Dealers Speak from the Heart: Why You Should Never Buy Cheap Bathroom Fixtures

For a customer who doesn’t understand a product’s value, any price is too high! Let me tell you why you shouldn’t buy bathroom fixtures that are too cheap—getting ripped off is the least of it; the real problem is the difficulty of getting compensation when an accident happens because you went for the bargain!

Some people say a toilet just needs to handle your business, a shower room just needs to let you bathe, a faucet just needs to put out water… brand, qualified or not, whatever’s cheap is fine. I’m just an ordinary person, I’m a wage earner, not a rich man. I can’t afford expensive ones, can’t afford good ones; as long as it’s usable, that’s enough.

Dear customer, you have no idea how much I want to tell you: when you buy clothes, you can grab a couple of items off a street stall, and worst case you wear them only a few times and toss them—it won’t cost you much, and washing them clean before bringing them home won’t have much effect on your health, plus you get to wear something new every day. But buy inferior bathroom fixtures, and if they merely break, that’s the good outcome. If there’s an electric leak, an explosion, or a fire, by then it’s no longer a question of whether the product was cheap or expensive!

Let me tell a story first

One day, Qi Baishi met a shrimp vendor on the road and asked him: “How much for this basket of shrimp?”

The vendor replied 50 yuan.

Qi Baishi then asked: “I’ll trade you this painting of shrimp I made for one basket of your shrimp. Deal?”

The vendor got upset and said angrily: “Old man, is your head sick? You want to swap your fake shrimp for my real shrimp!”

This story illustrates a truth: if your customer doesn’t understand the value of your product, any price tag is too high! If you let the customer understand the value of your product, any price tag is worth it to the consumer! If you let the customer feel that this is limited-edition, hard to come by, one-of-a-kind, then no matter the price tag the customer will rush to place the order at the first moment! In fact, as salespeople, the most important thing is to let customers understand the value of the product, rather than haggling with them over price to no avail.

Why do customers complain it’s too expensive every time you quote a price?

Many friends ask me: why do customers complain it’s too expensive every time I quote a price?

I tell them it’s because the customer doesn’t understand how much value you can create for them—and this value isn’t just the value of a shower room, it also includes the professional knowledge you provide and the professional service you offer.

Let me ask: would you haggle with a doctor at the hospital?

Many customers ask, why is this shower room the same as the one in another store, yet yours is more expensive?

Is that really the case?

No, in fact there are many differences!

The materials used in the shower room are different, the factory’s sorting standards are different, the merchant’s service is different, the after-sales service guarantee is different, and each brand’s warranty is different too. Every one of these differences brings the customer a different value.

Why are brand-name bathroom fixtures more expensive than no-name ones?

Beyond the cost of materials, labor costs also make up a large portion of bathroom products—design costs, costs at every production stage, installation costs, after-sales service costs… Therefore, when you buy bathroom products, what you’re buying is absolutely not just a product, but a systematic service and solution. So you can’t look only at the product’s price; you should pay more attention to the quality of the bathroom product and the soft service aspects.

A person goes to buy bathroom fixtures: the specialty store price is 2,000 yuan, the variety shop price is 800 yuan. What most consumers think is “the variety shop is more than twice as cheap as the specialty store!” Why isn’t it “why does the variety shop have to be more than twice as cheap as the specialty store?” The fixture the specialty store sells for 2,000 yuan may have used 1,800 yuan in cost, with the other 200 yuan being later service; the fixture the variety shop sells for 800 yuan only cost 400 yuan, with no later service at all, netting them a clean 400 yuan—truly earning one for every one they sell! Because brand-name bathroom fixtures use fine materials and meticulous workmanship, the manpower and resources they use cost far more than inferior fixtures, so naturally the selling price is higher than no-name fixtures.

Legitimate bathroom-fixture manufacturers are scrupulous about their products. Before leaving the factory, products undergo strict quality inspection and gatekeeping; they won’t let any unqualified product flow into the market, and the products’ workmanship and configuration are strictly controlled. They firmly believe a good product is sure to have a big market, and you won’t often see them on quality blacklists. No-name fixture manufacturers, on the other hand, have very low requirements for product quality; they only care about how the product can be made at the lowest cost to generate the highest profit. As a result, product configuration is also extremely low, even unqualified—for example, tempered glass that doesn’t meet temperature standards, or unreasonable product design structures—giving rise to many serious safety hazards such as explosions, shattering, and spontaneous combustion.

Once an accident is caused by product quality, a legitimate manufacturer won’t shirk responsibility; they’ll do everything they can to make up for the consumer’s loss and quickly improve. Buying brand-name bathroom fixtures is in fact also buying a guarantee. No-name fixture manufacturers, however, because of their extremely low product configuration and incomplete operating qualifications, have no way to meet consumers’ after-sales guarantees. According to industry insiders, there are some manufacturers like this who even deregister the company after just three to five years of operation—because three to five years is when the after-sales volume is largest, and with extremely low product configuration the service life is also very short. Some products even have problems right after being bought home, yet in the end the buyer gets no after-sales guarantee.

Let time verify the difference between genuine and inferior products!

An inferior shower room suddenly explodes and sends you to the hospital, no question; a quality shower room remains intact after ten years of use.

An inferior toilet spontaneously combusts within a few months; a quality toilet remains intact after one year, three years…

An inferior faucet leaks, rusts… every bad thing comes along.

An inferior bathroom cabinet grows mold, its hardware breaks… so many problems to worry about; a genuine bathroom cabinet keeps going three years and another three years, without a single worry.

A genuine dealer’s heartfelt words

What I sell is the brand

What he sells is the knockoff

Though we both sell bathroom fixtures

We are vastly different

I earn money with conscience

He earns money with garbage

Many people’s spending habit is

To buy wherever it’s cheap

As long as someone dares to sell it, someone dares to buy it

Under this temptation of extreme cheapness

They forget that each price corresponds to a product

A retail price so low the factory loses money

Will still have many people choosing to buy it

Buying cheap bathroom fixtures is happy

After using them for a week, you regret it

After using them for a month, you’re saddened

After using them for half a year, you’re heartbroken

After using them for a year, you’re stricken with grief

An inferior toilet explodes or self-ignites, causing injury to the lower body

An inferior shower room explodes and cuts the skin, posing a danger to life

An inferior faucet floods the house, causing losses of over ten thousand

………

So as a consumer you must know

100 yuan can’t be spent as 1,000 yuan

100 yuan can’t buy 1,000-yuan bathroom fixtures

By the same logic

1,000-yuan bathroom fixtures can’t possibly be sold to you for 100 yuan

The cost must correspond to the retail price

Otherwise what you buy is sure to be counterfeit and shoddy!

The biggest difference between genuine and inferior products is

Genuine products are about quality

About innovative product technology

Selling one and maintaining one to build reputation

Shoddy brands are about low configuration and low price

Selling nothing but profit

Selling one and deceiving one

So only choosing a brand is the best guarantee!

Counterfeit and shoddy goods are low in price

But they seriously threaten personal safety

If you buy one fewer iPhone 7

If you buy one fewer set of cosmetics

If you go to the bar one fewer time

If you buy one fewer bottle of perfume

 ………

Then you can buy genuine bathroom fixtures

Then you can guarantee

Your family’s safety and lives

Here we call on consumers

Originally published in WeChat by Guang Dong Sheng Wei Yu Shang Hui v on 2017-08-10. Translated and edited for English-language readers.