The Most Important Feature Amazon is Not Launching
Recently, a friend of mine posted on Facebook warning others not to buy a particular brand of headphones, since his pair just broke. Another friend commented saying that he had the same model and his broke after just 1 year. Two other people chimed in to say that theirs only worked for 3 months. Knowing a product’s expected lifespan before purchasing could save people from buying faulty products in the first place.
Nonetheless, data points on product durability are not available on any mainstream shopping portals.
A search for in-ear headphones on Amazon returns four main options with the same rating and price, and one that is $5 cheaper and marked as a “Best Seller”. The “Best Seller” seems like a no-brainer. But what if it lasts for only one year, while the competitors would have lasted for three? By purchasing the cheaper option, the consumer saves money only in the short -term, as they would have to buy two more pairs of headphones during a 3-year period. The price displayed on marketplaces today is only the price for initial purchase — which is just a part of the product’s total lifetime cost.
Currently, as consumers, we cannot make an informed decision and compare products before purchase in terms of durability, which is a key factor for making a sound economic decision.
Consumers want to know products durability
Products don’t last as long as they used to. In Germany, the percentage of new appliances sold to replace defective ones (as opposed to first-time purchases) increased from 3.5% to 8.3% between 2004 and 2012. Clothes are now built to fall apart and are on average worn only 7 times in their lifetime. Certainly you’ve noticed that things you bought in past have lasted longer that products available on the market today.
Products are replaced either because they stop working as expected or simply because of a desire for a newer or better product — even when the old one still works. Either way, consumers do want products they buy to last considerably longer and they’re frustrated with the current quality standards on the market today (30% of Austrians indicated that they are unsatisfied with current product lifetimes).
Information concerning the durability of products matters to consumers: in one study out of Alanus University in Germany, consumers weighted price and theoretical product lifetime label as nearly equal factors when deciding whether or not to purchase an item (33% and 31%, respectively). According to another study, 92% of Europeans agree that the lifespan of products should be made available.
Durability reporting would help consumers to make economically-viable and sustainable choices, instead of just satisfying an immediate need, as it is today.
Millennials will demand more sustainable products
The low-cost, low-quality approach also puts an enormous pressure on the environment and on human health — the amount of e-waste, an improper and unsafe treatment of which poses significant risks to the environment and human health — is growing. With that, the demand for more sustainable consumption is growing by the day; millennials, who are going to represent 75% of the workforce by 2025, already consider sustainability a shopping priority.
How Amazon could solve it
There are several possible sources for gathering durability data: manufacturers, external product review companies (Wirecutter, iFixit, ConsumerReports), repair businesses, and the consumers themselves. The latter is the most feasible way to aggregate this data on a large scale. It would, however, require that ubiquitous companies like Amazon or Google collect, process and present the data back to consumers.
Amazon already has a structured product catalog and the most targeted reach to consumers who could report on products durability. Amazon is already responsible for 43% of all online sales in the US, so the impact of exposing such information to the public would be immediate.
The bestselling headphones I mentioned earlier have 54,011 reviews on Amazon. If Amazon had just a fraction of those reviewers reporting on how long this product lasted, other consumers could have a reliable picture of that product’s expected lifespan and durability.
Here are three ways Amazon could begin to support more long-lasting, sustainable goods:
- Guide customers to report on durability in the reviews. It would create an awareness in customers minds that such information should be mentioned and would have value for other buyers. The data wouldn’t be structured, but it’s a quick win, that Amazon could ship in no time.
- Ask people if they still use the product. Today Amazon encourages buyers to review the product shortly after purchase, which means reviews only represent the first few days or weeks of use. An email or a modal window asking a customer if the product she bought a year or two ago is still functioning could provide a durability report.
- Analyze the purchase cycle. If I’m buying headphones a year after purchasing previous ones, there are several possible reasons for that: they are lost, it’s a gift, or they are broken etc. Analyzing how many people are buying new headphones after purchasing a certain model could provide insight into the product’s durability.
Will Amazon do that?
As studies mentioned above show, customers would like to know how long products will last. Since Amazon’s mission statement is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company,” it would make perfect sense for them to implement a feature for displaying quality and durability. Doing so would also benefit Amazon’s sustainability agenda, which they seem to be taking more seriously than in the past.
It’s unlikely that Amazon would ship durability reporting if it didn’t increase profits.
I’m sure that Amazon has considered providing customers with durability information, but the fact that they haven’t makes me think that it wouldn’t make sense for them financially.
This is where smaller companies could come into play. Considering the demand for product lifespan data, there is an opportunity for other players to expose that information. By providing durability data on a large scale, innovators in this space could have a similar impact on shopping that SeatGuru had on flying.
Opportunities for Amazon’s competitors and new players
In addition to providing consumers with data about product lifespan, here are three additional ways new companies could inform consumers about the overall cost of their purchases:
- Make warranties clear and accessible. Warranties (and guarantees) are confusing, especially if you try to compare them for different products. It’s not always clear who is responsible for fixing the product, which issues are covered and how to put the warranty into action when needed.
- Evaluate the repair costs and availability. If you’re compromising by buying a cheaper smartphone, but your cracked screen repair will make up the price difference, it might not be the best decision economically. Customers rarely plan for such an expense — 21% of smartphone owners currently have a cracked screen and 42% say the biggest barrier to fixing it is the expense of it. Companies are also making it harder to fix products — according to an iFixit study, in the past five years, many companies (including Apple, Samsung, LG) have introduced increasingly less repairable and upgradable products.
- Calculate cost per usage. We could even go further and calculate the cost of the product per use, which would make clear that, over a longer time span, cheaper products may actually be more costly than their high-quality, high-price tag competitors. For example, more expensive energy-efficient washing machines may pay for itself in a matter of years by reducing the consumer’s electricity bill. Nebia Spa Shower claims to use 70% less water which returns its price just after one year.
Problems worth solving
You might think that longer-lasting products would be “bad for the economy” since they would decrease sales. Even if we put the consequences for the environment aside, what’s the point of a thriving economy if it makes us pay more over time for products we’re less happy about? Exposing information about products durability would make manufacturers compete not just on the price and features but also on the quality.
Our brains aren’t designed to make long-term decisions — we crave short-term adrenaline rushes. However, we can see that people, once properly educated, become more willing to do what’s good for them long-term — e.g. exercising and eating healthy. By educating consumers on the overall cost of each product that they purchase, we can positively impact both the environment and our well-being.
I believe introducing product lifespan data into the market will improve our planet’s sustainability and will also produce numerous viable business opportunities.
Update 2019:
Amazon now allows reviewing specific features of some products. One of the categories for a narrow variety of products is “Durability”:
Other things I wrote:
“Solving Product Design Exercises” book helps UX designers prepare for their next job interview.
“Generating Product Ideas” book helps makers find product ideas for their next business, side-hustle or indie startup.
“Sustainable Branded Swag — The Complete Guide” is a guide helping companies improve the sustainability of their branded merch.
