Wednesday, December 26, 2007

True value of the product

Today I was out to work in a crowded football stadium. I was operating one till (counter) in the busy day where thousands of football fan were pouring in. After working for few hours when I was coming back to my residence I thought to spent some time in the market to watch the customers doing boxing day shopping. To my disappointment it was not a very exciting day, customers were not too excited about the discount and most of the people in the market were there to spend some time because they were getting bore at home. I found one bench in the market and sit there for more than a hour. I was watching two guys and one girl trying to sell something to clean nails. of course no one was coming to their shop and they were trying to stop every passer by saying "May I ask you a question? May I see your nails? Sir, Madam". I was thinking to go ahead and talk to them what exactly they were trying to sell. Fortunately I did not have to venture there, a lady came and she stayed there to listen about their product. Honestly, I did not find (by listening their conversation from distance) anything that could have attracted me to visit their shop. And I realized they don't have anything that customers can find any value with. They had a product but it was difficult to recognize the value of the product for the customers. Even these young guys (and girl too) had no idea about how they can market their product. I was thinking is it enough to manufacture a product and put in the market. I know there are lots of products for the nail care in the market and they sell for good price too. Product these guys were selling might also be good (I am not an expert in this nail-related stuff so I might not have picked the value) but no one was interested in listening them was really surprising. I feel this was because they had chosen wrong place to promote the product. I think time was also not good for this kind of things. In a busy shopping mall, very few people will be interested in listening to any new product. and rarely anyone would like to spent one hours to see what they can do with their nails. Most of the passerby were in the market to find something good in the sale and there are so many shops to roam around and too many things in the mind to buy (if they are on sale). Time of this Christmas sale was also not good to be in the market. I think people are ready to spend some time on new experiences when they are relaxed.
I like what Mr. Warren Buffet says about product. Any product that customers like is a good product. When customers can recognized themselves and can identify the value without much marketing/advertising, product will have huge success. That we can see in the case of Disney worlds, Disney Movies, customers love Disney all over world and they are sure of good value so they are willing to pay even a premium on this. Compare it with McDonalds. Perhaps all of us dislike it. We go there because it cheap but we dislike it. He argues it is not good for the long life of any product.
I want to say in the end that if true value (taking care of "place" and "time") of a product is recognized and communicated to customers it can be a big success otherwise no one stops to buy whatever efforts are made. Happy Marketing!

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