Church Voices

Be A Bad Consumer is my series on using the resources God gave us in a proper way. Here’s part 1, and here’s all of them.

Like many people on the interwebs your intrepid host has a number of pet peeves that is guaranteed to make his head explode like a kernel of microwave popcorn. One of those is the long con.

The long con isn’t just an episode of Lost, though it is that, it is also a genre of con in which the conman gives up something early on to the mark in order to gain their trust so that they can fleece the victim in a much larger way some time down the line.

Businesses do the same thing. Of course, its not a con in the moral and legal sense of the word, but it is a con in that you’re getting a much worse deal for much longer. Corporations have, for some time now, focused on getting their customers to spend more on a monthly basis, rather than one big lump sum purchase that happens once every few years. Let me give you a hygienic example.

For years I shaved with whatever cheap disposable razors I could find. Then Gillette started sending out coupons that greatly reduced the price of their Mach 3 razors. Sweet deal, right? The only problem is that while I could buy the razor for two or three dollars it came with only one cartridge and once that ran out it was time to pony up for replacement blades. Of course the replacement razor blades come at a steep price, more than $4 per razor cartridge, twice what I had paid for a cartridge with the blade. But, what are you going to do? Gillette is the only source, that I know of, for replacements so you have to pay whatever they want to charge.

Naturally, things didn’t always work this way. Gillette has been around for years and the business model was at one time very different. Years ago the shaver cost a lot and the blades almost nothing. And while this sort of consuming is in the minority, you can still do it this way.

For example, a standard safety razor will cost you $30, and the razors I buy for this sort of product cost $1.72 for 10. That’s less than two cents per razor. And it does a great job, if you combine it with a decent shaving brush (cost $30) and some soap. So a consumer using this model will end up spending $60 for at least a decade of use, and then $.02 per day (unless you’re a scruffy ruffian like yours truly and shave only twice a week, then its $.04 per week). That means a decade of daily shaves costs a man $70.30 (plus soap), while a decade of using one of Gillette’s Mach 3, or Fusion (if you’re willing to make a cartridge last two weeks) costs a man $960 (plus shaving cream), more than thirteen times more. Even at $2.79 per cartridge (the price you can get if you’re willing to order through Amazon and drop $67 to buy 24 at once) the cost is still $670.

And that’s the long con. Gillette will get you started for just a few dollars, but in return they get much more of your money over the long haul and they get a steady stream of income, instead of a large lump sum up front and then almost nothing. And its worked. Gillette’s customers have willingly bought into this business model, so much so, that you have to shop online for safety shavers and brushes.

Be a bad consumer, look out of the long con.