Recently I have been researching and seeking portable tire inflators over the internet. Apparently there's a mini boom in these items lately as many motorists dread dealing with a flat tire in the cold of winter so the lure of an easy, quick, and portable device has many of us hunting. Well what I've found is that MOST of these products are just as unreliable and untested as all that "A.S.O.T.V." (As Seen On TV) mostly novelty junk is.
So the bottom line to a quick return in American retail marketing seems to be 1)Make it cheaply in China. 2)Package it appealingly promising lots of bells and whistles. 3)Put it on your shelf or your webpage and see how many suckers will fall for it (or TRY it out) the first go round. Quality, reliability, return customers or customer satisfaction doesn't really matter because initially your ONLY REAL GOAL is to BRING TRAFFIC into your store or your website and to get as many shoppers as possible to "loan" you their money by throwing it at that gadget on the shelf!
For many consumers it's a "loan" of the purchase(and shipping!) price that they make to the retailer and manufacturer until they, the buyers discover that many of these items are pure worthless JUNK and decide they'd rather get their money back so they can TRY AGAIN on something better. SO WHAT who cares? Meanwhile you've USED all that "borrowed" money (and some you get to keep because a consumer doesn't bother to return it, or the item manages to last a little longer than the warranty) to reinvest in another area of your retail operation OR to reinvest in that same product by doing the smart R&D that was never done the first time SO THE PRICE POINT COULD BE LOWER (Walmart loves these!) on those TEMPTING END CAPS!
Therefor whenever I see those little red "AS SEEN ON TV" logos I immediately assume that the clever inventor's latest "miracle" product has probably been "invented" by slapping two different items together with crazy glue, adding pretty paint, graphics and somebody else's name brand and stuffing them into a box or blister pack before tossing them onto a front of the store shelf!
The "invention" idea may have been full of merit but either the inventor or the lawyer representing him/her had not the capitol required to FULLY, TEST and or DEVELOP the nifty little gadget so that it actually does what it's claimed to do at all or in a satisfactory manner. THAT PART, the "Testing" will be left up to me after I make my R/D LOAN at the cashier's counter and cheerfully tote the item home to begin doing that (much appreciated) PRODUCT TESTING for which it's maker's couldn't afford to do before stuffing it into one of those ocean going "sea cans" !
No comments:
Post a Comment