(Untitled)

[lacuna]

When you're thinking of buying a product, what aspects do you consider? I'm looking for obvious things - cost, brand name, etc - and perhaps the less immediately obvious, such as ethical sourcing, environmental impact and so on. I may need lots of this sort of information for an interview quite soon and I'd be grateful for all your ideas!

Comments

[bitospud]

Annoying answer: it depends on the product

[lacuna]

Are there particular types of products you want to know about? It's quite hard to answer this generally.

No, I just wanted a few general ideas of what you might consider - what you've said is fine! I have an interview at Taylor Nelson Sofres next week and have just been brainstorming.

[kermitbantam]

I normally look first for whether it is ethically sourced- how local is the product, is it fairtrade, how many food miles does it have. I then consider cost- is the cost prohibitive for my budget? I'll pay a premium for ethical goods but I can't afford to pay double or triple what the unethical goods cost. I normally consider brand last, because generally you pay a brand premium without getting the extra quality.

[feanelwa]

If it is food, whether it contains sweeteners and flavour enhancers that will make me ill.
Whether it is well made - edges sanded, or seams finished properly, doesn't contain non-food things used as a substitute for ingredients that are actually food, etc.
Whether it is ethical - unethicalness can veto something that is well made, though if something is unethically made it is usually not well made, because the nature of screwing employees over is that your employees are then hungry, tired and determined to put in as little effort as possible.
Whether it has advertising printed on it.

[bitospud]

I fear you're going to get quite a one-sided set of responses from your like-minded friends list - I'd go along with the gist of what's been said so far. I like that last point about 'whether it has advertising printed on it' - I really hate any clothing with a logo/name on it and avoid them at almost all costs, although I must admit to literally one or two shirts which were so brightly coloured that I overlooked relatively subtle logos for designers I hadn't actually heard of ;)

Unfortunately I suspect that we ethically minded, anti-advertising buyers that have replied to you are in a minority among the general populace, albeit one which I'd like to think is growing, but probably doing so slowly :) Plenty of people will buy clothes almost entirely because of the logos that appear on them, I fear.

Paul

[lacuna]

It's OK - I have come up with a lot of potential answers myself and won't solely be relying on these answers! This is just to check things I haven't missed, it's not meant to be a representative poll.

[castlerigger]

With food, I try to stay local. I get wound up with people who think that fair trade honey from Zambia is somehow more ethical than honey from someone ten miles down the road. SO, the whole "food miles" thing is a concern. I try to buy from the market and if I go to the supermarket I just don't buy some things if they're from somewhere far away. Strawberries, for example, I only eat in season when they're British, asparagus the same... I don't always think non-organic is bad, though I try to stick with it if possible. Again though, if something organic has come from Holland and the non-organic cauliflower is from lincolnshire, I go for that. I try to avoid MSG and meat products in trace amounts, so I will read the label for things... especially sweets or crisps and such. Finally, I do look at the calories in things quite a lot