Buyer sharing: How does the US market make useful product innovations?

Ms. Hao Shanshan, founder of Buyer Central, was a purchasing manager at Williams-Sonoma. She has more than 13 years of working experience in Fortune 500 companies, and worked for Walmart, Target, HoMedics, C&A, etc. Well-known enterprises, control the complete product supply chain system and participate in all aspects of commodity procurement, sales, marketing, brand management, etc., to achieve rapid growth in sales profits.

Buyer Central is a training platform composed of on-the-job purchasers from Fortune 500 companies. From the perspective of buyers and experienced purchasers, it tells everyone how to better promote business. We will also hold regular purchases. Meet at home to help businesses make real deals. The entire buyer team comes from very well-known large companies.

Ms. Hao Shanshan

Useful innovation to maintain competitive advantage

In 2016, when I was still a purchasing manager, I heard the word innovation almost every day. The company he serves has done a great job in innovation and design, and has a very good product design team, so he also requires his suppliers to keep innovating products to interactively maintain a competitive advantage.

Nowadays, Chinese suppliers are facing many challenges. The manufacturing industry is constantly adjusting to India, Southeast Asia, and even Europe. Although they have been improving their independent product development capabilities, they can always tell from the buyers. , Chinese suppliers have not innovated, and have even begun to talk about India, saying that Chinese suppliers are not as innovative as Indian suppliers. Is this because of high customer requirements? Or are Chinese suppliers not as good as Indian suppliers?

Actually not, the innovation of Chinese suppliers does not make buyers feel very practical, and it can be converted into sales immediately. Innovation is a continuation of buyer demand. So innovation is important, but useful innovation is more important.

What should be paid attention to in product innovation?

There are many kinds of innovation, including marketing strategy innovation, product innovation, manufacturing innovation, core technology innovation, cost control innovation, but core technology innovation is usually in the hands of a few people, not everyone can do it. arrive. There are also innovations in customer experience and services, and innovations in business models.

What should be paid attention to in product innovation?

Product development speed is important because you don't want to miss out on this market opportunity, but it's not as important as you might think. In fact, the stability and producibility of innovative products are more important because innovation is a new combination of production factors and production conditions.

For example, the innovation of Polaroid camera, Polaroid was going to develop a camera with INS that can take pictures, share and print in time, INS is a very popular photo sharing platform, Polaroid is a very good camera development company, this cooperation cause a lot of attention. However, because this product involves too many companies, including Japanese printers and photo paper companies, plus China's mainframe production factories, Polaroid simply cannot make everyone run in in a short time. This product was stumbling and hastily put on the market when it did not have the production conditions. After the listing, problems appeared frequently, the software was immature, and the hardware was immature. Therefore, although this product is a good innovation and idea, its lifespan is only It went out of the market after a year.

Secondly, product development must be planned well in the early stage. Failure to focus will lead to resource dispersion and quality degradation. In addition, while innovating products, we must continue to explore the future needs of customers. Once you have a good product, don’t linger and think about where the next good product will be. The important thing is that innovation should be based on customer needs.

I would like to remind Chinese suppliers that product design must be professional, and a good designer must be found for product appearance, and no investment in design is allowed. You say that I can take a picture and come back and copy it. This is not acceptable. There is no sustainable development. I can recommend some excellent domestic designers, and even some foreign designers who came to China to start a business.

A good product is the demand for beauty

How to cultivate and brew innovation?

Regardless of the product, it's a good idea for suppliers to keep an eye on fashion and trends. Because good products are the pursuit of beauty, beauty itself is a kind of power, and making your products more beautiful is an innovation.

Usually this fashion trend starts with clothing and fabrics, so it is recommended that boys go shopping with their girlfriends and ask their girlfriends what is popular this year, maybe you will have some different harvests. As you can see, in the following three pictures, I originally had some inspirational pictures sent by customers. He has some suggestive artworks, which will tell you what the development focus of the next season is, not for you to copy anything in it. , but I want to tell you what my design feel and theme for the next season are, and you have the ability to translate these inspirations and then transfer them to your own products. If your client has not provided such reference material, you can ask him to ask for it, and they will give it to you.

Innovation of materials

The use of new materials can make products richer and more three-dimensional. Besides this ordinary plastic, what else can be used? We can also use recycled plastic to give your products Tell an environmental story. Some products use this organic plastic, which can improve their core competitiveness.

This is a metal earphone that I have developed before. Metal can greatly improve the texture of the product. The design of this wooden barrel makes our products and life closer, the wooden barrel is very close to the people, and the glass, ceramics, and marble in the natural materials are all materials that can be used. Once you have mastered the use of these different materials, it will be better if you can mix and match the different materials. This earphone is a combination of wood and metal, this air purifier is a combination of wood and plastic, and this chandelier is a combination of cement and transparent resin. This electric kettle is a combination of plastic and cork, this electric fan is a combination of wood and metal, and this earphone is a combination of metal, wood and leather.

Look at the one next to you, the top is colored cement, and the bottom is very cheap sand and gravel. This is a combination of natural stone cutting and glass. There are three materials in this table. Wood, cement and metal. This is a Japanese craft, a combination of ceramics and glass, this table is very interesting, it is a combination of wood and elastic rope,

Innovation in the production process

This is the transformation of a mirror Personally, if your customer has been buying a mirror from you, and then one day he tells you that my mirror has been sold for ten years, and it has begun to sell slowly, and the price is becoming less and less competitive. , I need to keep prices down, and I need new mirrors to fill some of the market. What kind of transformations can you do to a mirror?

You can re-cut the mirror, do some stitching, attach it to the mirror, turn framed into frameless, or even make your own mirror half mirror and half wood. The back of the mirror is made of mercury, you can give yourself some printing on the back of the mirror, you can have patterns, and it can be completely irregular mash-up cuts and re-patches. It has a very modern feel. In addition, there can be some retro treatment on the mirror, or subtraction can be done, because the back of the mirror is coated with mercury, which can be polished off with chemical potions to create a gradient effect. This is a glass screen, cut the glass into vertical pieces and then spliced together. On the vase on the right, I would like to give an explanation of technological innovation. This vase is a craft with nesting materials. When you blow three layers and four layers, the craft is very difficult. Once you break through this craft, this is your core competitiveness. .

Innovation of Application Scenarios

Kawasaki Heavy Industries invented the standing water motorcycle many years ago, and the market quickly became popular. Just provided this information, said can you make the pads thicker, we will be more comfortable, they put a lot of effort into developing more comfortable pads, and his competitors directly developed a seated riding pad. Jet skis defeated Kawasaki at once and seized all the market. This story tells us that product innovation does not have to be created from scratch, just like walking, the left foot is the problem your users encounter, and the right foot is the countermeasure you come up with. If you keep repeating this, you will always reach your destination.