Horse Mats to Yoga Mats
In an economy that is wreaking havoc on so many small businesses, many are looking for ways to keep their businesses alive or growing. Often this is a product, repackaging, offering a different size, or selling as something that could also be used for… could be to alter
At a tractor supply store in Northern Virginia that sells all kinds of products for outdoor work or pleasure, like gardening, people are buying horse mats for yoga routines. Steel tanks for watering cattle (minus the cattle) are being transformed into swimming pools. In some cities, small struggling retailers are converting parts of their stores into micro-fulfillment centers for e-commerce. With so much shopping online, sometimes it pays off for a business to have a location where they can store a limited number of products that can be shipped and arrive at a customer’s home in a couple of hours instead of a couple of days, or it is only used as pickup locations.
Product changes or other modifications
The price of cocoa used in the manufacture of sweets has skyrocketed in the last decade. To do? Raise prices to cover rising costs? Or insert air (or other ingredients) as a filler to use less cocoa and help keep the price the same. Case in point: chocolate has sometimes been “infused” with air or other ingredients leading to labels like “healthier,” fewer calories, “guilt-free.”
Haagen Dazs, due to the cost of the premium ingredients that go into its ice cream, reduced the size of its 16-ounce pint packs to 14 ounces, while maintaining the same prices. Hardly anyone noticed because they never studied the label closely enough to have a “Wait a minute! A pint isn’t 14 ounces” moment. All they cared about was ice cream.
“New and Improved”
New and improved can sometimes be a risky strategy. One of the biggest new and improved strategies to fail occurred in 1985 when Coca-Cola introduced the new and improved “New Coke.” Among the fans of Coca-Cola almost started the Third World War. New Coke lasted less than three months before Classic Coke was brought back. Too new and improved. But they were smart enough to see the error of their ways and began adding Classic Coke in different flavors with different sweeteners, thus creating new products for their line without risking their core brand.
One lesson that could be drawn from all of this is that there may be a way or ways to alter, change, re-create, rebrand or other things about your product or service that will keep customers buying. If manufacturers can adulterate chocolate, which carries so many health, spiritual, mental and other benefits essential to civilization, what can you do with their offerings?