Arizona iced tea is still 99 cents.
Arizona Iced Tea
Dudes a multi-billionaire and doesn’t understand how someone could want more.
That’s why he puts the MSRP on the cans even tho he can’t control store prices. Most stores still sell it at 99c, because they’re still making profit on it.
He could sell them for 2x and barely lose any sales, but why?
I heard this story before and it is truly amazing how the CEO still stands behinds his principles and values.
It would be a lot more common if we had anti-monopoly laws still.
There used to be a shit ton of regional stuff like this where one family owned everything, and 10 million a year was good enough instead of needing x% growth forever.
If you’re not cutting every corner to make the quarterly % increase constantly go up, workers aren’t getting fucked over as much, at least not every time. So everyone losses when we have mega corps. And that’s the natural result of unregulated capitalism
LEGO comes to mind. Not cheap, but definitely knows how to keep a healthy and active relationship with their customers.
I’m a big Lego fan and I agree that they are one of the best in this regard. However, they’ve taken up some relatively new practices such as compromising mold and instruction quality in favor of faster production, conditioning kids to gamble with minifigure loot boxes, commandeering a cornerstone of the secondhand market (BrickLink), and gatekeeping certain themes or genres behind massive price tags, which are not in the favor of customers in general.
Edit: There’s definitely been some price gouging with certain sets/themes too, ex. 76232 and 76292; and lazy designs and cheaping out on play/quality, ex. 76314. The Pharrell Williams movie and sets also don’t sit right with me because it feels like anybody can just buy their way into the medium/merchandise now. The Red Bull and Kick sponsors on the new F1 cars additionally are not true to how you’d want to think of the brand.
I hate the loot boxes and I hate the priced out gatekeeping
The minifig loot box thing bugs me
I like it. It gives me a nice way to give my kids little gifts that don’t take up much space. If I had to pick specific ones it wouldn’t work as well.
With that said, I do use an app to make sure they’re not getting duplicates.
I loved them as a kid and just bought a 3 in 1 kit for my Granddaughters Easter basket. She is nutty balls over Legos. That company has secured multi-generational love.
I second this one. LEGO is really well made, the sets are well designed, and the instructions are some of the best you’ll ever see in any build-it-yourself product of any kind.
If you do the math as time has gone on the average set has gotten far more complex and used more pieces. If you look at the prices from a the perspective of price per individual Lego piece I am pretty sure they have pretty much stayed the same price the entire time. I watched a YouTube video essay about it like a year ago so it’s probably still true today.
Lego quality is still good but has noticeably degraded over the years.
Steam.
Yup, Valve is still in it for the money of course, but the customer really does come first. I’ve used their support a few times and they’ve always been stellar. I will always buy Valve products.
Yeah, shoulda said Valve, rather than Steam.
Only partially and only to certain customers
Meh, having experienced their deny and defend customer service, I’m not impressed. If there is no way to escalate an issue beyond someone who refuses to pull their head out of their own ass long enough to see an issue objectively, you’re stuck and there’s no recourse.
Chewy dog food will send you flowers and a refund if you pet died.
I called their customer support, and a person answered. Like, right away. I was caught completely off guard. They resolved my issue in under a minute.
My sleepy brain was reading this as if your pet dies from eating their pet food.
Still applies
Mailbox.org They could go all the way and become “cool and cloud” but decided not to.
Haix While their customer service is not what it used to be they are still more than decent to a point it hurts their sales.
With my last one I am not 100% convinced: Mikrotik. While their stuff I great and cheap for what it does, I also had one really lacking support experience with them (they forgot to pack the rack ears for a switch and neither the vendor nor they could somehow get me ones. Another premium partner of them helped me for free and since then will always get my business). But in total they are still the good guys I think.
Saddleback Leather springs to mind. Their stuff is expensive but they have a 100 year warranty and their tag line is “They’ll fight over it when you’re dead”. I have a couple of their bags, belts, and wallets. I don’t expect to ever need to replace them.
First thing I bought from them was a briefcase back in 2011. About three years after I bought it one of the steel D-Rings for the strap failed and they paid courier fees for me to return the briefcase from the UK, replaced the part, cleaned the bag up, and sent it back, no questions asked.
