Cheap

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper and people who consider price alone are this man’s lawful prey.

John Ruskin

"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you loose a little money. When you pay too little, you sometimes loose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot--it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better".

John Rushkin 1819-1900

English author, architect and economist.

I can't begin to tell how namy times I made the described Mistake and Suffered and Followed the described Wisdom and Prospered.


[This message has been edited by JimK (edited 09-17-2003).]

I was told by my father: "When you're poor, you can't afford to buy the cheapest because you can only afford to buy it once." I know that he would either buy a good quality something or do without.

It's worked well for me over the years.
BTW - he is a pharmacist, and I don't think that he ever read John Ruskin.

Whenever I see these Ruskin quotes posted in a business environment, I get uneasy. Their content to too close to that of the blatently-false adage "You get what you pay for" so commonly cited by sleazy salesmen.

Certainly Ruskin could have been making a sincere effort to remind his audience that the cheapest products may be inadequate, but the quality of those products is not increased by simply increasing their prices.

I'd be far more comfortable with the less eloquent "While there is such a thing as a bargain, you seldom get more than you pay for."

John