Business model fail

So frustrating. The original aluminium K-beater for our Chef mixer has been shedding its coating, so I’ve been trying to buy a new stainless steel one. There are two variables in beaters – the material they are made from, and whether they have a circlip fitting or not, so in total 4 different parts to stock. First vendor sent an aluminium one with the wrong fitting, and the second managed a stainless one but still with the wrong fitting. First one just gave me my money back, and didn’t respond to my requests to supply the correct item, despite still listing it for sale. Just started the process of returning the second one, but it can’t be good business to be so hopeless at actually supplying what people order. Every return must wipe out the profits on quite a few successful sales.

And breathe…

Depends on how much profit they’re making, or whether the beater is actually the product that the founders are selling – they may be making their money from investor funding?

But annoying for you nonetheless.

Obviously I’m making lots of assumptions here but the part picker might well be employed at  minimum wage and have little product knowledge. The business employing him/her save enough on his wages to more than make up for the mistakes. In this model, it “works”. For them.

Annoying though and I’m just offering a counterpoint that is probably not even right. 🙃

Attention to detail doesn’t always pay.

Look at product descriptions on online bike retailers. How many where you can’t tell which variant of a tyre you get until it turns up. Frame bags listed without dimensions. Photo of product from one year, description from another, the one you receive different again. I expect it’s cheaper to just not sweat this stuff, and pay to process the returns by the few customers who are paying attention.

Entirely off topic but I never use the K beater, always go for one of these:

https://www.espares.co.uk/product/es1777732