
Snap's NYC store selling its camera glasses is now mostly empty - panabee
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/26/snapchat-nyc-spectacles-store-is-mostly-empty.html
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cocktailpeanuts
I think at some point people started coming up with a theory that "the reason
all the hardware products fail is because they're not seen as 'cool'. Look at
Google Glass. People didn't use it because it's not cool", and the tech people
started believing their own theory, and this is what we have.

Apple thought being fashionable was core to success with their Watch.

Snapchat (I refuse to call them by the name "the company that makes snapchat")
thought giving the illusion of being "cool" is what would make it succeed.

No. Hardware products succeed if they provide actual benefit that leapfrogs
anything else that existed before them. Being "cool" is just a gimmick to get
initial buzz but unless you have a product worthy of it, it will die off, and
that's worse than not even having buzz to start with. Don't try to fake cool
and just build a damn good product that actually solves a problem.

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brianwawok
Why do beats headphones sell for $300 despite having sound quality equal to
$50 headphones?

Clearly cool does some things in some hardware markets. I guess you can argue
that they make people pay more for an already useful product vs buy the
product at all..

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AtheistPUA
Actually, Beats by Dre have superb sound quality on par with competing
headphones in the same price range and above, even. The reason many people
complain is because they make the mistake of attempting to listen to genres
such as Rock N' Roll, Indie Music, Punk, etc. when the product is clearly
advertised as "The Hip Hopper's Head Phone". The sound profile simply isn't
synchronized with the waves associated with those genres, so it's no wonder
that the listening experience is unpleasant.

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omarchowdhury
Here's how I would have done Snaptacles scarcity marketing:

1\. Make the actual Snaptacle design into a Snapchat filter.

2\. Randomly allow a select few users everyday access to that filter _and_
access to purchase the glasses online. Stipulate that they have to use the
filter at least once to gain access to buy.

3\. People will be excited to receive invitation to buy the glasses via the
filter, and also be happy to use the exclusive filter and effectively become
the marketing engine for the glasses.

4\. Others who did not receive the filter will be envious, further creating
the want to both be selected to use the filter, and ultimately purchase the
glasses.

5\. Sales, sales, sales. Scale, scale, scale.

The current method with these limited time stores is really taking scarcity
marketing to the extreme, and I believe at the cost of real user adoption.

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digikata
Hmm, it's a one product store. Why didn't they make it a pop-up.

