AIBI International

Have been thinking of buying a treadmill for so long but have never seriously looking into one. I did visit shops and roadshow for the treadmill but the prices are out of my 'willing to pay' range. Seriously, I do not know what is the right price to pay for a 'good enough' treadmill. Of ourse, as low as possible in my mind.

I went to see an offer unit which is only $999. The cheapest in town. But I don't like it when I see it. It is so small and narrow compare to others and there is no feature at all. Not even the basic incline feature. The sales person recommend me another one of higher grade, it looks OK but it costs $2500. I cannot make up my mind at this high cost, so I gave it a miss.

Few weeks later, I happen to see this treadmill roadshow by Aibi. As usual, I went near to take a look at the offered model. The salesman came to me and started telling me the good points of the treadmill. I didn't answer him nor did I sounded interested. He kept on talking and explained the different between a few models. There were 3 models he was comparing, one at $1988, one at $2488 and another at $3680. I was quite keen on the $3680 model because I want to be sure I have no regret after buying it. I know expensive may not be good but the cheap one can never be the best. He said he had worked in this company for 8 years and know the machine well enough to give me a good recommendation. In fact, irregardless what he said, I believed he has sized me up to be the $2500 budget customer.

After quite a while, I decided to response to him by a few questions. He knew I was caught already. I kept asking him the difference between the $2488 and $3680 models, he kept telling me to take the $2488 model because it is not neccessary to spend the extra $1192 for a machine which is bigger in size and perform the same thing. He thought I would appreciate for his kind intention.

When I finally signed up for the $2488 treadmill and filled in my address, he straight away change his word and tell me I should take the $3680 model. I jokingly told him that he is a 'Sian Tau', he laughed and he even agreed to let me have the machine exchange to the $3680 within a month if I am not happy with the $2488 model.

I find this salesman 'bluff' his way through but with a sincere and friendly attitude. He knows how to tune himself to suit the customer although his answer is always neither here nor there. He can even conflict himself wih his own answer. I still buy from him even though I knew all his tricks. Because I have seen many worse salesmanship and this is consider acceptable to me.

I must say that I have no regret buying the machine, but was a little unhappy that the salesman didn't highlight some important issues. The basic function is the Start/stop button and the program function. When you press the 'stop' button, the machine stop immediately. This is dangerous after running for 10 mins at level 6 or higher. The human body will react to it and cause some giddiness if the machine suddenly stop. Next, the machine start so slow when I press on any pre-program function. I have to adjust the speed manually and this defeat the pre-program function. While I can't demand for any explanation or change to the way the machine is designed, I have to use it in 'manual' mode all the time.

Check out on the start/stop button if you need to buy one.