One of the important things to me to run a business is to understand a customer. But remember that that customer is me and you and masses of people with different backgrounds ranging from religion to spending habits to education. I will discuss a smaller portion of the customer; which i think about everyday. Do customers want complex or simple product and services? i came to think about the subject when i got introduced to the Ipod. Remember that when i talk about my self i am only a small portion of the customer and do not reflect the major trend, but i’m trying to figure them out from a Kuwaiti perspective for you ” the reader” to understand your business better. Back to the Ipod, from a customers product awareness perspective i would fall in the middle of the statical bell curve. Which means the worst kind of customer for apple, because apple need customers who cant wait to buy the newest product from them (hence you see the people sleeping before the opening of certain products). I tend to wait and hear how the product performs from friends then maybe make a decision to buy it. Again remember that my personality and upbringing is the the major factor here making me be safe and wait longer than other consumers. After the wait i have bought the Ipod and liked it to some extent but faced problems down the road. The problems for others would be simple means but for me and the likes of me (the customers) i faced problems by fully utilisng the product. I had problems in downloading music and transferring them to my Ipod, every time i sync i lose the old songs and add the new ones in. Remember this post is not about the Ipod functionality rather about how i (or we) deal with complex products. So as you can see that i tend to find simpler products that do the job well and easily so the blackberry is out of the question for me to buy. To give you another example of my simplicity is that i own a phone that is 2.5 years old, and simply only use text and voice calls only. No extra services or chat or saving plans. I say this because as a business owner you need to understand that you have many kinds of customers and some are like myself looking for the simpler option. But to prove my self wrong, Zain is making so much profits from these services and IPods and blackberrys are selling like crazy. So there is another large market that does not mind complexity in the product or serivce. So the question is who is the larger share and who you should target. I personally judge sites by how easy it is to buy from them, registration should be easy and takes a few steps, the buying should be instantaneous like Amazon. So i personally believe in simplicity but this is not the case, it may be a different approach for your business. I will provide a real life example about simplicity and how it attracts me.
I always wondered about the wine industry and how big it is, and how many compete because they got the oldest barrels or a better taste. But the whole thing was intimidating to me, why? because it was hard for me to comprehend. Many brands, many tastes from different countries, why are the older ones more expensive, why wines grown in Italy or France seem more genuine? questions that cant be answered only if i ‘am a wine taster or work in such an industry, and closed only for a certain elite (because it is expensive compared to other drinks). If you traveled abroad and passed by the wine section you would go crazy just from the different choices available to you. So reading one day i came up with a smart company that created a wine brand called Yellow Tail. Yellow tail answers the question that many people fear, “shall i ask about wine or would i look stupid not knowing what to order?”. It has a simple branding look and comes with easy labeling, does not claim being proud about what vines they own or how old it is. This company to me found out that people are intimidated by the wine industry and that it gives you a feeling that you got to have a certificate to order a good bottle of wine:p but Yellow Tial simply made wine choices easy for the general public and in such a case most wineries thought that Yellow tail demise was foreseen, not knowing that the company took a huge market share and cant stop growing since. After all its a new commer to the wine market and all the way from down under:P (Australia) not a wine destination from a history sense. But yet again simplicty prevailed, remeber that this may not be the answer for your business needs just an insight to my part of the consumer market.
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