How many times have you gone to the hardware store looking for a tool and seen many different brands? If you're like me, you may have bought the tool that had the lowest price. Also, like me, you probably took the tool home and used it, broke it or lost it, and had to replace it. As for replacing lost tools, hey, sometimes inanimate objects seem to find legs of their own and walk off. However, with broken tools did you ever say to yourself ‘if I only bought that higher quality, slightly more expensive tool…’? I know I have on many occasions. Yet we proceed to go back to the hardware store and buy the same second rate tools. You'd think we might learn after the second or third screwdriver, but we don’t. Well, I have finally learned my lesson and I am going to share with you why quality, although slightly more expensive, is worth the extra cost.

I can guess you are probably thinking that the extra money for quality tools is profit alone. It’s not. If high quality tool manufacturers were interested in just making profits, they would not produce high quality tools. They would produce second rate tools in bulk at the lowest cost, and make their profit on the replacement of your broken tools. The extra dollar or more that we pay for the quality tools goes into that quality itself. For example: take a pair of pliers, you have one pair of high quality pliers and a pair of second rate pliers. They look the same, but when you use them with a little more strength then usual, the second rate pliers break. This is due to the lack of stability in the steel they were made with. Before the steel was actually molded into the shape for the pliers, it was in a liquid form and it was being folded over on itself. This creates layers in the steel, which makes it stronger. With higher quality tools this process is repeated over and over again. So, the extra money we would pay for the higher quality goes into the time and processes it takes to create better, stronger tools. This is why we can abuse the higher quality tools a little bit more and they don’t break like the second rate pliers.

Now, let’s discuss cost effectiveness. You might say to me, ‘well, the second rate tools are less to replace and the higher quality tools may still break’. There is some truth to this statement, however, with higher quality tools, the manufacturers are so sure of the quality of their tools that most of the time they add warranties to the product, so if they break, you can get them replaced for free. Granted you have to make a trip to the store, but you would have had to do that anyhow to purchase a new second rate tool. Ultimately, the higher quality works out better financially.

Yes, higher quality tools do cost more money, sometimes, but with that money going into the quality, making it more difficult to break the tool, and the better cost effectiveness, why would you want to buy anything other than higher quality tools? Sure, you could buy a set of tools that you could turn around and throw away if something happened, but wouldn’t you prefer something you could pass down to your kids after a lifetime of use? Who knows, your grandchildren might appreciate it.

Gadget Guy

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