Cost vs. Price - there’s a big difference
Written June 7th, 2007 by Paul in Personal
The price you pay for a product is just that, the price. It involves the sicker price + taxes + delivery and that’s what you pay. Pretty straight forward. So most of us, no matter how well off financially, will try and get products at the lowest price possible.
The cost, however, is what you have to go through to get that product at that price.
I went out about a week ago and paid for an air conditioning unit. It’s one of those smaller window units built to cool off a single room in your home. The price I paid for the A/C unit was $159 taxes in. Not bad, considering this is high season for A/C sales in this part of the world, with temperatures hitting 25-30 Celcius as a warning of how hot it’ll be for the next 3-4 months.
As I said, about a week ago I paid for the unit. I was told I’d have it yesterday - 5-6 business days because they were sold out and had to have more shipped in from their warehouse. “No problem,” I thought. I can take the heat for a few more days.
Today I was told they’d call me on Tuesday of next week ‘if’ my A/C unit was in.
Not only am I hot, sticky, uncomfortable and can’t concentrate, I’m also hot under the collar (if I were wearing a shirt).
Trying to save a few bucks by going after the best price has already cost me a week of lowered productivity, not to mention the stress associated with kicking myself for being so cheap.
I’ve done this before - went for the cheaper option rather than paying well for better service, so I should know better.
My conclusion is that human beings are probably one of the stupidest creatures on earth (at least this human). Even a cow, a walking sirloin, doesn’t go near a wire fence again after being burned. Put a human in the same situation and they’ll sit there playing with the fence, expecting a different result each time.
It’s the cost of being human.
