But there will always be Thin Mints…

So Girl Scout cookies are very big in my household. Thin Mints in particular. And they are a very big business nationally. Wikipedia says that 200 million boxes are sold per year. However, change is afoot! According to the Wall Street Journal, the Girl Scouts are testing out reducing the number varieties that are offered [...]

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High tech comes to vending machines

My office sits in Nathaniel Leverone Hall. I never gave any thought to who Mr. Leverone was until on a visit to my parents in upstate New Hampshire I drove past Dartmouth’s Leverone Field House. That got me wondering who the guy was. It turns out that Mr. Leverone was from New Hampshire and went [...]

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When are there too many choices?

There is a commonly observed phenomenon that consumers can be happier with less choice.  Fewer options makes it easier to decide and customers are generally happier with their final decisions. That is the starting point for a story on Marketplace (Stores offer less so we can spend more, May 13). Customers may be just as [...]

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Swedish fashion & Japanese Kit Kats

Two interesting stories on managing product variety.  The first is from the Wall Street Journal and concerns H&M, the Swedish fast fashion retailer (How H&M Keeps Its Cool, May 10). You might think that a firm whose business strategy is all built around quickly churning out hip, new items would be able to handle all [...]

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The fabric of fashion

It’s apparently fashion week in Milan which gets us a fun article on Italian textile makers (In Italy’s Mills, a New Spin Emerges, Wall Street Journal, Feb 25).  There have been some interesting changes in the apparel industry in the last decade or so.  Cheap now truly rules.  Indeed, some argue that fast fashion retailers [...]

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Product variety and the social good

Wired had an interesting piece on hybrid cars that implicitly asks just how much variety car companies should be offering (‘Forced Features’ Drive Up Hybrid Prices, Jan 28).  The rough argument is that if one accepts that hybrid cars are socially good (and let’s not get distracted by whether anything with that many batteries can [...]

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The sizzle of Zazzle

So how much variety do you want? Zazzle.com seems to think that people want a lot of variety and strives to offer customized products fast. Here is how the firm’s web site describes what they do: Infinite and Instant, Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail [...]

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