The moral of the vacuum cleaner sale: Don’t get sucked in

Opinion: If you’re not the one driving the transaction there’s something wrong, writes Susan Edmunds.

There’s a saying in investing circles – if someone is trying to sell something to you, you probably don’t want it. It’s time that shoppers learnt this lesson, too.

The Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman revealed this week that her office had dealt with a complaint from a woman talked into paying more than $3200 for a vacuum cleaner.

The door-to-door salesman also convinced her to pay with a finance deal, which she later tried to get out of.

The ombudsman found in her favour, noting the finance company had failed in its responsible-lending duties, which are designed to stop lenders from making loans likely to leave borrowers in financial hardship.

The vacuum cleaner salesman had collected her income and expenditure data to submit to the finance company but omitted information that made her expenses look smaller.

Shoppers need to stop buying anything from people who use pressure tactics and turn up at their houses or on the phone, hawking a product.

If it was ever as good a product as they claim, or worth the (usually exorbitant) prices asked, it would not require such a sales offensive to get the deal done.

This is true of salespeople doing a hard sell but it’s also quite often true of the things that your friends and family sign up to sell through affiliate marketing arrangements.

When you have to use a party or event to distribute your goods – and you’re expected to rely on your network of family and friends to buy – it shows companies don’t think their products would stand out in a situation where consumers could compare them to others on a physical or virtual shop shelf.

‘‘Mary Kay, Avon, Tupperware, and other direct-selling businesses don’t have anonymous salespeople knocking on doors. Instead, they rely on social networks to sell their products,’’ said University of Auckland senior marketing lecturer Bodo Lang.

‘‘This has been a very successful technique for them for many decades. It is much more difficult to say ‘no’ to a friend compared to an anonymous salesperson. The social element within a safe environment (a friend’s house) also contributes to the success of this model.’’

Door-to-door and phone-marketing are pressure businesses that are designed to get you on your own with the person in question.

These are full-time salespeople, who’ve been trained in what they do. Consumers are caught off-guard, unprepared for an onslaught of information about something we usually had previously not even considered buying.

It’s not surprising that they target people who are at home alone during the day – often the elderly or unemployed who cannot afford the products they are spruiking.

There is never any need for shoppers to engage with these salespeople. If you want something, take charge of the transaction yourself.

The retail industry is changing quickly, but it’s an efficient one. Whatever you’re looking for, you will be able to find it either in a traditional shop or from an online retailer. Digital sellers’ algorithms and intuitive marketing platforms mean you’ll often not even have to look that hard.

But it should always be you going looking, not the salesperson driving the transaction.

When the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman, or any other scheme, gets a complaint like this, they should have a duty to immediately report it to the Commerce Commission.

Some financial gurus say we should all have heuristics, or little rules that we use to help guide our spending decisions.

One should be – I’ll only buy things when I’m driving the situation. No doorto-door salespeople, no ‘‘friendly’’ product parties or coffee afternoons. Just me, my credit card or cash, and the ability to survey an entire marketplace of options.