Everybody’s had buyer’s remorse at one time or another. You make a purchase you’re excited about, only to change your mind or find a defect once it’s too late to make a return.
For some, this is a “live and learn” experience. Others have a hard time letting go, and the purchase eats at them day after day.
Whether you hope to learn from others’ mistakes, or you need a quick laugh to ease the pain of your own recent purchase, here are a few stories from the front lines of hasty commerce.
Impulse Buying
Pamela of Delaware couldn’t pass up a steal deal on brand-name ski boots. They were half off the regular price, but the only boots in the shop were half a size too small. She bought them anyway, and went less than a week before admitting defeat (with numb toes and everything). What looked at first to be $300 in savings turned into spending $300 for the cost of new boots that actually fit her.
Shopping Hungry
Everybody knows better than to shop hungry, but Jason of Connecticut made the mistake of shopping excited about a new hobby. New to multisports, he spent more than $2,000 on a high-end triathlon bike. He soon discovered, however, that his existing mountain bike was more comfortable, and could be upgraded to outperform the new bike for less than a grand.
Too Cute to Use
Jennifer of Oregon reports learning the hard way about buying light-colored clothing for her children. Children stain their clothes. It’s part of their basic programming. White clothing can be bleached, but yellows and pastels stain dark with use, then blotchy white with bleach. After going through several complete wardrobes, she sticks with whites and dark primary colors.
Presents for the Attic
Laura from Ireland tells a story about buying the perfect pair of sexy boots for full price while she was in college, and full price meant real money to her at the time. She never wore them. Not once in 20 years, at which point a relative donated them to charity.
Sales Isn’t Service
While running a brick-and-mortar martial arts school, this blogger listened carefully to the promises of the sales department for a billing service that would make his daily finances significantly easier. Once he signed up for a $5,000 contract, he discovered the service department wasn’t nearly as excited about helping him. The hassles of working with the service took more time than doing finances himself, and he spent another $1,000 in legal fees trying to get out of the contract.
If you start to get too down on yourself for your latest ill-advised purchase, cheer yourself up by reading this item from:
The “It Could Have Been Worse” Department
In 2005, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. bought an immensely popular social networking website called MySpace for $580 million dollars. It was happy to acquire what seemed like the lead player in a new kind of media — social media. Then came Facebook. And the rest, as they say … Earlier this year, News Corp. sold MySpace…for $35 million.
Cheer up. No matter how bad your purchase was, you didn’t lose $545 million dollars.
