at that, so there’s no reason not to go with the lowest priced option; and it is only after the purchase that we realize we should’ve “invested” the extra dollars, and received what we wanted to receive for that investment. Please remember this before making your next major purchase decision:
You get what you pay for, so why not be willing to pay for what you want to get?
Until Next Time -
Matt
