My mom always told me that you can’t have everything but my customers don’t seem to believe her. Literally, I am not lying. My customers seem to believe that you can have quality, speed of delivery and low price all wrapped up together but I am here to tell you, it is just a myth. Who hasn’t in the past 24 months ordered some shiny, new, cool gadget off their Instagram or FaceBook feed only to learn this lesson one more time? You can’t have high quality, low cost, and immediate delivery. In the current environment of a broken supply chain this runs particularly true.
Quality – when you are looking for quality you are looking for something that will do what it is supposed to do, when it is supposed to do it every single time. It is a combination of reliability and consistency. It does what it is supposed to do and it ALWAYS does what it is supposed to do. It sets the standard for how all other products or services live up to it. When you have something with quality you can count on it.
Speed – when I am talking about speed of service I am talking about Amazon Prime. Order it today and receive it tomorrow. Speed is now, not later. Speed is drive-throughs and in-stock products that you can walk away with.
Price – when I think price I am thinking a 30-35% savings over market. I don’t need it to be half price, but I need it to be a significant enough savings to be notable. In theory 10% is not even enough to talk about.
It is important that we acknowledge that with a broken supply chain everything is harder. JIT (just in time delivery) doesn’t actually exist in the new norm of this global pandemic so seeking out something that has quality, speed and price is near comical. Forget all three. Are you better to hold out for two or should you settle and take one?
There are times when you need to settle for one. When you are building your house does it make sense to build something with old and rotted material with bad builders just because it is a good price and the material is readily available? No. You would rather pay a little bit more for better quality materials and wait for them to come in so you can rest easy at night knowing that your roof won’t cave in over your head while you sleep.
