The Wii generation. History will judge the 3rd parties

[HappySqurriel]

Ail said:

HappySqurriel said:

The odd thing with the store analogy is that MANY STORES are entirely willing to listen to requests from their consumers and bring in new products (at least on a trial basis) when they're requested to do so. Sometimes there are limitations on a product that prevent this (another store may be an exclusive dealer), AND SOME STORES HAVE BUSINESS PRACTICES THAT MAKE THIS DIFFICULT, but rarely would they completely ignore the demands of the customer.

Basically, the best way to warp this into a store analogy is that EA is a big-box electronics retailer and when the iPod is announced a lot of their customers approach them and ask them to bring in Black iPods because they're so cool; of course, EA doesn't listen to these demands because (after all) customers want the high-quality audio from SACD and DVD-A and no one will buy this iPod.

A year later, after electronics retailers that carried the iPod have had massive success while those that haven't EA is forced to make announcements that they need to bring in the iPod for the good of the company. In response to this they get tons of emails and letters from their customers asking for them to bring in a Black iPod. EA, after determining that the iPod was a fad that was selling to people who were not that smart and only wanted colorful things, brings in pink and purple iPods

Another year passes, and EA is forced to announce that (even with their healthy margins from the iPod) they are still not performing that well and they will support the iPod more heavily. Once again they get tons of requests from their customers asking for them to carry a Black iPod. EA decides to bring in Navy Blue, Grey, and White iPods to go along with the pink and purple iPods they are already carrying and begins to wonder why they get so much angry email and letters from customers who used to be so supportive of their store.

 

Err ?

You've been to WallMart recently ?

For most food products they carry 3-4 brands at most.

For clothes it's even more restricted.

And I would want to see how you convince them to carry a new product as a customer, heck most producers already face a very tough time to have them carry their own products...

And yeah, WallMart is the store with the most traffic in NA, but it far from have every brand people are used to buying...

 

Walmart is probably the best known exception for being amazingly willing to add products on a whim because their customers ask for them, primarily because they focus on the highest volume products and purchase as a chain in order to get the best deals. With this in mind you can go to their website (http://walmartstores.com/contactus/feedback.aspx) select 'Product Questions' and request that they carry a particular product, and after investigating whether it can acceptably meet their volume requirements they may begin carying a product in store.

The interesting thing about most modern stores is that they have websites where their "Contact Us" section almost always has a "Comments and Suggestions" area where a real person in their corporate office gets an email when you make a comment, filters out the crazy and vulgar comments ("Stop stealing my Brain Waves" is not particularly useful to any company) and then passes them onto important people in the marketing department (or other relevant departments). Being that only 1 in 1000 customers ever bother to send comments, and they typically don't send comments regularly, there usually isn't much of a filter between your suggestion and the VP of Marketing or the Executive in charge of purchasing so if you make a suggestion there is a high chance that it will be taken seriously.

I speak from experience on this ... Quite often I see a product available at a store (or someone I know has bought it) and if it is not available at my local store I ask for it. Awhile back I mentioned talked to the manager at the local grocery storeand mentioned that I had seen sliced cheese (not processed cheese) and was wondering whether they could sell it at their store so I wouldn't have to make multiple stops when I shop for groceries. He told me he would look into what was available from his suppliers and (if they had a similar product) he would start to stock it. Unsurprisingly, the next week when I was grocery shopping there was a handfull of packages of pre-sliced cheese stocked right next to the processed cheese slices. Over the following weeks and months they started to bring in more and more of the real-cheese slices because it turned out that I wasn't the only one who wanted them, and they startted to take up a large portion of the cheese fridge.

This is (literally) the only time in my life where I have heard someone suggest that companies should (and do) ignore the requests of their customers.