Price No Guarantee Of Quality

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31094, 24 June 1966, Page 2

Price No Guarantee Of Quality

Price cannot be accepted as indicating the quality of an article. Consumer Institute tests have proved that often the cheaper buy is better.

Mr J. W. G. Davidson, liaison officer for the institute, made this point very convincingly before members of the Canterbury Travel Club yesterday. Describing tests made with

a variety of products, Mr Davidson had his audience alternately amazed and amused.

“Our testing of 42 popular brands of sheets found the most highly regarded and most expensive brand to be the worst. The best buy, of outstanding quality, was 23s a pair cheaper. Testing of aspirin and soluble aspirin proved that all products measured up to the required standard, but differed greatly in price—a consumer coula pay up to five times more for one brand than for another of equal quality. In Britain the model consumer had been described as one who was inquisitive and well informed. Mr Davidson said the New Zealand buyer was certainly Inquisitive, but found impartial information difficult to obtain.

“In our quarterly bulletin we give factual, unbiased and impartial information,” he said. “Brands are named and compared, and we say which brand gives the best value for money. There is no hesitation in saying which brand is superior and which Inferior." The council aimed at enabling the consumer to make an “informed choice.” It was largely the creation of women’s organisations, particu-

larly the National Council of Women, which had been active in urging its formation.

Mr Davidson quoted President Kennedy’s summary of the consumer’s four fundamental rights—“the right to safety, to be informed, to choose, and to be heard.” Sorting the “goodies” from the “baddies”, the safe from the unsafe was the institute’s function. However,. the council had no power to compel withdrawal of a product from the market and the ultimate purchasing decision was the consumers’. While the New Zealand institute had not encountered the initial hostility and suspicion from manufacturers which had been expressed overseas, many manufacturers were quick to improve their standards when a report of their product was unfavourable. Sometimes the "threat” of a test would put the manufacturer “on his toes.” “But we are not anti-manu-facturing or anti-trade—no reputable firm has anything to fear from us,” Mr Davidson said. Consumers could be misled in many ways and the council made consistent efforts to “debunk” misleading or dishonest advertising. Eulogistic advertising for a highly-priced cosmetic jelly,

which promised renewed, youthful beauty, prompted an investigation of the product The manufacturer admitted freely that the cosmetic contained a large proportion of lanolin, costing only a few pence. His reply to queries was that if the royal jelly did not “do the trick,” the lanolin would. “Manufacturers and workers have organisations working to protect their interests —so should the consumer,” said Mr Davidson.