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There is a way, it’s the reputation that builds over time and is associated with your brand. It’s why many people buy Toyota by default. It’s why we paid 5x the
by ericd 4y ago
There is a way, it’s the reputation that builds over time and is associated with your brand. It’s why many people buy Toyota by default. It’s why we paid 5x the price for a Miele vacuum (which are awesome, by the way). It’s just that most people either can’t or just won’t pay a significant premium for it, so those products tend to be niche.
Of course, many execs look at brand value as something to be harvested for short term gains to the value of their options, but that’s a different problem.
- benj111 4y agoThe problem then is if the brand cashes in on the reputation while moving production to China and using cheaper parts whilst charging the premium price still.
- ericd 4y agoYeah, that's the exec short term gain thing. But it doesn't take too much research to check if that's happened before pulling the trigger, people are pretty vocal when that happens to their favorite brands.
- eru 4y agoIn some sense, the longer the brand has been around, the less likely they are to pull an exit scam.
- lazide 4y agoIt’s the opposite in my experience - older brands have a hard time keeping up with newer trends and are more likely to be bought out by PE to ‘harvest value’, as they’re not as profitable right now.
- eru 4y agoIn order for something to become old, it has to have resisted attempts on its life so far.
- lazide 4y agoThat didn’t work out well for Craftsman (or Sears in general), Milwaukee, and a bunch of other brands!
- phpisthebest 4y agoThe tool market is an example of that not being the case Craftsman, Portal Cable, Bosch, Stanley, the list goes on and on, of once independent brands that have been bought out by mass marketers to sell lower quality tools under those names
- lazide 4y agoAnother point - there is a difference between being 'old' (a 40 year old veteran solder is 'old', for instance, even if they're still in extremely good physical condition), and being 'old' as in 95 years old and can barely get out of bed. From a PE/market perspective, the sweet spot seems to be the 95 year old with a good reputation that still carries weight. I imagine it's because of the good spread between current price and expected returns, as the 'old' brands this is done with aren't usually very profitable, if at all.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoNot being able to trust brand reputation is the same problem, not a different problem.
- lazide 4y agoPE buying a brand to ‘harvest the brand value’ has become extremely common in tools, and has ruined a lot of things.
- dllthomas 4y agoI almost feel like it should be deemed fraud or false advertising, although I have no idea how we should draw the line and ultimately we probably shouldn't.
- jamiek88 4y agoThat was liking riding along in your mind as you constructed your thought! :)
- tshaddox 4y agoThey have more techniques too, like having store- or region-specific models that probably are all essentially the same but have different model numbers and slightly different feature sets just to make searching for reviews and price comparisons more difficult.
- NathanielK 4y agoSometimes they aren't essentially the same, but instead different in invisible ways. DeWalt grinders at Canadian Tire used to use plastic parts where metal was typically used. Outside of the different SKU it was difficult to tell the difference.
- lazide 4y agoWalmart is notorious for this - they push really hard on suppliers to reduce prices, and suppliers usually do so by cutting quality. However everyone still pretends it’s the same (including identical outside appearance).
- jabl 4y agoThis so much. At least over here it's completely impossible to find reviews of whiteware (refrigerators, washing machines etc.), at most a handful on the local reseller homepage.
- stevage 4y agoYeah just look at the recent reviews of Dyson vacuum cleaners. People buying the reputation but the quality has gone to shit.
- hgomersall 4y agoI used to work with a mechanical engineer that was formerly at Dyson and he was rather scathing of their design policies, the tolerances being calculated badly and so on. The effect is everything feels "a bit loose".
- wizofaus 4y agoYep, I wouldn't buy Dyson again. If a manufacturer wants to preserve its reputation it shouldn't be making cordless vacuums with batteries that run out within 10-15 minutes.
- nuker 4y agoMany execs have short term personal incentives, so short term gains suit fine.
- twoWhlsGud 4y agoRe Miele - my sample size of one dates to 1987 and still is my main vac. So at some point in the past they were probably quite good (or I got really really lucky). FWIW
- ericd 4y agoHa awesome. Before I bought, I did some reading about vacuums that repair shops thought were good, Miele seemed to top the list at the time. It’s been great, despite suffering a decent amount of clumsiness-related abuse.