When it comes to shopping both genders and parties on either side of the table today are equally astute and tough to satisfy. Is it because of perfect competition and too many choices that prevail in the consumer world or is it because there is no product differentiation? Customers do enough homework and research (Gee thanks to the World Wide Web) on the products before they set their foot in the shops. Then they run from pillar to post for the best price and play one dealer against the other to get the best offer.
I was in the market scouting to get a decent air conditioner and to choose the right one from a dozen of brands was a difficult proposition. I carefully looked at the ads and their fine prints and memorized brands that advertised to hard sell their products. It is the time of the year when air conditioner sales was picking up with the rising mercury. Dealers were giving ads in the Newspapers touting free installation and free stabilizer with air conditioners. Wow! I was happy that consumerism was driving the prices down and I had freebees and offers.
I didn’t take the regular route of researching on the web rather I directly went to the dealer to understand the latest in the world of heat transfer. Since this was my first visit during the purchase cycle I decided to study the brands and market demand more than technical specification.
I set my foot in the neighborhood dealer who was selling 6 different brands. With confidence and little arrogance I entered the shop while the intelligent ego in me was ready with questions. With a warm smile the salesman asked my requirements and price budget and he made a few suggestions. Though I accepted his suggestion but I had to satiate the consumer ego in me. I thought let me put my MBA to use and I will ask him questions from product marketing and get relevant information. I asked him about the best brands in the market, margins in brands, fast moving brands, and brands with maximum failures and complains, and also about place of manufacture and warranty. At the end of it I wiped the beads of sweat on my forehead, but he was cool as a cucumber. Since he was dealing with multiple brands he could not make up his mind on a particular brand. He was more comfortable arranging them on price than on quality and service. Before I bargained on the price, he ascertained free installation and stabilizer. I held my decision in abeyance and walked out of the place.
Sometimes too much information and research make the selection process confusing and arduous. That is exactly what happened when I came out from the dealer. The MBA in me was put to shame and I didn’t have any more hair to pull. He now put some paradigms in my mind and subliminally created preferences towards a particular brand. Coming back to the oldest trick I started asking (word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool) my colleagues about air conditioners and their experience. Some of them gave me contradicting feedbacks and I was in a quagmire at the end of it.
Since none of my ventures helped me to zero in on a brand, I decided to pick the technical yardstick to narrow down my choice. My colleague whispered a nearby store has all brands under one roof and priced competitively. The store was hardly stone throw away distance from work and I didn’t need much momentum to drive my ego there. I let the MBA in me go to sleep and I woke up the Chemical engineer. I armed my arguments with flow patterns, turbine design, and Reynolds number. My ego was dancing in excitement. It was 10 years since I graduated and for the first time I felt my degree was put to right practical use. I was ready to beat down the sales man with all technical jargons.
I climbed the flight of steps and walked in the hallway that had rooms with see through doors on either side. There were 8 brands on either side till the end of the hallway. My ego was welcome with a smile by the first salesman belonging to a particular brand on the left hand side. I recanted my requirements and he showed me a few options. This guy was definitely technical but very shallow. His presentation aroused the real chemical engineer in me. My heart quipped “It is all heat transfer baby!!”
He tried hard to convince me that this particular brand had different nozzle shapes and sizes which cooled the room faster, but I had to remind him that capacity of the compressor was fixed and hence output can’t vary. The ego in me had conquered and squished his ignorance. His job became tougher now and he couldn’t afford to let me walk out of that room. My ego was priced at 25,000 and it was all worth for him to lose his pride and surrender his ego. He quickly realized that he had to close in now and he distracted me with a presentation that showed design of turbines/fans and how it affects efficiency. He threw another trick from him bag this time. He was trying to get me to go with his brand presenting the softer aspects wrt to embedded electronics and fuzzy logic algorithms. I was sucked right into the presentation that ran on the 14 inch monitor, but my ego didn’t want to lose either. I told him that I was not enamored by electronic controls and gizmos and I cared for performance. I had no other grounds to haggle except on price. But then I realized this was taking me no where. The salesman instantly rolled out the last bait in his bag. He tried to enamor me with the gift scheme and said that I could not avail the gift and he would reduce the value on the price of the AC. I was stunned and the MBA in me woke up and he said “Don’t fall a prey to this scam and this is to get non MBA’s in the trap”. Once again I stroked my ego and thanked my degree that kept me agile and wary.
