Bad Purchasing Decisions Can Be Costly

We recently had a party at our house, and I learned a valuable lesson about purchasing decisions. For part of the table decorations, I decided to use some beautiful candelabras that have been in the family.  There were many errands and purchases involved for the party, so I purchased the candles at a large chain hobby and supply store where I was already getting some other things for the party and Christmas decorating in general. They were very inexpensive candles, but they had everything I needed them to have – they were the right color, they had wax and a wick. Perfect, right? Let’s get the party started!

Now for the lesson, the party was great, but these candles dripped worse than any candle I have ever seen. Despite having the wax catchers on the candelabras, the wax still spilled over onto the tablecloth. A very nice tablecloth, that was not inexpensive, and I relied on it for many occasions. No AI or search engine results could offer enough tips to salvage the tablecloth, so it is now in the trash. I will never buy cheap candle sticks again, especially if there is a chance they will be lit!

It reminded me of how, especially with technology, business purchasing decisions are often based on cost or convenience rather than choosing the best equipment or solution for the business. Foregoing best-practice security like MFA because it is inconvenient can have devasting and expensive consequences. Choosing the least expensive computers, printers and networking equipment very often costs more in the long run, especially if you consider downtime and frustration costs. Choosing to use wireless printers in an office to avoid the cost of running cable will almost certainly cost more in time and support issues than the cabling drop would have. I could come up with more examples, but now I need to go buy a new table cloth. 🤦🏼‍♀️