I was looking for some time for a hair-dryer.
No luck at start as retail stores and supermarkets are all flooded exclusively with low quality China made ones.
Luck struck while on holiday. I always check stuff hotels use (usually they try to have high reliability appliances). To my surprise I found they had a brand Made in Switzerland !!! Yes besides chocolate and banks they make also hair-dryers.
I found the same problem to all the other consumer goods available. Looking for simple things like a coffee grinder, a new fridge, an espresso machine, a set of headphones required a lot of work to navigate through the mass of garbage thrown my way by the brick and on-line shops.
Post 2020 is seems that the consumer goods market was shaken to the ground by increase on material costs and disruption to the supply chains that caused high inflation, but also massive decrease in quality of consumer goods.
That is why it is a good option to find out what professionals, companies and *philes (Espresso-phile, Audio-phile, home server-phile etc.) are using instead of the “consumer” or “premium” options.
In today’s world:
- “consumer” = low quality, short life products, produced to cut costs with inferior components by unqualified, underpaid workers.
- “premium” = “consumer” goods but with some useless “designer” or “celebrity” endorsement
- “professional” or “*fill” = the normal goods as they should be, made the way it was originally designed and with attention to details. Made for long term use.
My list of principles you need to follow to navigate the products market is the following:
- Look what hotels, spas are using when looking for things for the bathroom or cleaning related stuff: hair-dryers , washing and drying machines, bathroom faucets and other bathroom related fixtures.
- Look what brands coffee shops are using for their equipment
- Look what restaurants are using for their kitchen equipment, fridges , electric ovens, coolers etc.
- Look what brands or producers are “floating” in the audiophile, espresso, home server forums
- Seek advice from professionals on equipment used in industrial setting.
I know that sounds strange that me as a consumer I have to start to act like someone buying stuff for industrial use but sadly looks like post 2020 this is the only way to get quality stuff.
As a negative prepare to pay more, but shockingly not always the better industrial use equipment proved to be more expensive than low quality “consumer” goods.
As a positive you will have the piece of mind that you bought something long term and you get to enjoy quality goods.