Off brand, name brand, and quality. (Part I)

Being a young guy working as a plumbing and housewares salesman has it’s challenges. The biggest being that when I started working I had hardly any product knowledge whatsoever. I knew where I few things were in the store, but I couldn’t tell you much about them. After almost two years though, I have learned a thing or two about the stuff I sell, and now I’m passing it on to you. Since I do spend most of my time working with and selling plumbing products, that’s what I’ll be focusing on.

I’ll start with a scenario: You are remodeling your master bathroom, on a budget mind you. You walk into a home improvement store to buy a vanity (bathroom cabinet), counter top, and fixtures (faucet, tub/shower).

The first thing you notice is that vanities cost nearly twice as much as the kitchen cabinets you bought last year. In fact, if you want a four foot vanity your cheapest option is somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars. The nicer looking cabinets are closer to five hundred dollars!

No doubt still feeling a sharp pain where your pocketbook is, you decide to move on to the faucets.

Your wife has picked out a color scheme that just has to have a brushed nickel look to your fixtures. Much to your dismay, you don’t see anything that fits the bill for under one hundred dollars. But wait! There, in the next isle down you see another whole line of faucets. Sure, you don’t recognize the brand right off the bat, but the prices are as much as fifty dollars cheaper then the Moens and Deltas that you were looking at first.

What is a budget-conscious consumer to do?

We’ll start with the bathroom vanities.

Let’s take something I’m used to selling: a 48 by 21 unfinished vanity. Four drawers, two doors, basic setup. The price tag says 299.00. Try lifting it. Lighter then you expected, huh? See, it says it’s unfinished oak, but in reality the only real wood you’re getting is on the front of the doors and drawers. The rest is a type of plywood with a sanded down paneling glued on to it that will accept whichever stain you decide on. The cabinet itself is made on an assembly line, with the sections held together by plastic brackets at the corners and 2″x3″ steel plates on the back.

Upgrading a couple hundred bucks gets you a significant step up in quality. Real wood all the way through. Instead of plastic brackets, the corners are dovetailed (along with the drawers). The drawer hardware itself is a step up in quality, with steel all the way through instead of steel glides held to the back of the cabinet with plastic brackets. These cabinets are made by a single person, handmade from start to finish. (This is also true with just about all special order vanities, accounting for the four-five week order times on most of those products.) You are much less likely to see “steps” in the doors (one door higher then the other) or gaps between the doors.

In my next post I’ll cover then price difference between kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Stay tuned for the exciting continuation!