Whether at work or in our personal lives, we all try to be smart shoppers. We’ll go that extra mile to save a few percent on upfront purchase costs but every so often miss the big picture by not taking total cost of ownership (TCO) into account.
Most consumers have an intuitive sense of TCO. Because of perceived greater reliability, many will pay a premium up front for a certain brand of car or truck. On the flip side, the Yugo was an abject failure in the marketplace despite its alluringly low upfront cost.