Mark Choon

How many times would you seek a second, alternative opinion on items that

need repair or fixing? I think most of us won’t. We’ll just throw away the spoilt item and just buy a new one. Most of the time this is the case as repair costs of products nowadays most of the time, exceeds the price of a brand new one.

We can buy a much better model of the same product and price, and if we are really lucky, at an even cheaper price. It doesn’t make monetary sense to spend more on repair, especially if the repair process is troublesome or if the product is already past the warranty date.

Today I was glad that I decided to get a second opinion. I have a chrono Irony Swatch watch that had its hands alignment out of place and it wasn’t running right. So I brought it to a Swatch outlet at Plaza Singapura last weekend to get it looked at. The lady at the outlet took my watch, fiddled with it and shortly after concluded that it needed repair. She told me to find the warranty card and send it in for repair. She then said that without the warranty, repair would be more expensive than buying a new watch and not worth it. I was kind of put off by that comment so I just said thanks and walked out.

Back to today, I brought that watch to the Swatch outlet at Raffles City. The guy who attended to me took my watch and went to troubleshoot on it. A few minutes later, he then told me that the battery just needed replacement and the alignment was easily rectified. He even taught me how to fix the alignment if it screwed up again! Cost of the battery? Just $8.

This got me thinking. I would have spent over a hundred bucks to get a new watch if I listened to the first opinion at the first branch I was at. Now, I am really glad I went for a second opinion and saved a hundred bucks!

So did the lady in the first branch, just quickly jump to the conclusion that repair is needed and knowing that repair would be expensive, suggest to me that buying a new one is cheaper so that she could get a sale?

Hmm… I wonder.