Value or Volume

13 February 2018, Comments Comments Off on Value or Volume

Value or Volume. (Part One, well I think it’s too bigger a question to debate in one post).

It feels a bit like that that immortal quote from Hamlet “To be or not to be” which reminds me of my old daily commute into London heading east up the M4 and then approaching Earls Court turning right down towards the embankment, where every morning I would see two cars parked next to each other with the best number plates ever “2B” and “NOT 2B”.

What relevance I hear you ask does this have to do with value or volume. Absolutely nothing I just thought it was a nice story or my daily traffic struggle on the way into the city sometimes shared with my good friend David.

So onwards with the Value or Volume debate. Do we now live in a consumer driven market where it is just the cheapest online price that wins the day, or are there still consumers amongst us do put stock in expertise and knowledge and at what cost does this come? Well, in this business the cost in time and recourses is massive but is it too great to keep supporting? Training courses, remote access software, demonstration facilities, (a recent old Facebook memory prompted that it is in fact award winning) online support, offline support, out of hours support, even when it’s not related to a printer we have sold. Gosh I already feel like this post has the potential to go on forever, where I can recant the various different aspects of support we offer, and perhaps over the coming weeks I shall indeed recall the largely different aspects of support we have offered to our customers be they little or large blue chip or sole trader.

So here is the question is this still valid are there those that still see this value, we like to think that after nearly half a lifetime doing this, we have value to add to our customers businesses, in how to get the best from there printer, how to best manage colour, how to get the best print out, pitfalls, what to avoid, how best to work with matt black in on fine art paper, the list goes on and on. Here we are, asking ourselves if in the majority this is still the case, when all I seem to see from the market, is this low-cost base model that sell online for little and in some cases no profit because, well they can. We are not a cheap to run business where it counts, because we have invested in systems and knowledge and printers for our customers and potential customers to come and play with, all of this cost money. Money from profit. Are we falling into the Jessops trap where if you wanted to see a camera you went into one of their stores, held it, played with it, took pictures with it, then went on amazon and purchased it and we wonder why Jessops had a hard time went to the wall, to be resurrected by a dragon no less, and seem to be doing well once again.

Why buy from us, this is subject that Chris and I have been working on a lot recently, how can we show our potential customers to put their trust in us. Well keep coming back and take a look, better still come and a coffee (or tea) here at RGB HQ and see for yourself why, we are not some non-descript serviced office, but real people who have lot to offer those of us that still look at the overall cost of ownership and not just a headline price, from a keyboard warrior hiding behind a glossy front end. All show and no go. Challenge us to save you time and money on our value led support and solutions. More on this later!

And that makes this my second post a week apart, i wonder if i can keep this post rate up……………..

Ben