I walked out of this brand and moved into another brand just to find reasons to accept my choice and stroke my ego. I knew I could do this only by stomping over a few more egos and finding faults with the other brands. Human mind is so capable of denigrating, isn’t it? I was convinced on the design and efficiency but the price was too high. I would rather pay for the engineering but not for marketing and brand value.
Sales guys rack up their brains to come up with innovate ways to present the same old Colgate with campaigns such as New, Improved, extra fluoride and while the ting noise stays forever. This was the same case with air conditioners. There was no clear product differentiation strategy in terms of technology. Most of the other brands had similar features and at the end of the one hour exercise I was still left high and dry. I had a tingling sensation and I realized I was in the turbulent zone and with high Nre. Nothing crystallized at the end of all these trips only my fluids dynamics was uncontrollable.
When we come to shop we all come with a requirement and when we leave we all look forward to walk away with the pride of owning the best brand at cheap price with maximum guarantee. We don’t want to believe the salesman ad want to throw our weight and knowledge around so that he doesn’t take us for a ride. None of it was achieved in my case and all rounds of research and screening turned futile.
When I came home in the evening my mother was only surprised to see my indecisiveness. My education, experience and logic all went for a toss. Even after stomping so many egos I felt rattled inside and I heard the voice in my head. It said “A Chemical Engineer and a MBA cannot make a simple decision?” My ego got swatted like a fly.
Slew of questions marooned my mind. Should I go with brand loyalty or should I trust another brand? The simple process of qualifying a brand and putting my credit card down became a complex process. Education created only paradigms and doubts in my mind. The sense of calm and feeling of being assured was all ushered in the past 48 hours. I realized I needed an air conditioner to cool my mind and ego. My complex mind immediately started building an equation for decision making.
I was in the market scouting to get a decent air conditioner and to choose the right one from a dozen of brands was a difficult proposition. I carefully looked at the ads and their fine prints and memorized brands that advertised to hard sell their products. It is the time of the year when air conditioner sales was picking up with the rising mercury. Dealers were giving ads in the Newspapers touting free installation and free stabilizer with air conditioners. Wow! I was happy that consumerism was driving the prices down and I had freebees and offers.
I didn’t take the regular route of researching on the web rather I directly went to the dealer to understand the latest in the world of heat transfer. Since this was my first visit during the purchase cycle I decided to study the brands and market demand more than technical specification.
I set my foot in the neighborhood dealer who was selling 6 different brands. With confidence and little arrogance I entered the shop while the intelligent ego in me was ready with questions. With a warm smile the salesman asked my requirements and price budget and he made a few suggestions. Though I accepted his suggestion but I had to satiate the consumer ego in me. I thought let me put my MBA to use and I will ask him questions from product marketing and get relevant information. I asked him about the best brands in the market, margins in brands, fast moving brands, and brands with maximum failures and complains, and also about place of manufacture and warranty. At the end of it I wiped the beads of sweat on my forehead, but he was cool as a cucumber. Since he was dealing with multiple brands he could not make up his mind on a particular brand. He was more comfortable arranging them on price than on quality and service. Before I bargained on the price, he ascertained free installation and stabilizer. I held my decision in abeyance and walked out of the place.
Sometimes too much information and research make the selection process confusing and arduous. That is exactly what happened when I came out from the dealer. The MBA in me was put to shame and I didn’t have any more hair to pull. He now put some paradigms in my mind and subliminally created preferences towards a particular brand. Coming back to the oldest trick I started asking (word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool) my colleagues about air conditioners and their experience. Some of them gave me contradicting feedbacks and I was in a quagmire at the end of it.
Since none of my ventures helped me to zero in on a brand, I decided to pick the technical yardstick to narrow down my choice. My colleague whispered a nearby store has all brands under one roof and priced competitively. The store was hardly stone throw away distance from work and I didn’t need much momentum to drive my ego there. I let the MBA in me go to sleep and I woke up the Chemical engineer. I armed my arguments with flow patterns, turbine design, and Reynolds number. My ego was dancing in excitement. It was 10 years since I graduated and for the first time I felt my degree was put to right practical use. I was ready to beat down the sales man with all technical jargons.
I climbed the flight of steps and walked in the hallway that had rooms with see through doors on either side. There were 8 brands on either side till the end of the hallway. My ego was welcome with a smile by the first salesman belonging to a particular brand on the left hand side. I recanted my requirements and he showed me a few options. This guy was definitely technical but very shallow. His presentation aroused the real chemical engineer in me. My heart quipped “It is all heat transfer baby!!”
