In France, we have this : https://cestquilepatron.com/
The concept is that customers are asked questions to make a new product that satisfies them. For example, they want to sell apples. They will ask in what country they should buy them, how well the farmer should be paid, what size… and you see in real time how it affects the price. Then, the product will be sold in supermarkets at that price
There is also mutual insurance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance
Where can you buy these products in France?
In grocery stores
Is it in larger supermarkets like Intermarché/Leclerc? I’ll look for it next time I’m over there
Yes
You can see it at carrefour, monoprix, leclerc, intermarché…
Il look for that. Ty!
Probably a very niche answer, but Korbel winery in California has gone above and beyond to help me out on several occasions, and real people actually answer the phone when you call customer service. I don’t know anything about their owner or politics, but I’ve had nothing but outstanding experiences with them.
Dischord Records.
Fugazi record label.
Record/CD prices are capped low to cover production and distribution costs.
Personal contact and service, with real people, when ordering.
Live show prices were capped at $5.
A focus on real connection between artists and fans, rather than extracting maximum profit using music as a vehicle.
Live shows were excellent.
Arizona Iced Tea
Dudes a multi-billionaire and doesn’t understand how someone could want more.
That’s why he puts the MSRP on the cans even tho he can’t control store prices. Most stores still sell it at 99c, because they’re still making profit on it.
He could sell them for 2x and barely lose any sales, but why?
I heard this story before and it is truly amazing how the CEO still stands behinds his principles and values.
It would be a lot more common if we had anti-monopoly laws still.
There used to be a shit ton of regional stuff like this where one family owned everything, and 10 million a year was good enough instead of needing x% growth forever.
If you’re not cutting every corner to make the quarterly % increase constantly go up, workers aren’t getting fucked over as much, at least not every time. So everyone losses when we have mega corps. And that’s the natural result of unregulated capitalism
Chewy dog food will send you flowers and a refund if you pet died.
I called their customer support, and a person answered. Like, right away. I was caught completely off guard. They resolved my issue in under a minute.
My sleepy brain was reading this as if your pet dies from eating their pet food.
Still applies
Seems like these guys: https://nubo.coop/en/
They provide email, calendar, contacts, and cloud storage.
On their mission statement page they explicitly have:
not seeking to enrich shareholders
I’m not sure if this is any longer the case but I’ve heard that Leatherman, despite “only” having a 25 year gurantee will pretty much repair/replace any of their multitools you send them no matter how old.
I bought the last one at my Costco for $30-$50. My wife kept asking me why would I need it when I already have all of the other tools it has. She didn’t get it. Still doesn’t. I’m so happy to have this thing at work. Comes in really handy. It’s good to hear about Leatherman being a good company. What’s that? Have I ever used it? Well… Not yet, but I know a situation will eventually arise and I will be glad to have it readily available.
I use mine a lot, but it’s even more frequent that I think “damn, my leatherman is in my backpack and I could really use it right now”
Their tools though have gotten crazy expensive.
When a friend broke the saw blade on my Leatherman (which was ~15 years old), I sent it back to them for repair. A short while later I received a brand new Leatherman with a letter saying they were so sorry, but they didn’t have parts for my old model anymore, so they sent me a brand new, better model. The letter also said they understood people had emotional connections to their tools, so if I decided I wanted the old broken tool back instead, they would hold onto it for me for a few months, and all I’d need to do was email them asking to swap.
10/10 the best customer service I’ve ever received.
It still is as far as I know
There is a local employee owned hardware store near me that will go out of their way to make you a deal. No idea how they do it, plenty of employees around to ask questions and some of the best prices around.
Inherently all brands care about profit as they need money to function but I get what you mean.
I’m generally not one for brand loyalty but if you need a motorcycle you really can’t go wrong with any Yamaha and if you need a knife Benchmade has been unbelievably good to me even when I send it ones with snapped off tips years after purchase to get repaired/replaced.
Inherently all brands
All publicly traded brands…
Believe it or not even private ones still need to to make money to keep working. Granted they aren’t trying to also make extra money to keep investors happy.
All brands and businesses are trying to make money. The question is are they also trying to buy a third yatch or are they just happy with being able to give all their employees a good raise and Christmas bonus every year.
All brands and businesses are trying to make money
But only publicly traded ones will trade the brand recognition they’ve built for short term profits…
Investors care about quarterly growth, which literally cannot keep constantly increasing.
