For the past several weeks, I have been driven out of the house
by the incessant barrage of political commercials on radio,
television, through the Internet or delivered by the U.S. Postal
Service. It made a good excuse to spend more time in the
garden.
For the past several weeks, I have been driven out of the house by the incessant barrage of political commercials on radio, television, through the Internet or delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. It made a good excuse to spend more time in the garden.
One of the problems of gardening here is that the soil is often primarily clay, heavy when wet and hard to dig. Scattered though this are more than a few rocks. While turning over the clay, digging in compost, I managed to crack the handle on my Sears Craftsman garden fork.
What, you may ask is so unique about breaking a garden fork? For one thing, Sears warrants its Craftsman line of tools for the life of the tool. Break it? Just bring it back and they will give you a new one. It sounds like an American company standing behind the quality of their product. This was not even “Made in China.” It was labeled “Made in .” So, I took it back and got a new one. No hassle, only a short wait for a supervisor to come and approve the exchange.
The problem for Sears is that a garden fork is considered a commodity product and they are forced to compete on the basis of price. Part of the cost reduction has been to replace the traditional wooden handle with one of fiberglass. They claim that the fiberglass is stronger than wood. That claim is probably correct when the tool is brand new, but after a season or so of use in the sun, exposing the fiberglass to UV without SPF 30, the fiberglass is weakened and begins to crack. It is not long before turning over some heavy clay is enough to break it.
In the long run, Sears may be counting on the fact that most people will not return the item on warranty. If everyone did, they would soon become aware that it is not very profitable to warrant a tool that is going to quickly break.
More to the point, I would ask if we have become such a throw-away society that we are willing to accept such declines in product quality just go get a lower price. We are constantly reminded that Kohl’s, Ross, TJ-Max, Marshall’s have the same products as the big department stores, but at a lower price. Why pay more when you can get it for cheap?
If it doesn’t work, throw it away and get another. That is the message we get every day. At one time, American consumers demanded quality and American workers delivered it. That was a time when having a tool that broke meant you could not work. There was not a Sears, or Home Depot in every town to sell you another cheap tool at bargain prices.
We are constantly reminded that Wal-Mart, whose slogan is “Always low prices, ALWAYS,” achieves its price advantage by paying its workers less, giving them fewer benefits. Similarly, the recent political campaign has made job outsourcing into a major issue. We do not hear that Wal-Mart is the largest importer of low cost manufactured goods from China.
I recognize that there are several meanings to “Made in China.” Too often, it is an indication of cheap prices and lower quality. The technology and entertainment media focuses our attention on intellectual property protection and the fact that a significant percentage of the world’s “knock offs” come from China.
Yet, I have also found that those companies who truly pay attention to quality can deliver good quality Chinese products as prices substantially lower than U.S. manufactured equivalents. My personal experience with this is the purchase of a High Volume, Lower Pressure paint sprayer from Harbor Freight. Yes, it was made in China, but for less than $100 it delivers superior performance in my application, spraying ceramic glazes, than U.S. made sprayers costing over five times as much. Quality is there if you demand it.
Even when doing something as commonplace as hiring workers to trim a tree, you can tell a lot by examining the quality of their tools and the care that they give them. If you find a crew working with well cared for Stihl chain saws, you are probably going to get a good job. Stihl is probably the best chain saw on the market and when a craftsman cares enough to have the best tools, and takes care of them, they will also probably deliver the same quality in their own work.
One can make a comparison to Gresham’s Law of economics in that bad products drive good products from the market. In the long run, we will have the society that we want. I am not hopeful that it will be one where consumer demand for quality products will have much influence.
