Good vacuums aren't cheap and cheap vacuums aren't good!

Products today are sourced from all around the world, in fact over 80% of the world’s volume for vacuums comes out of Asia these days. They are a lot of good factories in Asia for different industries, but portable vacuums isn’t regarded as one of them.

The vacuums today that are sold in the big box stores are sold on price, not on quality. It is like buying a soda out of a vending machine, no expectations and no service after the sale. Specialty shops, www.kcvacuums.com that sell vacuums are in a very niche market. Since they are very specialized, they normally have great depth of knowledge since this is all they do.  When’s the last time you were in Lowes and asked someone about a vacuum part and got a startling educated answer-doesn’t happen, nor do you expect that from a hardware giant.

The vacuums that are sold in vacuum stores are the same vacuums that we use in our own homes, we personally visit the factories where they manufacture and test them. We also have access to their full time engineers that help us solve industry challenges. They also have dedicated field reps. that visit us and help us with sales & marketing techniques.

If I were shopping today for a vacuum or cleaning product,  I would start researching on-line first to get a feel for what the price range of vacuums sell for and then go into a specialty retailer, “like mine” to get our opinion on a particular product.  It only makes sense, on an average week we repair between 25-35 vacuums which could easily equate to over 1200 vacuums per year…..…of those vacuums about two-thirds of them are built to last 1 to 3 years. You could say we see a lot of vacuums and we can be trusted to tell you the history on virtually any vacuum in the market.

If you are in the market for a new vacuum, you should have real expectations for that vacuum cleaner purchase, and some things to consider could be;

a.     How long do you want to own this vacuum? (do you live in apt., college dorm, are you renting or do you own your house). Do I want to have this new vacuum 1- 5-10-15 years?

b.     How much is your time worth? This means, when you get your vacuum out to clean, you probably want to get it done and move on to something more interesting. If you have a cleaning person doing the cleaning for you, you want to make absolutely sure they are being effective with their time while they are vacuuming. So the vacuum you buy needs to have the right amount of power, have  the tools on board, will not break down all the time and will keep my carpets & furniture looking new for years to come.

c.      Take it for a test drive! When you go shopping for car, you normally take it for a test drive, right? Same thing with a vacuum from a vacuum retailer, ask if you could try it at home. If you are going to make an investment of your time and hard earned money shopping for a vacuum, just don’t read the box about it, vacuum with it!

So this is the final thought on this topic, it’s not what you are paying today; it is the total opportunity cost over the life of the vacuum that you have invested in. If you buy vacuums every 3 years @ $300, and have down time due to broken belts, clogged hoses and little or no suction, not to mention a very unattractive house in the end, you really have wasted your money, but more importantly you have wasted your time and time is something that is lost forever. So choose your vacuum carefully, so someone doesn’t have to apologize for poor quality forever