As the economic turmoil swishes around us, quality will often be sacrificed for price stability! Suddenly things don't work as well as they used to, paper is thinner, soap is less soapy, restaurants are using different cuts of meat etc..
Sometimes this is not a bad thing. Take cheaper cuts of meat for example - A talented chef, as long as she/he is prepared to put in the time can produce great food from these.
Sometimes it sucks! Our first encounter with this came in the summer - admitedly before the current fiasco but remember those days when gas prices were spiralling out of control? - it was our candles!
Candles are a petroleum based product and as the cost of crude went up, so the quality of our 10 hr tealights went down. So much so that we were relighting candles at tables every 10 minutes, every time a customer breathed, their hopes of a romantic candlelit dinner would be blown.
On top of this our supplier, in line with everyone else started charging a fuel surcharge on deliveries. I know what you're thinking. Now that fuel prices are low, this problem at least should be solved. But things are even tighter now, it's unlikely that anyone will take that fuel charge off or upgrade to a more expensive product at the same price - perhaps they should though, to give them that edge over the competition that is so necessary in this economy!
Candles are a petroleum based product and as the cost of crude went up, so the quality of our 10 hr tealights went down. So much so that we were relighting candles at tables every 10 minutes, every time a customer breathed, their hopes of a romantic candlelit dinner would be blown.
On top of this our supplier, in line with everyone else started charging a fuel surcharge on deliveries. I know what you're thinking. Now that fuel prices are low, this problem at least should be solved. But things are even tighter now, it's unlikely that anyone will take that fuel charge off or upgrade to a more expensive product at the same price - perhaps they should though, to give them that edge over the competition that is so necessary in this economy!
Anyway to cut a long ramble short we finally gave in and ordered up rechargeable fake candles - the horror - how tacky would they look and what would our customers say?
They came the next day. We'd selected the votive holders made of carved out wax to make it look more real and believe it or not, we haven't looked back since. Our customers love them because they can use them to read menus without spilling hot wax down their wrist, our crew love them because there's no more having to risk life and limb digging wax out of glass votive holders with a knife waiting either for the holder to break or the knife to slip and I love them because in 10 months time I will start saving money.
We've also decreased our carbon footprint.
So everyone's happy - except of course the candle maker and distributor!
Every night someone asks me where to get these candles so here's the link!
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6 comments:
I've gotta say -- I love the optimism!
Great solution--I'd assumed they'd be incredibly tacky, but the faux candles look well enough.
I am pleased you took the time and wrote this???
Find and select some good things from you and it aids me to solve a problem, thanks.
- Henry
last week our class held a similar discussion on this subject and you point out something we have not covered yet, appreciate that.
- Kris
Man, really want to know how can you be that smart, lol...great read, thanks.
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