Buying locally

More years ago than I care to admit, the untidy pile of papers in my office started to rival Mt. Tapochau for height, and surpassed it in raw heft.

So I raced out and bought a scanner, and jumped into the digital archive world with both feet and my wallet.

Shortly thereafter, while the scanner’s box and manual were still atop my desk, an acquaintance happened by my office and promptly chided me for buying my scanner from a local Saipan merchant.

“You could’ve saved money by shopping on the Internet,” he said in know-it-all fashion.

I really hate that attitude. I gave that dude a lecture that ran roughly like so:

Saipan’s merchants have served the community admirably; anyone with any sense is awestruck that such a remote island can have so many stores, and even 24/7 availability of groceries and sundries. The merchants deserve the community’s support in return.

Furthermore, I would have lost money by buying online, since I wouldn’t have gotten the necessary support. Indeed, when I had trouble installing the scanner and associated software, I just took the scanner and my notebook computer to the merchant in Saipan; their technician worked his magic, and, presto, I was up and running in short order.

I once had the same experience with a printer, a truly expensive, top-of-the line model. Good thing I had a local Saipan vendor to get the thing working right, and in that case the technician went to my office.

Believe me, dealing with a local merchant beats the heck out of trying to troubleshoot software and hardware problems on your own, after having purchased such things from a distant box-vendor out of New Jersey, whose customer non-support center is in Bangalore.

If you go that route, you’ll eventually wind up having to call customer support, thus guaranteeing you’ll waste two hours of your time, minimum, while not solving the problem as some poor mook insults your intelligence by asking if the device in question is plugged in.

Do you know how many hardware problems I have solved by calling customer support at some distant vendor?

None.

Do you know how many software problems I have solved by calling customer support at some distant vendor?

None.

Do you know how many installation problems I have solved by calling customer support at some distant vendor?

None.

Gee, do you see a trend here?

This isn’t the fault of the phone-support people; it’s just the nature of the situation. If you can’t get your hands and eyeballs on the stuff in question, then trying to fix it becomes an exercise in utter futility.

Furthermore, I have never, ever, been cheated or chipped by a CNMI vendor. But I have seen plenty of slippery Internet vendors out there. And, in fact, in the big, anonymous world of the U.S. mainland, I’ve had to dispute credit card bills from positively crooked vendors.

Know something weird about the Commonwealth? A lot of people are totally ungrateful about everything. Then, when things get worse, they complain a lot. You see and hear plenty of that right now.

Anyone who doesn’t think they need local merchants will be unpleasantly surprised when those chickens come home to roost.

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“A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville
[I] (Ed Stephens Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. Contact him via his website, TropicalEd.com.)
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