Into the Trash it Goes
Posted On: 2006-11-08
Buy cheap and ultimately pay a whole lot more
It's garbage collection day here and I just dumped another keyboard into the trash. That's actually the second keyboard this week that I've had to trash because the one I use down at our shop-front office died too.
But there was a major difference between those two keyboards. One was less than 12 months old while the other had been in use for several years.
I guess that just goes to show you that pretty plastic colors and flashing lights are not the qualities you should look for in a keyboard. I knew that but then there are times when even I get attracted to things for all the wrong reasons.
The other wrong reason that attracts so many of us is price. We seem to think that if it's cheap then that must equate to economic and so we really should buy it.
Just recently here in Australia one of the major grocery chains offered a PC at an incredible price. From memory I think they were selling it for around $500 at a time when the cheapest new PC you could buy anywhere else was around $900. Obviously, with a price point like that, they were going to sell well and they did.
Now, just a few months later many of those cheap computers are beginning to come through the doors of computer stores as their owners try to get them repaired and guess what? Most of the faults with them cannot be repaired and the owners are finding that getting some redress under the warranty is very difficult too. In many instances it looks as though most buyers have done nothing but throw $500 out the window.
I know that you're probably sitting there shaking your head and thinking that you would never do something as dumb as that but when was the last time you bought a cheap keyboard?
I know you can pick up keyboards for as little as $20.00 these days and they're probably perfectly fine for the average home user but no webmaster could be considered an average home user. How many times would you have to replace your $20.00 keyboard in the space of 18 months? Twice? Three times?
Steve is dull and boring when it comes to keyboards. He has two very vanilla looking Microsoft keyboards sitting on his desk and each of them cost around $60. He spends all day every day of the week working on those two keyboards and they really do get punished. Despite their hard use he gets around two years or more out of each one.
So in the time you might have spent $60.00 on replacing your cheap keyboards three times he's only had to buy one keyboard and it's still going strong. It's the same with PCs and laptops.
On the weekend Steve replaced the case on one of his computers because the new micro tower gives him more room on his desktop but the components all came from a PC we bought several years ago. Those components have all been worked hard but we decided that we needed to pay for reliability so we didn't buy cheap and they are all still working fine. It's the same with the other PC on his desk too. Those PCs run 24/7 and there has hardly been a glitch with either of them in that time.
Of course paying a premium price does not always guarantee that things will always run smoothly. Not all that long ago I ran through three motherboards in a very short space of time but each of them was under warranty and there was no hassle in getting them replaced on the day they failed.
So my point is, if you want to be serious about running your Internet business efficiently and cost effectively then don't be fooled by pretty colors and flashing lights. Don't be lured by the siren song of cheap prices either. Instead consider the tools that you use for your business as an investment and be prepared to pay for good tools that won't let you down.
Don't even be fooled into buying from cheap department stores either. Establish a relationship with a small computer shop in your area and support the people who run the shop by buying what you need there. Buying from them might cost a little more but you will find that they'll support you when your computer dies and you need it fixed urgently.
Basically, the success of your business depends in no small part on the tools that you use and the relationships that you establish with the people who supply those tools. That means that you really do need to use the best tools for the job, cheap tools just don't cut it. It also means that you need to be loyal to those who can help you when tools die.
Oh ... and what keyboard did I buy yesterday to replace the one in my home office? A very plain black ergonomic model that set me back $60. Not only will it last a whole lot longer than the one it replaced but I've used ergonomic keyboards before and they are ideal for anyone who spends hours and hours typing every day.