Sometimes,
before I buy something, I want to try it first but I can’t. Some products are
always tested or tried prior to purchase but there are others that never are
and I think it would be helpful if at least some of them could be.
Before you
buy something, what rights do you have with regards to testing it first or
perhaps, tasting it, to make sure that the product is what you really want?
For my
daughter Lucy’s wedding in 2004, I bought an off-the-peg suit from a well-known
London outfitter to wear at her wedding.
It was relatively expensive and so, of course, I tried it on before I
bought it and a couple of alterations were made before I took it away. When Alice, my elder daughter got married
last year, to my astonishment that suit still fitted me.
“That’s a saving,”
I thought. “I’ll buy a made-to-measure
shirt with the money I’ve saved so I’ll look smarter in the photos,” and so off
I went to a Savile Row tailor. Where
else?
I realised
immediately that this was to be a very different experience from buying a shirt
from Marks & Spencer or John Lewis where I would be in and out in less than
five minutes having spent no more than £30.
The
measuring component of the procedure alone lasted more than thirty minutes
because in all possible ways I was treated like a Very Important Person.
On the
walls were photographs of actual VIPs wearing the company’s suits and shirts. I remember seeing, among others, Alec Guinness,
Bob Monkhouse and someone whose name I wasn’t sure of but I think it was Dale
Winton. See what I mean? Real VIPs.
“Will a
photograph of me go up there?” I asked, innocently and with a straight face.
The tailor
didn’t exactly stare at me but he looked at me intensely for a second or two. Then he asked a question that I’ve never been
asked before or since:
“Are you
known, Sir?”
“Not in the
way I think you mean,” I replied.
“Probably
not then,” he said, very politely.
In the days
before Google and the Internet, I could easily have lied and got away with
saying that I was “known”. I read of
someone who relied on the fact that Stanley Kubrick was a name that everyone
knew but whom no one would recognise, to use that circumstance to defraud many
restaurants, airlines and hotels.
I know
someone who, 40 years ago, bore a likeness to Ray Davies, the lead singer of
The Kinks. In the ’70s and ’80s he
regularly used that resemblance to obtain free meals in North London Restaurants. Fifteen years ago, when I last visited it, an
Indian Curry House in Crouch End still had a photo on the wall of “Ray”, posing
with his arm around the owner’s shoulders, smiling the beaming smile of a smug,
satiated thief.
A week
after the measuring of the shirt, I was called back for a “preliminary”
fitting. It seemed fine to me but I was
told that it wasn’t at all fine and I needed to return in two days. What a palaver!
I’m not
going to tell you exactly how much that shirt cost me because that would be vulgar but don’t
think for a moment that a £300 shirt is necessarily ten times as pleasing,
comfortable or stylish as a £30 shirt.
It just isn’t. In my opinion,
made-to-measure shirts are absurdly overpriced and consequently, for the most
part, a waste of money.
In November
2008, recovering from my liver transplant, I was very frail and bedbound in
hospital in Fort Lauderdale. For weeks I
was given (subjected to) a daily bed bath but I was never shaved and I was too
feeble and befuddled to shave myself. I
asked Caroline if she would buy me the best electric razor she could find. If Rolls Royce make electric razors, I told
her, I want one of theirs.
Unlike a
pair of shoes that you can try on to make sure they fit before you buy them,
you can’t try an electric razor to make sure it shaves you before you buy
it.
With no
evidence to guide or help her, Caroline based her choice on price alone and
bought the most expensive razor she could find.
It cost more than $300 but I immediately discovered that it was
absolutely useless. It just didn’t do
what it was designed to do and that was to shave me properly.
If I had
been able to try it first, Caroline would never have bought that razor. I only used it once and found immediately
that it didn’t work. The store said it
wasn’t faulty and so would not give a refund.
A total waste of money!
Recently, Caroline
decided that she would buy a new car and she scoured the Internet making notes
on all the models that were possibilities.
At last and after masses of research, she made her decision and I
accompanied her to the dealer.
She looked
carefully at her chosen model on display and saw everything that she expected
to see and nothing that made her change her mind.
“Would you
like a test drive Madam?” Madam said
that she would.
I am fairly
sure that no one has ever bought a new car without test driving it first, but what
is the point? I wonder if anyone has
ever changed their mind as a consequence of the test drive. I’ve never heard of it happening.
I’ve never
heard anyone say something like, “It was a great car except that when I drove
it I found that the cup holders were too
small and the rear window took too long to demist,” or even something less
trivial like, “it didn’t have enough
oomph.” You know its “oomph” from written
reviews.
Mattresses
are always a problem. When you walk
through the bedding section of a department store, it is quite common to see
someone lying on a mattress. They are
obviously trying out a mattress prior to purchase but they always seem to lie
on their backs. I don’t think that most
people go to sleep lying on their backs but everyone I’ve seen tests a mattress
that way.
You never
see anyone lying on their left side, basically in the foetal position but with
their right leg straight and with their right arm bent around the back of their
neck so that their left ear is resting on their right hand. That’s the way most people go to sleep, isn’t
it?
Nowadays,
it is possible to test a new mattress at home for up to 30, 60 or even 100 days
and return it if you are not satisfied but although admirable, that can cause
problems. How many people keep their old
mattress in case the new one has to be returned? We have nowhere to store a King-Size mattress
in case a new one is unsuitable and how does one dispose of a King-Size
mattress if the new one is satisfactory?
It is
wrong, in my opinion, that a manufacturer can sell merchandise without giving
the customer the opportunity to try out the product first, although I
understand that with some things there are health or other implications.
For
instance, I certainly wouldn’t want to try a razor that had previously been
tested by someone with facial psoriasis or buy a mattress that some sweaty
person had tried for a couple of months before returning it to the store. The only answer I have to this problem is
that the retailer should be prepared to make a refund for up to a week on any product
that doesn’t come up to expectations. Very
few will do that and will only make a refund if the item is faulty.
Before 1964,
in the days before Pirate Radio, Radio 1 and the Internet, there were very few
ways to hear new music. I would
sometimes go with friends on a Saturday morning to Morling’s, Lowestoft’s only
music store and listen to records in a booth. I rarely bought one but the store hoped that I
would and then, I might pay 6/8 (6 shillings and 8 pence or 33p) for a
record. “Because They’re Young” by Duane
Eddy was the first I ever bought in 1960.
I once got
into a lot of trouble at Jarrold’s Bookshop in Lowestoft when I asked if I
could take “Our Man in Havana” away to read it so that I could decide whether
or not to buy it.
“Why
not? Morling’s let you listen to music
first,” I protested to the assistant. I think
I must have been a bit of a pain when I was thirteen.
There is a
delicatessen near us that actively encourages customers to try their olives or
cheeses before they buy them. Electric
razors and books are at the other end of that scale in that they may only be
bought on trust and reputation alone.
That, in my experience, can be a problem.
