When placing an order, I want to be sure that I am getting the best pricing, the best product and the best service. I tend to look for the most optimal balance of these three factors. I spent a lot of years buying for a company, being responsible for and spending a crazy amount of cash.That kind of responsibility really drove me towards honing my buying skills. Those pennies (or should I say nickles) really do add up.
Usually I get pretty deep into user reviews, reading comments and videos before selecting a product and then I compare suppliers and pricing. I also check online for coupon codes before completing my web orders … about 75% of the time for anything from clothing to furniture and appliances there is a legit coupon or rebate out there just waiting to be used!
Today I was about to place an order for a food dehydrator. We intend to have a large garden this year and along with canning in the Autumn we also want to dehydrate some of the veggies. After a lot of research we settled on the Sedona Raw Food Dehydrator. Only trying can tell us at this point if it was worth the investment. (testing to commence next week).
The Sedona Raw Food Dehydrator was consistently being offered online in Canada for $429 plus a $10 coupon code if you bothered to look for it. I found it for quite a bit less (and with freebies) from a US store. I really wanted to shop Canadian but was unwilling to pay a large premium for that preference.
I decided it was worth asking a Canadian company about their price. I sent Raw Nutrition (rawnutrition.ca) an email explaining my findings, my desire to shop Canadian and asked if there was any flexibility with their pricing. I received a response within about 15 minutes of sending the email (at 8PM). This impressed me.
They were willing to bend on the price and would include the same freebie as the other store was offering and would provide free shipping. The other company did not offer free shipping and I would have had to pay duty so this was a very reasonable offer. They issued me a one time use coupon code for $50 and it was as simple as that. Order placed.
Solid customer service combined with diligent research and a thoughtfully worded email created a completely satisfactory result. It was worth my time, I got what I wanted which was to buy the product I needed from a Canadian company for a fair price.
If you are going to be a consumer … you might as well be a saavy one. I can hear the groan from the other side of the room as I type this. (I might have a teeny bit of a kijiji addiction right now). Think of it this way. Every purchase is a business transaction and your money (think of all the time and effort you put into gaining that money) is a bartering tool to obtain that item.
Now I eagerly wait for the new toy to arrive so we can start dehydrating some food – so many possibilities, maybe start with some crispy kale chips!
