I will remember 2013 as a year of ‘white-goods’ purchases. ‘White-goods’ meaning fridge-freezer, an oven-grill and washing machine. Yup! My trusted over ten years old machines all had to be replaced. Ten years ago I relied mostly on my kitchen fitter and orders from John Lewis. This year I resorted to trusting ‘Googling’ and the use of comparison sites with the rankings or/and ratings. One would have thought that with standardised measurements/fixtures for kitchen, it should be relatively easy to buy appliances especially with comparison sites that offer rankings and/or ratings and filtering options. Yes! Easy to buy (or click) once I get to find the machine that meets my full specification. None of the sites are designed to serve me as a customer searching for a particular machine instead they all list specifications from brands, with filtering mostly on price bands and brands i.e. focused on the seller rather than the consumer.
The consumer has their say in the rating or ranking provided by the sites. These are usually feedbacks or comments (after customer’s purchase!), which I do not find useful to help me find the item or make the final selection decision. So after hours browsing, I still have to call the stores to check the specifications and availability etc. Am I missing out the logic behind online shopping?
Perhaps in ten years time, I will be chatting online with a ‘buyer-helper’ (or interactive-agent) who will find & sell me what I am looking for. There’re sites offering online chat but they’re for after sale customer support. (i.e. again not focusing on customer but the seller).
Besides, I doubt that my new machines will have the same life span as my previous machines. The new machines are far too complicated with more features that I’ll ever need (or want), and all with digital (software parts) wizardry built in. Surely my kitchen machine needs have not changed over the pass ten years? These machines just need to be functional, reliable and safe to use, right? Well now there are environmental (e.g. energy efficiency, disposal law) aspects that manufacturers have to comply with, and they did these using software to make the machine smarter. Does this justify using digital display to tell me the status of the machine?
Also, 2013 will remind me of the year I make a bad choice in following the ratings and commentaries on Tablets. Yup! I opted for the Kindle Fire HDX (for my Christmas present from my kids), as I wanted a Tablet (that is cheaper than the iPad). What I failed to check out was whether the Kindle would enable me to read eBooks (not just Kindle books). I assumed that being a Kindle, reading online books would be a supported feature. Not so! Bad assumption and also not picking up the ‘technical’ commentaries, instead I read only the Amazon product site commentaries. I guess Amazon wants folks to buy eBooks irrespective of whether you have full access to Digital Rights protected materials (e.g. student access provided by Library/Online portals). I suspect one can do a technical break-in (e.g. via root access) but this mean I will have to break the product warranty license. So, the Kindle is on its way back to Amazon. (A nuisance for my daughter who has to deal with return/refund).
So it’s back to ‘trusted’ John Lewis, and today I’ve clicked on an iPad Mini. This time, I’ve tested out my daughter’s iPad Mini (her Xmas gift) instead of relying on ratings or rankings.
My recent experience with online shopping for ‘white goods’ (now computerised goods) and Tablet (mini-hand-held computer) highlighted just how much I am ‘dependent’ on computer or computerisation. If any of the software components in my washing machine and oven-grill were to malfunction, will the machines be ‘dead’ i.e. no sound, no light? There are no operating manual/ guidelines on ‘how to detect when machine fail or malfunction’. I guess it’s assumed to be ‘common sense’ or ‘prior experience of machine usage’ or ‘don’t need to know’ – treat it as a ‘black box’. So, I don’t need to know whether it’s malfunction of the software components and/or a physical mechanical failure. I guess I’ll stick with the version of ‘machine not working’ call engineer/company.
On further reflection, rating or ranking will certainly be useful if folks describe what the features provide or not provide (the good, ugly, bad features etc.) AND ALSO on how they deal with or detect machine breakdown or malfunction and their stories on dealing with suppliers/engineers. These are probably more painful to deal with and to describe, and make worst as we’re expected to treat such machines as ‘black boxes’. Mmm… wonder what googling on ‘rating or ranking of machine failures/malfunction’ will display…