When A Bargain Is Not A Bargain

We have all done it – purchased a ‘knock off’ at a bargain price instead of paying more for the ‘original’. In some cases the ‘knock-off’ worked just as well and/or held up as well, but there are also many cases when we regret our ‘bargain’ and wish we had been smarter in our purchase.

This came up recently when we had a customer contact us that the parts they purchased for our machine did not hold up. They broke apart almost immediately after putting them to use on the machine. I took the call from the customer and was stunned to think that our parts would be/could be inferior. I promised the customer I would check into his problem and get right back to him. I then contacted our customer service and parts departments and organized a meeting to discuss the customer’s problems. It turned out that the customer had not purchased parts from us in several years. The inferior parts had been purchased elsewhere. This company had saved a few dollars on spare parts that wound up costing them thousands of dollars in lost production and downtime, not to mention the possible damage to the machine if the parts caused a malfunction.

So beware of bargains. Make sure that you are truly getting the exact same product and/or quality for the lower price, or pay the extra dollars up front so you can truly save serious dollars with increased production and decreased downtime.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.