Made for TV products have been around for decades. Who
can forget the over dramatized commercials, people virtually decapitating
themselves with traditional shavers, or fumbling their cell phones in the car
like a ticking time bomb in some slapstick comedy?
While some products are utterly ridiculous, like the infamous Cat-Bat, some are vaguely useful. In fact, I have been tempted to order several made for TV items.
Yet, I am torn. While some of these items appear very nifty, I am somewhat confused by the terms of the sale. Why do I always always have to wait? How is there always more? Did they just realize this in the middle of making the commercial? They start to roll the cameras and some dude runs into the studio, breathless, panting. "WAIT!" he yells. "There's more!"
And when I do wait, they double the offer. Like suddenly
someone at the home office found out that they
had more stock than they
anticipated when they started producing the commercial. But what about the
handling? Whoa, stop right there. We can't do all this without
considering the ramifications of the handling. We can't simply double the
offer and not impact the handling charges.
Handling
charges? What exactly are handling charges? As far as I knew, the
price of a
product is calculated to include the cost of labor. So that would mean that
the "handling" of the product to make it and put it in a box to ship it, should
already be accounted for. But lets say that the company outsource the packing and
needed to recoup the cost, why would they need to recoup the cost only when they
add a second item? Is there some reason why packing one item in a box
would cost less than putting two in the box? Is there a certain level of
concentration needed to put two items in the box that is not required to put one
item in the box? Did the number of packing related injuries skyrocket in
proportion to the number of "doubled" offers and now the company needs to offset
those costs by passing the fees onto the customer? Perhaps the employees
are only mononumerical and they need to give
them special classes on how to count to two. Did too much
product get damaged due to the pressures that the "doubling" offer put upon an
already overworked staff?
And exactly
what is the cost of handling per hand? Is it a direct
per hand cost or is
there a ratio or complex formula you need to calculate in order to accurately
arrive at the figure. Is the cost lowered by many hands handling or is it
cheaper to keep a lower hand to product ratio? And what about robots and
trained monkeys? Do robot and monkey hands count as "handling"? And
what does this have to do with the price of neon, rainbow, heated, one-piece
undergarments? Someone has got to have these answers. I can't "handle" not
knowing.