Over the last couple of years a huge number of people have now chosen to rent their domestic appliance. So What's making rental so appealing to people? and why has it only become so popular in the last couple of years?
THE ANSWER: Reliability It's true, many of our most popular domestic appliances are not made as well as they used to be. The problem is that many manufacturers who used to make good, reliable products are no longer making them to the same standards as they once did. Many previously trusted manufacturers have also been taken over by other companies who have then produced their own (lower quality) appliance in their place, but kept the original name.
As competition in the market increased with the publics obsession with price, rather than maintaining quality and seeing their products inevitably rise in price, many of these manufacturers have found themselves constantly having to reduce quality to keep their appliances competitively priced. This has meant ditching tried and tested methods and designs in favour of cheaper new production methods and cheaper suppliers of parts.
The natural rise in production costs over the years has seen the best quality new appliances reach prices that the majority of people won't accept because these realistic prices seem high compared to the common household name appliances. On the other hand, mass production on a global scale, buying up of manufacturers by global companies and dumbing down of quality, has made the budget end of new appliances cheaper to buy than ever before, but comparatively more expensive than ever before to repair. For example a washing machine made by a particular brand in the 1990's would have cost £400, this same brand are now selling a similar spec washing machine in 2007 for £250 even though production cost have gone up.
But not all brands are the same. Their are still a small few that have kept true and still build quality appliance. The only problem is that you will need to spend between £500 to over £1000 for a decent washing machine.
So your options are:
- Buy cheap and have the hassel of breakdowns and expensive repair costs.
- Break the bank and buy a quality machine.
- Rent a quality machine for a low monthly price, with peace of mind that your covered by a free same day call out and repair service.
I know which one i'd choose!
For information on renting appliances - please click here |