He tried hard to convince me that this particular brand had different nozzle shapes and sizes which cooled the room faster, but I had to remind him that capacity of the compressor was fixed and hence output can’t vary. The ego in me had conquered and squished his ignorance. His job became tougher now and he couldn’t afford to let me walk out of that room. My ego was priced at 25,000 and it was all worth for him to lose his pride and surrender his ego. He quickly realized that he had to close in now and he distracted me with a presentation that showed design of turbines/fans and how it affects efficiency. He threw another trick from him bag this time. He was trying to get me to go with his brand presenting the softer aspects wrt to embedded electronics and fuzzy logic algorithms. I was sucked right into the presentation that ran on the 14 inch monitor, but my ego didn’t want to lose either. I told him that I was not enamored by electronic controls and gizmos and I cared for performance. I had no other grounds to haggle except on price. But then I realized this was taking me no where. The salesman instantly rolled out the last bait in his bag. He tried to enamor me with the gift scheme and said that I could not avail the gift and he would reduce the value on the price of the AC. I was stunned and the MBA in me woke up and he said “Don’t fall a prey to this scam and this is to get non MBA’s in the trap”. Once again I stroked my ego and thanked my degree that kept me agile and wary.
I walked out of this brand and moved into another brand just to find reasons to accept my choice and stroke my ego. I knew I could do this only by stomping over a few more egos and finding faults with the other brands. Human mind is so capable of denigrating, isn’t it? I was convinced on the design and efficiency but the price was too high. I would rather pay for the engineering but not for marketing and brand value.
Sales guys rack up their brains to come up with innovate ways to present the same old Colgate with campaigns such as New, Improved, extra fluoride and while the ting noise stays forever. This was the same case with air conditioners. There was no clear product differentiation strategy in terms of technology. Most of the other brands had similar features and at the end of the one hour exercise I was still left high and dry. I had a tingling sensation and I realized I was in the turbulent zone and with high Nre. Nothing crystallized at the end of all these trips only my fluids dynamics was uncontrollable.
When we come to shop we all come with a requirement and when we leave we all look forward to walk away with the pride of owning the best brand at cheap price with maximum guarantee. We don’t want to believe the salesman ad want to throw our weight and knowledge around so that he doesn’t take us for a ride. None of it was achieved in my case and all rounds of research and screening turned futile.
When I came home in the evening my mother was only surprised to see my indecisiveness. My education, experience and logic all went for a toss. Even after stomping so many egos I felt rattled inside and I heard the voice in my head. It said “A Chemical Engineer and a MBA cannot make a simple decision?” My ego got swatted like a fly.
Slew of questions marooned my mind. Should I go with brand loyalty or should I trust another brand? The simple process of qualifying a brand and putting my credit card down became a complex process. Education created only paradigms and doubts in my mind. The sense of calm and feeling of being assured was all ushered in the past 48 hours. I realized I needed an air conditioner to cool my mind and ego. My complex mind immediately started building an equation for decision making.
F(x) = (history, price, quality, warranty, service)
When I presented the case to my mother and she only made it simple. Her logic seemed convincing and solution seemed simple. “We have 2 machines of the same brand at home and touch wood they have been trouble free for 9 years now. The brand is an Indian brand and there is no reason to fear they would shut their doors or give poor service. On the price front this brand was in between low end and fast moving brand and high end, luxury brand”. With conviction and clarity she said let us go with our gut feeling and from past performance. Her simple 2 minute solution put the multiple personality in me to rest. I asked both the MBA and the Chemical engineer to vacate my mind and unction my bruised ego. For the first time in two days I had an empty bladder feeling, the cloud of delirium vanished and a decision was made.
When I presented the case to my mother and she only made it simple. Her logic seemed convincing and solution seemed simple. “We have 2 machines of the same brand at home and touch wood they have been trouble free for 9 years now. The brand is an Indian brand and there is no reason to fear they would shut their doors or give poor service. On the price front this brand was in between low end and fast moving brand and high end, luxury brand”. With conviction and clarity she said let us go with our gut feeling and from past performance. Her simple 2 minute solution put the multiple personality in me to rest. I asked both the MBA and the Chemical engineer to vacate my mind and unction my bruised ego. For the first time in two days I had an empty bladder feeling, the cloud of delirium vanished and a decision was made.
wow! i guess u r a technically strong chemical engineer(unlike me)
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