A private company could have a flat dollar goal for yearly profit. And not give a shit if that number goes up 100k a year at the detriment to long term profits
I thought that didn’t need explaining, but I can admit when I’m wrong.
Needing money to function isn’t profit, those are operating costs… Profit is the money leftover after all costs to make and manufacture something has been paid.
For the prices Benchmade is asking for their wares they better damn well have a great after sales lol
I’m not in the US though so paying that much extra for a warranty that they’ll most likely not cover is moot personally
Agree on Yamaha bikes though. They are aplenty here in my country along with Honda. Can go anywhere to get parts and repairs
Yeah that’s fair. Benchmade is definitely only worth it if you live in the US…
I was gonna say all the Japanese bikes are worth it (and they mostly are) but I have ran into some stinkers from Kawasaki and Suzuki in my life very rarely though. Honda has never done anything wrong to me I just don’t really care for red lol
Saddleback Leather springs to mind. Their stuff is expensive but they have a 100 year warranty and their tag line is “They’ll fight over it when you’re dead”. I have a couple of their bags, belts, and wallets. I don’t expect to ever need to replace them.
First thing I bought from them was a briefcase back in 2011. About three years after I bought it one of the steel D-Rings for the strap failed and they paid courier fees for me to return the briefcase from the UK, replaced the part, cleaned the bag up, and sent it back, no questions asked.
Full disclosure: 1) they’re an American company which might put some off buying in the current climate and 2) the founder is a devout Christian which might put others off but none of their products have ever tried to make me a believer so I’m ok with it.
All business have to care about profit or they won’t be in business for long. Also if you want employees to get good pay/benefits and such they have to charge more and in turn you can’t shop for the cheapest.
That said I think the concern comes when they start trying to squeeze every last cent out regardless of the customer relationship and long term image. As soon as a company goes public you now have a board that will get rid of you if you don’t push stock values up another percent. Even if you want to have long term growth and goodwill the board is pushing for profit growth targets this quarter and they pay mostly in shares too. I find the best corporate customer/profit balance comes from private firms.
All business have to care about profit or they won’t be in business for long
Businesses have always cared about profit; just reasonable profit. They would make a product, determine the cost of manufacture, apply a modest profit margin to it (usually about 30%) and factor in things like employee raises and benefits, expanding the business, and building up a financial safety net.
Businesses were run by humans, for humans.
Hedge fund managers and venture capitalists in the 80s changed that. Rather than assigning a fixed profit margin each year to try to maintain, the rule became “how much profit can we squeeze out by sales and (most damning) by systematically dismantling anything that we pay for that benefits our employees”.
This is the end result of having taking human stakeholders out of the business decisions and replacing them with shareholders that are mostly other businesses, hedge funds, and venture capitalists. Profit becomes the ONLY motive, rather than one of many.
Yup. If you are bought by anything with “capital” or “equity” in its name you are fucked.
Mailbox.org They could go all the way and become “cool and cloud” but decided not to.
Haix While their customer service is not what it used to be they are still more than decent to a point it hurts their sales.
With my last one I am not 100% convinced: Mikrotik. While their stuff I great and cheap for what it does, I also had one really lacking support experience with them (they forgot to pack the rack ears for a switch and neither the vendor nor they could somehow get me ones. Another premium partner of them helped me for free and since then will always get my business). But in total they are still the good guys I think.
Oddly, I got some of the best customer service in my life from Union Scale; the company who makes the office chair I bought from Staples.
Dean’s Beans coffee. The owner was an amazing guy, fair trade, all that. When he stepped down, he handed ownership to the employees.
-> more than profit
Literally none. Where they vary is in how maliciously they’ll engage with consumers for a quick buck, and within that spectrum some are definitely better than others, but every single one of them draws the line at profit.
Well yeah, without it there would be no business …
That’s the point. OP is chasing a unicorn.
Thinking of Paul Newman’s salad dressings and spaghetti sauces. The company donates all their profits to charity.
I’m sure there are other companies/products like this. I’d love to know what they are.
I agree but to me some brands cross a line making then especially horrible. I don’t generally boycott products because I would never be able to buy anything if I tried to stick with GOOD companies. But some are so bad I do avoid them.
Tesla Walmart Monsanto ( they were bought by Bayer) Just to name a few of the top of my head. Obviously there is no shortage of truly terrible companies.
The wording can be improved, I think “maximising profit” would fix it. Which is obviously what OP meant as we all understand it.
I would say any company that offers (and honors) a lifelong warranty defies this.
