We buy very little in terms of computer hardware, software, and equipment from major retail chains (or retail stores at all for that matter). We have some very good vendors that we work with and do the vast majority of purchasing through their websites, generally at significantly lower prices than you would find in a store. However, Staples this week was running some fantastic deals on certain HP printers, so I bought a couple… one for the office, one for a customer. And this is where the annoyance begins.

Unfortunately, Staples (like Best Buy, Circuit City, and all the rest) will hardly let you walk out of the store with a new piece of equipment if you don’t buy their service plan to go with it. 10 minutes earlier I was hearing about what great a product I had selected but now at the check stand they are basically telling you (translated for effect):

This printer you are buying is really a piece of crap. I cannot tell you how many of these we have seen with problems X, Y, Z, etc. If you don’t buy our three year service plan, your printer will almost certainly fall apart, you will not be able to print that hugely important document, and will almost certainly end up going out of business. We will not be there to save you.

We install and manage printers, lots of them. And have had problems with printers and had to have them replaced under warranty, lots of them. That is what we do, so we understand the process and know how to get a warranty return done with the manufacturer with the amount of hassle. But some don’t and thus don’t know this can be done. So they are talked into this ridiculous service plan.

Service plans are just like extended warranties on cars, they are insurance. And do you know why insurance companies sell insurance? Because they make money doing it. They pay out, overall, far less than they take in thus leading to profit. Staples also wants to make profit. By definition then, they will pay out less in warranty service than they take in, meaning chances are (and industry statistics show chances overwhelmingly are) that buying the service plan is not beneficial.

So, what to do about it. Simply don’t buy the service plan, ever. The nice part though if you are a managed services customer of ours, not only do you not have to worry about researching which printer is best, finding the lowest price, or installing the printer (since we do all our as much of that as you want us to)… you already have that insurance. If something goes wrong with the printer we installed, we deal with the phone calls to the manufacturer, we deal with getting a replacement, and we will likely loan one of our own printers so you that business isn’t interrupted in the meantime. It is all part of having one single point of responsibility for technology. It is our problem.

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