Full disclosure: 1) they’re an American company which might put some off buying in the current climate and 2) the founder is a devout Christian which might put others off but none of their products have ever tried to make me a believer so I’m ok with it.
Patagonia is solid. Osprey (packs) recently sold to a conglomerate but I have an old pack I can send in soon to test their “we will repair it no matter what” guarantee.
That Osprey news is new to me. That’s a shame. Hopefully they don’t go to shit fast.
There is a local employee owned hardware store near me that will go out of their way to make you a deal. No idea how they do it, plenty of employees around to ask questions and some of the best prices around.
I’m not sure if this is any longer the case but I’ve heard that Leatherman, despite “only” having a 25 year gurantee will pretty much repair/replace any of their multitools you send them no matter how old.
When a friend broke the saw blade on my Leatherman (which was ~15 years old), I sent it back to them for repair. A short while later I received a brand new Leatherman with a letter saying they were so sorry, but they didn’t have parts for my old model anymore, so they sent me a brand new, better model. The letter also said they understood people had emotional connections to their tools, so if I decided I wanted the old broken tool back instead, they would hold onto it for me for a few months, and all I’d need to do was email them asking to swap.
10/10 the best customer service I’ve ever received.
I bought the last one at my Costco for $30-$50. My wife kept asking me why would I need it when I already have all of the other tools it has. She didn’t get it. Still doesn’t. I’m so happy to have this thing at work. Comes in really handy. It’s good to hear about Leatherman being a good company. What’s that? Have I ever used it? Well… Not yet, but I know a situation will eventually arise and I will be glad to have it readily available.
I use mine a lot, but it’s even more frequent that I think “damn, my leatherman is in my backpack and I could really use it right now”
It still is as far as I know
Their tools though have gotten crazy expensive.
Los Pollos Hermanos where customer satisfaction is guaranteed
In France, we have this : https://cestquilepatron.com/
The concept is that customers are asked questions to make a new product that satisfies them. For example, they want to sell apples. They will ask in what country they should buy them, how well the farmer should be paid, what size… and you see in real time how it affects the price. Then, the product will be sold in supermarkets at that price
There is also mutual insurance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance
Inherently all brands care about profit as they need money to function but I get what you mean.
I’m generally not one for brand loyalty but if you need a motorcycle you really can’t go wrong with any Yamaha and if you need a knife Benchmade has been unbelievably good to me even when I send it ones with snapped off tips years after purchase to get repaired/replaced.
Needing money to function isn’t profit, those are operating costs… Profit is the money leftover after all costs to make and manufacture something has been paid.
For the prices Benchmade is asking for their wares they better damn well have a great after sales lol
I’m not in the US though so paying that much extra for a warranty that they’ll most likely not cover is moot personally
Agree on Yamaha bikes though. They are aplenty here in my country along with Honda. Can go anywhere to get parts and repairs
Yeah that’s fair. Benchmade is definitely only worth it if you live in the US…
I was gonna say all the Japanese bikes are worth it (and they mostly are) but I have ran into some stinkers from Kawasaki and Suzuki in my life very rarely though. Honda has never done anything wrong to me I just don’t really care for red lol
Inherently all brands
All publicly traded brands…
Believe it or not even private ones still need to to make money to keep working. Granted they aren’t trying to also make extra money to keep investors happy.
All brands and businesses are trying to make money. The question is are they also trying to buy a third yatch or are they just happy with being able to give all their employees a good raise and Christmas bonus every year.
All brands and businesses are trying to make money
But only publicly traded ones will trade the brand recognition they’ve built for short term profits…
Investors care about quarterly growth, which literally cannot keep constantly increasing.
A private company could have a flat dollar goal for yearly profit. And not give a shit if that number goes up 100k a year at the detriment to long term profits
I thought that didn’t need explaining, but I can admit when I’m wrong.
Dischord Records.
Fugazi record label.
Record/CD prices are capped low to cover production and distribution costs.
Personal contact and service, with real people, when ordering.
Live show prices were capped at $5.
A focus on real connection between artists and fans, rather than extracting maximum profit using music as a vehicle.
Live shows were excellent.
Probably a very niche answer, but Korbel winery in California has gone above and beyond to help me out on several occasions, and real people actually answer the phone when you call customer service. I don’t know anything about their owner or politics, but I’ve had nothing but outstanding experiences with them.
