We were at the Jusco for the annual Members’ Day where Jusco Card members get discounts off selected items. I was actually there to buy a vacuum cleaner since my old Toshiba died on me last year (yes, people, I have not vacuumed my apartment since last year! I know. How awful. But I use the broom ok? But still, with Margaret the cat around, sweeping still won’t do a good job.)
That was why I found myself in the Home Appliance floor.
The thing with vacuum cleaners is – we have too many choices. I know some people live and die by the brands they grew up with (Nic for instance hates Pensonic products and won’t ever buy any Pensonic product – his fave brand is Panasonic). My aunt lives by Philips – anything she buys must be a Philips appliance. It must be a throwback to the days when my uncle (her brother) used to work for that Dutch company. I don’t have such a preference though I know that I’ve always had a National rice cooker and when my old rice cooker died, I went in search of a replacement and bought a National rice cooker!
So when we were hunting for a vacuum cleaner, so many brands popped up!
Electrolux, Hitachi, Toshiba….the list was endless. Plus many China brands we’d never heard of. And then there was the tough choice – bag or bagless? No wonder serious shopping trips are such a headache. So many decisions, so many risks to take!
I was thinking, let’s be environment-friendly and get a bag-less vacuum cleaner which is all the rage now.
Actually if given a choice, I’ll buy the iRobot Roomba cleaning robot but that’s a real luxury to save up for!
This little cool device is a robot that helps vacuum your floors automatically. You don’t need to lift a finger. But hey, robots don’t come cheap. So that’s on MY wish list. But really, it’s easy justifying why I need a two thousand ringgit plus vacuum cleaner. I’ll save so much of time!
Anyway, while we were discussing whether to buy a bag-less vacuum or not, we kind of detoured to the refrigerator section. My fridge is so damn old that I really need one but as consumers, again, we’re so confused by all the shapes and sizes of fridges.
A sales promoter bounced up to us when he saw me opening and closing the Panasonic fridge.
So we asked him what was a good size for a fridge say for a family of four. Besides NOT knowing the answer to that question (I was thinking maybe 355 liters is a good family size), he said we could buy whatever size we liked!
Of course we could but that’s not the answer you dummy. I mean, he could have asked questions like – do you cook? How often? Do you buy lots of fresh food to stock up? Do you have a budget? Are you looking for a green, eco-friendly fridge?
Well Nic being Nic – he gets turned off by fools easily so that day, the sales promoter could have closed a decent sale (since we were captivated by the sale price of the fridge!) but he didn’t. We walked off because we found the guy to be totally inept and untrained to focus on customers’ needs.
Anyway, if you, like me, are looking to buy an electrical appliance and don’t know how to choose, why don’t you go for something that does not guzzle electricity? It’s hard of course to decide what is really suitable but this Singaporean website gives you tips on which home appliances to buy especially if you are a greenie like me. It even has a database of registered goods for you to search for that energy consumption saver.
In the end, we bought our vacuum – a compact little thing from Hitachi. We decided on a regular vacuum with bag because I really didn’t fancy washing out the vacuum container (in the bag-less version).
By the way, what is your fave appliance brand? And more importantly, why?