John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Product Replacement Plans

I know some people swear by the value of “Product Replacement Plans.” (PRPs)

You know those 15-20% of the sale price insurance policies that if the product breaks shortly after you buy i you get it replaced easily?

I don’t care for them, personally.

They suggest to me either that somebody is layering in another layer profit margin (since products sold new are supposed to work) or are we are making products so poorly that customers need to buy insurance against the product breaking in the first few months. Neither seems an appealing conclusion.

Do other countries push PRPs like we in the US?

It seems more a sign of clever sales gimmickry, in my view. But subconsciously sends the message that “We don’t make things well.”

Imagine if McDonald’s tried to sell us a PRP at 20% of each meal to protect against food poisoning? And people bought it!

Or the next time I bought a watch paying an extra 15% for PRP against the watch not telling time?

I just left office supply shop and was asked about a PRP for a technology item. I asked, “Why? Is something wrong with it? Should I expect it to break in a few months?”

The salesperson laughed and so did I….but I was sort of serious, too.

Although I didn’t say anything more I wanted to add “If you don’t have more confidence than that in this product, I don’t want to buy it. Is there another product that works well enough that it doesn’t need insurance against breaking right away?”

Maybe I will add that the next time. Or tell them I’ll come back when they are selling products that won’t break so easily.