What Store? Brand? Model? And Why Are They Pushing This One?
It would appear that out US counterparts have experienced many of the same issues that we have in the UK as I discovered when I came across this article from the Washington Post the other day.
Copy of text:
My oven door doesn’t close tightly, so I have to jam it with a broom handle when I bake something. The ignition switch on the burners doesn’t work, so I have to use a long butane lighter. The built-in fan died ages ago when a bird built a nest in there.
If I weren’t so cowed by the task of actually buying a new range, I might have already splurged. But after hearing so many horror stories about the irritations, complications and gyrations involved in appliance shopping, it seems easier to put up with known problems than to conquer new ones.
All of which raises a question about the business of buying appliances: Does it have to be so difficult?
“It’s a hassle,” said David Heim, deputy editor for special sections for Consumer Reports magazine, where many shoppers go to get information on, and ratings of, major appliances. “It’s not a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon.”
There are, in fact, quite a lot of factors to blame for turning appliance shopping into a headache, some of them involving consumers, others involving retailers and manufacturers. It’s an interlocking set of circumstances creating a situation in which the consumer, while getting more choices and lower prices, pays for those improvements in time and frustration.
One of the fundamental difficulties about buying an appliance, of course, is that we don’t buy them very often — yet it’s an expensive, complex and important purchase. Naturally, then, consumers start out wary and perhaps a little intimidated before they even set foot in a showroom. Even shoppers who pride themselves on being smart consumers can find it daunting to evaluate the huge machines that keep our food cold, our dishes washed and our clothes clean. Making that trip worse is that the technical sophistication of major appliances has increased dramatically.
“It’s a major investment, and you’re scared you’re not doing it right,” said Gerry Beatty, senior editor of the industry trade publication Home Furnishings News.
Then again, there really is something to be scared of, starting with the overwhelming number of choices. The possibilities are endless now, even for the humble refrigerator. Freezer on bottom, top or side? Wire shelves or glass shelves? Half shelves or whole shelves? Big door caddies or little? How many interior drawers? Ice maker outside or inside? Cold zones? Cabinet-depth or deeper? And then there’s the finish: white may or may not be standard, black may cost more, stainless will certainly be even more — and your magnets won’t stick.
It is human nature to want to be sure we’re not missing something or, worse, making a mammoth, irreversible mistake. And once a shopper has discovered there are so many models to consider, the quest to see everything quickly gets frustrating. Even if a shopper went to every appliance retailer around the city, it wouldn’t be possible to open and close the doors of every dishwasher, oven, refrigerator and washing machine made today.
“The selection that any given retailer can carry is not going to be a big wide representation of the market,” said Heim of Consumer Reports. “If you don’t see what you want at Lowe’s, you’ve got to run over to Expo Design or Best Buy and fight traffic all over Northern Virginia.”
In a world with 57 models of General Electric refrigerators that just have bottom freezers, it’s not possible for any one retailer to stock it all, much less keep current with the many new introductions.
Manufacturers, if not consumers, benefit from the fragmentation of the market, since they can tailor their assortments to the demographics of a store or chain — Expo, for example, carries many expensive models, while Sears starts with more basic models. They also count on the independent retailers that focus on two or three brands to be more informed, which helps sell those products.
In addition to schlepping all over town just to see what’s available, the shopper also has to prepare for a wide range of selling environments. Trade editor Beatty said that shoppers have to make an analysis: “Am I going to Home Depot because I know I’m going to get the cheaper prices? Am I going to Sears, which I trust, but is he going to sell me what he wants to? Or am I going to go somewhere else where I’m going to get pushy salespeople and get traded up” to a more expensive model?
The proliferation of manufacturers, styles and retailers — total U.S. shipments of domestic and foreign-made appliances are up 60 percent in just the past decade — has pushed prices and profit margins down on many brands, and so has comparison shopping on the Internet. For commissioned salespeople, that can make it even more important to press a particular model. Commissions are falling, and the only way to make up the difference is to sell more, said kitchen designer Jerry Weed, who has stopped selling appliances at his Chevy Chase store, Kitchen and Bath Studios, because, he said, it’s not profitable enough given the space they take up.
Many appliance salespeople, Weed said, make a big part of their income from “spiffs,” extra commissions for selling a particular line or model.
“If you sell a Thermador range in the next 60 days, say, you, the salesperson, get [an extra] $40,” Weed said. “The guy . . . selling the $2,000 range is probably going to be lucky if he’s making $40 in commission. The manufacturer is doubling his pay.”
And probably more than doubling the amount of pressure being put on the shopper.
Trying to avoid this kind of biased sales situation — which many shoppers assume is going on even it isn’t — has sent legions of shoppers through the doors of Home Depot and Lowe’s, two of the biggest appliance retailers in the country. But those chains have their own drawbacks, such as limited brand selection (Home Depot sells only General Electric and Maytag) and lack of sales help and product information. I was thrilled to hear that manufacturers, at least, seem to have noticed that a better, more thorough shopping experience is good for business. Viking, Whirlpool and Maytag are among those investing in their own stores to display their whole range of products and even allow consumers to make an appointment to bake a batch of cookies using the newest oven technology. Some of these stores sell products; others are purely for information. While there are several brand-specific distributor showrooms in the area, none of these new interactive showroom-stores has come to Washington yet.
“It helps the consumer by interacting with the products,” said Jill Notini, a spokeswoman for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. “It also helps the manufacturer because . . . they can gather valuable qualitative data on how consumers use their products.”
I don’t care if a manufacturer wants to take notes on how I cook, as long as I get the information I need to make an informed decision with no pressure. Maybe if a couple of these stores open here, I’ll even buy myself a new stove.
Original article here
By Margaret Webb Pressler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 20, 2003