Amazon Whisperer

·         Describe the revenue drivers you currently include in your business concept for this class. Revenue drivers are the different ways you make money. 

The current revenue drivers for my business concept is the pick-up, cleaning, and delivery of my client’s clothes. There is a flat fee per pre-sized bag of laundry that is charged after their clothes are returned to them.

·         Describe what kind of product offering you believe should be next. What's the next thing your customers want?

The next service I planned on implementing would be a rush service (same day pick-up, cleaning, and returning) which would be a route given to a specific driver who focuses exclusively on the rushes. I plan to give this as a freebie to customers who send in complaints or suggestions as well.

·         Describe how this "next" thing will enhance your existing product/service offering. Does it improve the user experience, does it increase customer switching costs, does it foster customer loyalty, etc.?

The “next” thing above will enhance my offering as it will give the customer same-day turnaround on their clean clothes (within a 6-12 hour period instead of the usual 24-48 hours) – saving them time means saving them money, especially when they are in immediate need of clean clothes. Using it as a freebie service for complaints and suggestions will increase their loyalty and build a deeper relationship with them.

·         Go to Amazon and try to find a product that is similar to the one you want to offer next. Describe the product. Include a picture of the product.

Since my business concept is a service, I was unable to locate anything on Amazon, however I did find commercial laundry bags that I may be able to customize on customer preference. Looking this item up also gave me an idea to have varying tiers of pick-up/delivery pricing for customers (i.e. $20 for the small bag, $30 for a mid-sized bag, $40 for a large bag) so a customer can vary their laundry cost if they don’t have much laundry in a certain week as compared to others.

·         What are the customer reviews for the product? What, exactly, do customers not like about the product? What do they like about it?

A one-star customer review stated that these bags are impossible to find in good quality, and others stated poor stitching. Although it is not something I considered, since my business concept is service based, there may be a market to sell inexpensive, yet high-quality laundry bags.

·         Describe what design/usability changes you'd make to the product. 

Based on the one-star reviews, it seems like these would be able to be stitched using a high-quality thread, as well as using more stitches than a single run. This should increase durability in the product and customers won’t have to deal with their laundry bag breaking after “day 5” (as pointed out by one reviewer).

·         Describe why you think this product would make a good addition to your current product/service offering.

Using varying sizes of laundry bag will give customers options for their laundry expense. If they were out of town and don’t have much laundry one week, they can use a smaller bag for less expense, and, consequently, if they were out of town, they may have much more laundry the next week to deal with, with which a larger laundry bag could suit their needs.