Skip to main content

Cost, value and worth - becoming ever confused

Two words seem to be very misunderstood out in marketing land - "cost", "worth" and "value".

I have to smile when I see the advertisements, most noticeably from the phone providers or phone bucket shops, for the "New super-duper Acme phone" which includes "free acme headphones worth £199".

Er. No.

Sorry chaps.

The headphones are not in any way "worth" £199. That £199 would be the "cost" of them in rip-off Britain. Not their worth. They are actually "worth" about £25, if that!

Oh! And they're not "free". The price has been factored into your phone contract. Which would be a few quid less a month if it didn't include the "free" headphones. Those that are worth £25.

Supermarkets are increasingly coming under scrutiny for their special offers that have been discovered to be not all that special after all. The buy one for £2.50 or two for £4 type of thing, when they've not really been on sale for the required previous period of time at £2.50, and were in fact price-hiked from £1.85 prior to the offer anyway.

The management trot out the not-unbelievable excuse that they have thousands of items on sale at any one time and mistakes do happen.

Well, a well-organised and rather simple spreadsheet would take care of that! You list your products down the left of the spreadsheet. You then list the prices across the top of the spreadsheet with the statutory date range and relevant prices. You then place your spreadsheet within easy access on your content management system and hey presto! The perfect mechanism for all management to monitor your prices.

Simples, and hardly rocket science!

And talking of "simples", although not the one that accompanies that phrase, one insurance site is offering a staggering 1,000 Nectar points if you take out an insurance policy with them. So you pay your several thousand pounds to get your car insured against someone looking at it, and immediately run up and down the street in joy clutching your 1,000 Nectar points...........worth £5.

Almost as bad as taking out one of those coffin policies clearly marked "you may not get back the sums you have paid in premiums" where they give you an incredibly cheap and nasty flat-screen tv as an incentive. Some "experts" have worked out that it may be better just to plonk your £5 a week into an ISA. Or under your mattress.

And talking of coffin policies. If one of the main ones in the North West can afford to let one of the big four supermarkets sell their policies, wouldn't it be more equitable and honest to stop and offer their existing customers the commission they are paying the supermarket, as a reduction. Then customers might just "get back the sums they have paid in premiums".

It really is appalling that consumer watchdogs and programmes on television such as "Watchdog" and "Rip-Off Britain" have to constantly monitor companies on our behalf, if only to overcome their sheer greed cleverly disguised as administration errors.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pirate Bay threatened with closure - doesn't affect me

Swedish file sharing website The Pirate Bay is now under threat following legal action by the British Phonographic Industry last December. They alleged that the website "infringes copyright on a massive scale” regarding the sharing of computer games, software, films and music. Point taken, and one can't for one minute deny that copyright is being infringed on quite a massive scale, not just on Pirate Bay, but all around the internet. However, with due respect to the originators of the shared files, I have never used Pirate Bay myself, except perhaps on very odd occasions for software, films and music. I never use Pirate Bay for software, because I prefer to pay an outlandish price for another seemingly pointless update to Microsoft Office that neither improves my speed nor productivity. And I am quite happy to part with hard earned cash to a company that has already earned a fortune from me - and others - with their updates over the years. And as for the recent update of Pho...

Airport amusement

There is no doubt that airports can be quite amusing places. That is apart from being told by a burly security supervisor at the x-ray gate that thanks to the only contribution Yasser Arafat ever made to society, I had to remove my belt, shoes, watch and place my AK-47 in the tray provided. Watching people going around their travel ‘business’ in airports and on board the aircraft is hilarious. There are those who are plainly not very good at it, continually checking all manner of minutiae with the other members of the party. “Do we go to the gate?”, “Have we time for a beer?”, “I MUST get a pizza”. There are those who have plainly not done it much before and like their fellow travellers to be made fully aware of the exact opposite, as they point and gesture to the monitor shouting out their destination and boarding gate at every passing opportunity to one and all around them. There are those who think they are something special – despite the fact they are travelling via bu...

Are Camelot dim, dysfunctional, liars or just plain greedy?

There can be no denying that UK lottery operators Camelot are on to a good thing. Especially the overpaid management. They have been reaping the benefits of the franchise for years now - a franchise that in essence, has been licenced by the government to print money. However, I can't quite make up my mind whether the management of the Lotto are dim, dysfunctional, liars or just plain greedy, although the cynic in me answers the question when I consider the chief Executive of Camelot was complaining last year that the annual bonus on her not inconsiderable 7-figure salary had been reduced (conveniently forgetting her 18 year sojourn to date at Camelot has produced a pension we mere mortals can only dream about. How about the poor soldiers, CEO Dianne Thompson, who come back from the far-east minus a leg and have to legally fight for compensation that doesn't even touch what you earn less than a month? And they don't receive CBE's for their troubles either !). Irres...