The True Cost Of Prioritizing Profits Over Ethics

When I saw the prompt, I had this first thought the business people among us will have better answers to give it but on a deeper thought, those who patronize businesses would have more to say as they are on the receiving end of whatever decisions business owners make, ethics or none.

Dealing with people, there is always going to be difficult grounds to compromise on and businesses deal with people so it's only expected that the owners would have situations where they have make adjustments or compromise for their benefits and also keep their customers coming.

Let's be honest, no business is started without the mind to make profits, it is the main purpose of owning one and a lot of work go into making a business stand so any good idea to make bigger profits is mostly welcome but there is a limit and a better ground to profiting and keeping it ethical.

I had to patronize this clothing line (shop) years ago and my experience there has been quit unforgettable because of the kind of customer service I got from their sales person. I know they want to gain profits but trying to cheat customers for bigger profits is very unethical in businesses.

First of all, she had really bad way of attending to customers as she kept a strong face and shouted at any who handled the clothes in a way she didn't like. I tried to be understanding since she had really nice clothes but it turned out that the prices were crazy so I went to another shop.

I bought the same clothes at almost half the price she had wanted to sell them to me, it had me wondering why she wanted to get more profits than she could have without driving away her customers. Sadly, she's not the only one in business with such plan to make more profits.

So many businesses out there prioritize making more profits and fail to make and maintain ethics in building the future of their businesses. Profits are important but I'll say ethics that will preserve the life of the business is more important. Imagine having long term customers patronizing.

A business that keeps no ethics is bound to have less of such customers because nobody wants to be cheated or treated unfairly especially if they find out. Many businesses may survive with just profits but over time, it is the ethics that will keep them in business when other businesses arises.

With my experiences as a customer to different businesses, the ones with ethics keep me patronising them for a long time and the ones I always leave feeling angry or cheated, I do not wish to patronize again. I know it's not easy to keep some ethics and still make good profits but it pays on the long run when businesses keep'em.

The true cost of prioritizing profits over ethics is that it tampers with the integrity and longevity of the business over time. Profits are important to keep the business running but not as much as ethics would save the business in hard times.