3 ms·
This was a good article, but I don't think the closing quote implies what the original speaker or the article writer think: > “ ‘I’ll sell you a computer for t
by jmholla 3y ago
This was a good article, but I don't think the closing quote implies what the original speaker or the article writer think:
> “ ‘I’ll sell you a computer for the same price as the one you have now—a nice, expensive computer. But it will be twice as durable, and it will weigh half as much, and its battery will last twice as long, and it will have twice the processing power and twice the memory.’ ” The only condition, he said, would be that returns would not be allowed, for any reason.
> “This was Georgia Tech’s sustainability center, so these were super-smart engineering hippies,” he said. “There were probably forty or fifty people, all M.B.A.s.” Hogan assumed that they would all jump at the deal. But no hands went up—not one.
> “I was blown away,” he said. “It’s just astounding how embedded returns are in our behavior. When I finished my talk, I said, ‘Thank you all. I definitely picked the right industry.’ ”
To me that could also mean that these people didn't see the value in the better computer he was selling. They already have a computer that works and costs them $0 to keep. Maybe though, since the audience was MBAs, they'd expect to be able to sell their current computers for that exact price?
- saulpw 3y agoI think it's more a lack of trust: sales and marketing can and will say anything to get us to buy their products. I can tell you right now that if someone made me the above offer, alarm bells would go off in my head. What's wrong with it then? What's the likelihood the computer will be nonfunctional on delivery? Will it catch on fire if used outside on a sunny day? Is it incompatible with the software I'd want to use? I can think of dozens of reasons why the given specs might not be incorrect, and still I wouldn't want it. Or the salesperson might just lying outright! As consumers the only reasonable recourse we've been given is a return policy. As it is, I've been burned way too many times on "deals", to the point that even if there's a return policy, I'm skeptical. Returning things is a hassle at best, and I often have to pay for shipping. Even if the return policy is "we'll give you a complete refund and you don't have to ship it back" now I have to dispose of this thing I don't want, which might be unwieldy (ever tried to take something to the dump on public transit?) or contain toxic materials. No thanks. A company that won't stand behind its product is not a company I want to do business with.
- bombcar 3y agoYou can split the difference with a short "no questions asked" return period (say, 30 days) and then a longer warranty period (or no warranty period at all). For certain products, I'd be satisfied with that.
- jrmg 3y agoI wonder what was actually asked. I’d say ‘no’ to the question as written in the article too, because it implies that I can’t return it if it is defective or breaks.