The Trinidad "Brand" experience

When I travel there are always a few places, companies, and products that I just refuse to patronize because of my local experience with that particular brand.

Now "local" here means Trinidad and Tobago - to be very specific - Trinidad.

I remember years ago writing off NIKE because I bought a pair of shoes from what I deemed a "reputable" company in Trinidad only to have them literally fall apart while I was training with my track club two weeks later.
Naturally, I was furious because now I didn't have a shoe to train with and would have to ask mom to purchase another one for me. But back then I wasn't mad at the store that sold it to me, I was angry with Nike, because I bought a Nike shoe, thinking that the store would have actually bought a genuine product from Nike. This time however a training buddy had a catalogue circulating that sold genuine brand labels. He told me that I really shouldn't buy any label in Trinidad because they're all FAKE. I said even from Francis Fashion and he said, even from Francis Fashion. I was probably the only person in Trinidad who didn't know that all Francis Fashion sold were fakes! If I'm not mistaken, that purchasing policy still applies to this day.

At the end of the day I buy very little merchandise in Trinidad, especially if it is suppose to be a Nike, Addidas etc. I do most of this type of shopping in good ole US of A, where the probability of purchasing a REAL brand is much higher.

So let's move on to the food experience. We all know that customer service in Trinidad can be compared to the same experience someone will have if Somalian Pirates were to invade their cruise ship off the southern coast of Africa! Ok! so maybe it's not that bad but it comes pretty close. Kentucky Fried Chicken - better known as KFC on the island, holds the world record I will think for horrible customer service.

Words like - "Good morning"; "How may I help you?"; "Have a great day" are completely VOID from the vocabulary of every KFC worker, actually every worker of Prestige Holdings for that matter. Although we know this experience is unique to Trinidad it still affects our purchasing behaviour when we step out of the country.

Then we have the car deal experiences. Apart from over charging customers for basic services, the cars as we all know are - "MADE FOR THIRD WORLD". So the "standard" SUV purchased from dealerships in Trinidad and Tobago will be stripped of ALL "standard" features that will be purchased in the US or Europe. I think the dealerships go a little far when they want to charge you for the car mats.
My most recent experience with BMW was a charge of $4000 TTD for a car key!!!!! Now don't you think Germany should hear about this! Really do your overheads costs that much?!?!? This same key can be purchased in the US for $200 USD and to me that's still expensive. But for those who don't know the conversion rate $4000.00 TTD is equivalent to $ 621.51 USD.

Now can you imagine paying $600 USD for a car key!!!!

But in the third world we have no power, no voice, and definitely NO CHOICE. We're stuck with the over priced, horrible customer service, fake products and just have to live with it!

Unless of course the International companies that are represented by these companies in Trinidad DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!....Or, unless we the people stand as one and demand respect because without our hard earned money these companies will never sell an item.