Why I hate high-end brands...

It was year 2007, yeah this year only, when I visited Pantaloons in Mangalore (where it has just come up in a newly built mall) and purchased a trouser. Before that I have visited Pantaloons once in Spencer, Chennai but till this my view was neutral. I will correct myself here, I had never been "neutral", but have always hated these "brand"ed merchandise. Reason being only one, inspite of not much production cost difference they sell their items at much much higher price which actually I feel is draining the much needed money into the coffers of these retailers, which in turn doesn't end up back in our economy but ends up outside the country. After working in Retail domain for more than four years and that too working in Cost and Price systems, I have realised how these people end up fooling people.

What I was mentioning is that I purchased a trouser from Pantaloons (my last from this chain), at a price which I always felt was high for that piece of cloth. But still I bought one, thinking that quality will be better than others which come up at lower price. But to my surprise the quality of this "John Miller" (I would tell you about this brand in another blog) trouser was much worse than any other trousers. In its first wash only, the buttons broke in two, while my other trousers have gone through painful washing both in washing machine or sometime with dhoobi who would mercilessly beat it. But still the buttons were still intact.

This episode gave me a good learning, big brands are just good for window shopping, its much better to buy from Peter England where the trousers cost almost half of these prices but the quality is superb. At least their buttons doesn't break in its first wash :)

This is not just related to Pantaloons but to any other brand. In Mangalore, my most hated brand (which I never visit even for window shopping) is "Will's Lifestyle". What surprises me more is that when I look at the parent companies, all of them are Indian companies only. Pantaloons is Indian, Will's lifestyle is ITC brand.