When you run a business that designs and sells products, you’ll undoubtedly have a lot to ponder. Examples include market saturation, production costs, profit, and, of course, mass-market potential. Your goal is to create products that people want to buy.
The sad truth is that some brands are getting it wrong with their product design. What’s worse is they haven’t got a clue that they’re doing anything the wrong way! If you’re a brand that makes and sells its products, this article is for you.
Are you intrigued? If so, and you want to make sure you’re not making any product design failures of epic proportions, take a look at the following reasons for failure:
1. You haven’t considered mass production
If your brand only crafts and sells a few products each year (i.e., high-ticket items), you can probably ignore this first critical mistake. But, what if your business aims to sell thousands of physical products each year?
Your designs might not have taken into account a little thing called industrial design. There’s a significant difference between industrial design vs product design. The former takes into account mass-scale production, whereas the latter is suitable for a few products.
Examples of what falls into the industrial design category include smartphones and kitchen appliances. The regular product design category can consist of handmade items and products with a long manufacturing process.
2. You haven’t asked your target audience for feedback
Having ideas in your head is great because it means your creative spark is truly alive. The issue is when your ideas don’t align with anyone else’s lifestyle problems. When you think of a new product idea, you must always get feedback from the people who would use it.
If you don’t do that, you’re likely to end up with a product that few people will want to buy, resulting in a substantial financial loss for your business.
3. You haven’t tried to break your product
One of the critical stages of the design process is measuring a product’s longevity. You don’t want your brand to get known as one that sells products that aren’t fit for their intended purpose due to poor quality control.
You should ensure that you check your product can withstand a certain amount of damage or shock before it malfunctions.
4. You aren’t offering anything new to the market
Unfortunately, some entrepreneurs take the saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them” a little too literally! When you launch a new product, it needs to solve a problem rather than creating one to fix.
Don’t just create a clone of an existing product on the market and stick on your brand’s logo!
5. Your product design is accidentally embarrassing
One final reason why your product design might be a total flop could be to do with how it gets perceived. Making a design statement with a unique look is one thing. But, creating a product that becomes the butt of all jokes is another.
