Lost sales by design
I encountered the epitome of poor product package design today while browsing the electronics department of a big box store today. I overheard a man talking with his wife about a USB thumb drive and that he thought it was ‘for Mac only’ so I intervened to say that these types of devices are (or should be) operating system agnostic and if for any reason it did not read properly in his PC that he could format it by selecting the drive under ‘My Computer’ and selecting ‘format drive’.
I’m not sure if his looking me over was to determine if I worked there or looked like enough of a geek to know what I was talking about and I’m not sure if he actually bought the device, but after I looked at the product packaging, it was clear how he could have made the assumption that it was Mac only.
The package itself (seen below) is white and features a generic looking laptop, though it resembles a Mac book and no where on the package was there and indication or reassurance that this hardware was in fact PC or Mac compatible.
Of course I take this sort of thing for granted given my line of work and how long I’ve been exposed to computers and hardware and obviously so does someone along the process from the designer to the creative director.
There’s a fine line between making the customer feel stupid and giving them enough information for them to make an informed decision; they clearly missed the mark on this one as was witnessed first hand today. From as simple as putting 3 logos on the package (Apple, Windows and Android) or spelling it out, they could easily increase their revenue with a little reassurance.
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