RE: Commission acts to guarantee UK Consumer rights under the Guarantees Directive

["Kenneth Watt" <kwatt@xxxxxxx>]

> Thing is mark, look at what Ken is saying: the rest of the
industry
feels
> pressured into a race for the lowest quality to bolster numbers.
In
> essence,
> what Mark McC says is the end result too: no manufacturing in the
UK.

Points to note here are, that the whitegoods sector, in particular IME,
does not have glossy mags lined up on WH Smith's shelves like the car
industry does and therefore does not come under anywhere near as much
scrutiny. This is turn leads to the opinion that it is a tool from the
customer and that one is as good as another, it's only a white box that
does a job seems to be the unvarying opinion for the vast majority of
customers and therefore it comes down to a battle on price and little
else.

Likewise the same seems to happen in the IT industry with PC components
but the customer's expectations are *far* lower in that arena in regard
to lifespan, or at least the useful lifespan, so the product's useful
life is perceived to be far, far shorter. So lower prices along with a
lower quality is expected and tolerated in the main.

Browngoods, from the mid sector upwards and hi-fi in particular comes
under almost as much scrutiny as cars and is therefore subject to
criticism as well for the most part. Whilst at the lower end it is more
a "filler" article or review you see and this escapes the worst
of that.

I would imagine that Mark's industry is much the same in that there is
little reference for the customer to make an informed decision on what
to buy, which is the true point here. Customers in the main are in the
dark with a great many purchases, they just don't realise it when they
buy! In stark contrast, most people, when buying a car do their
homework, test the goods, order to *their* specification to suit
*their*
needs and to suit their target price. Most of this is either not
possible or too difficult for some people to do with normal consumer
goods.

K.

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