It was a breezy rainy Dunedin day as I drove to work and watched at least three umbrellas either turn inside out or collapse into the face of the carrier.

This got me thinking later in the same day as I walked the same streets with my Blunt Umbrella having fielded yet another question about where to buy it from.

What I was thinking was: “What is the point in buying or having a product that is cheaper or throw away, yet it doesn’t actually work when you need it to?”

The humble umbrella is a good case to look at.  For say $10 I could go get an umbrella that will work in the rain but not so good in the wind, however, where I live often the wind and rain are friends. It would be like buying a car that might make it to the next destination without issue when what I really need is one that will make it every time.

I guess it is a point of value: In the case of the umbrella, I value arriving somewhere on foot reasonably comfortable and dry, that is the point of having the umbrella in the first place. Especially as I wear glasses most of the time.

Folks see my umbrella, ask me where to get them from, I tell them, yet the following week there they are again, a face full of fabric and another cheap piece of junk in the bin.

I’ve actually asked some of them why they don’t get a decent umbrella and often the answer is that the one that doesn’t work is only $10 and they needed it now, because the last one they bought broke… and they got wet…

As the old saying goes, no one regretted buying quality.

For those interested in staying dry, in almost all conditions: https://www.bluntumbrellas.com/nz/

For a bit of general interest in 2014 there were 10,907 umbrellas at the London Underground lost property office: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-30213457