Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Packaging, Arrgh

Stopped in at Staples to buy a USB wireless modem for elderly laptop. It takes a while to find the networking section and even longer to find the needed device on the shelf. Three shelves of boxes marked "Netgear". Teeny tiny little letters, much smaller that "Netgear", said "N150 Wireless USB Adapter". Gotta get down on hand and knees to read it. Same shelf is piled high with Netgear routers, octopus cables, PCI modems, power supplies, and other stuff, all in the same colored boxes, all with vague names. How is a customer, even a savvy customer, supposed to find the device he needs?
The same trend toward vague labels continued on the blank DVD shelf. Square packs marked "DVD-R" full of jewel cases. Are these packs of DVDs with jewel cases or just empty jewel cases? Who knows? Certainly not the Staples staff. Packs of DVD's labeled "printable", what ever that means. The packaging didn't say.
Looks like we have a bunch of clueless marketing droids on the loose.

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