Extended Warranties and Service Plans

If you've been reading my blog, and from the look of the comments, you haven't, you'll know I work at RadioShack. At "The Shack" (as corporate would like it to be known as from now on) we offer a one or two year extended warranty on most products. It costs more, obviously, and the selling point I am required to bring up is that if it breaks or malfunctions, you can bring it back in and we'll pull a brand new one off the shelf for you.

I guess "The Shack" works...

Let's say you come in and buy a nice pair of headphones for 20 bucks. The "service plan" on those guys costs $6.99. SIX additional dollars. It is unbelievably hard to convince someone to spend six more dollars on a set of headphones. It turns the easy twenty dollar purchase into a thirty dollar purchase. That is kind of a big difference. If the headphones were 19.99, the service plan costs $3.49. Almost no one buys them, and if you do, lets face it: It's because you're gullible. 

Every time the option comes up, I am faced with two ways to sell the plan:

A) C'mon! It's just three extra dollars. If they break or even go out, you'll be covered! And for a whole year! C'monnnnnnn!

Option A

B) I'd recommend getting this service plan because our shitty products will definitely fuck up within a year.

Option B

Option B may not necessarily be true, but I have to spend a lot of energy talking about not only how they will break, but why they will break. 

Take for example cell phone car chargers for an iPhone. It starts out at $24.99. Not too bad. Definitely not the cheapest. The service plan is $6.99. That turns it into a 34ish dollar purchase after tax, unbelievably expensive for a cell phone charger. As such, almost no one does it. But I have memorized a speech that my manager taught my about how they don't make them with fuses anymore, blah, blah, blah, and if you leave it in the lighter when you turn on the car it will get a shock, blah, blah, blah, you should definitely buy it, blah, blah, blah, I don't make any money off of it, blah.

Oh wait, I do make money off of it. I get commission for how many service plans I sell. 

It's tough to justify a 7 dollar gamble on the off chance that something breaks. Especially when the thing gets limited use.

The sad thing is: Stuff breaks ALL the time. How many times have you washed your iPod headphones? Stood on them? Dropped your phone? Cracked your screen? Dropped a bluetooth or something? All of that is covered in the service plan. I had this old woman bring in a phone that had been mauled by her cats. Hey, it was covered. 

As for me, I would not buy the plan. 

But then again I would break whatever it was I bought. I've only had one pair of headphones that I haven't lost or broke, and those are my music-making headphones. 

Whatever. For now, I'll stick to the typical gamble.

After all, only suckers buy those plans.

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My headphone's left ear just went out.

Shoulda got that plan.