Harbingers of Failure: really interesting paper on consumer behavior

[Recursion]

https://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/mktg/assets/File/Anderson-Eric%202015_02_05_Harbingers.pdf

An interesting study on how some consumers predictably prefer products that fail, and how businesses can use this information. Sadly, I probably am one of those Harbingers, because so many products I really like seem to fail...

Firms often rely on customer input to make decisions about whether to continue to invest in
new products. Our analysis investigates whether the way that firms treat this information
may need to vary for different customers. We study whether there exist ‘Harbingers’ of
failure whose decision to adopt a new product is a signal that the product is more likely to
fail. In particular, we consider the retailer’s decision to continue selling a new product after
observing a window of initial purchases, and show how this decision can be improved if the
retailer distinguishes between Harbingers and non-Harbingers.

Although our initial analysis focuses on customers prior purchases of new products that
failed, we later also investigate whether we can identify Harbingers through their prior
purchases of existing products. In particular, we identify customers who tend to purchase
niche items that few other customers purchase.

(lots of data here)

We have presented evidence that customers who have tended in the past to purchase new
products that failed can help signal whether other new products will fail. The signal is even
stronger if these customers purchase the new product repeatedly. In the next section we
investigate the robustness of this result.

[djean111]

1. That really was interesting. Thank you.

I wonder if that explains, a little bit, about the Amiga. I had one. I went to a Pathway class in a Tandem office, and it looked like everyone who worked there had an Amiga. Creative types bought Amigas. I would buy another one today, but they disappeared.
Looks like it was a niche product. But IMO the best damned computer ever.
And now I am off to see what is happening in Amigaworld. Thanks again.

[Recursion]

2. I loved my Amiga!!!

Best computer I ever had

You can actually buy new ones still.

[djean111]

3. Oh! And I saw the red and white checked ball, too!

Cool site. When I was poking around a few minutes ago, I got some Google results that say the new one is Amiga in name only, have to see what that means. Some Amiga people are purists, some are just exacting.
I had given my Amiga to my son, in 1987. He could do all kinds of things with it. A few years later he did something stupid which cost me money I did not have, and I sold it, thinking I could buy a new one later. You know the rest. The last time I looked, some Germans in the Bahamas had bought the company/patent/whatever. Something like that. That is a mashup.
Now I am off to Amiga-land, and thanks again. You are quite a discerning computer person.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. Iirc, that was the first full fledged computer to offer a lot of classic arcade games.

We used to sit around a friend's dorm room, playing Joust and whatever that adventure game was where you kept hearing 'Blue Elf needs food badly!' on his Amiga. Probably enough that it annoyed him, actually, although he was too polite to say so. I know my roommate was over there hours on end playing that one while the rest of us were watching movies behind him.

[bemildred]

5. All products fail sooner or later.

What this does is show if the early adopters (people who buy for status of one sort or another) are going to show up and make you rich or not. And people who do that will keep doing that, so ...

[bemildred]

4. Sounds like horseshit to me.

Correlation is not causation, or much of anything else either in this case.

[Recursion]

10. Nobody's arguing causation

But empirically a subset of consumers do seem to prefer brands that fail quickly.

[bemildred]

11. Yeah they are, they are saying these guys will maintain their "ability".

It's one of their attributes, the customers, this affection for stuff that won't sell.

It is like looking at clouds, you see what you look for. It's like Astrology, you make up categories and then assign one to everybody, making unfalsifiable statements about their "nature" as you go. But given the gullible nature of the US management classes, they will likely get a long and satisfying career out of this bullshit.

Edit: It works until it doesn't, just like without any theory at all, but you get the illusion that you know what is going to happen. Good for the nerves.

[Recursion]

12. Right, that's what correlation is

Some customers' preferences are strongly correlated with brands' failing. This is shown to be reliable.

[bemildred]

13. The statistics are reliable, the underlying data is random.

It tells you zippo in any particular case, nothing.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. If by 'fail' they mean 'fail to be bought by a lot of people', then I'm probably a 'food harbinger'.

New food products I like often seem to just disappear after the test window, never to be sold again.

[Demeter]

8. Two categories of customers? And you only want to serve one?

Sounds like a prescription for failure.

Who can say that had the manufacturer persisted, the product would have gained market share, as its competition proved unsatisfactory in the long run?

And niche marketing is not a crime, nor a way to lose money.

[retrowire]

9. wait consumers are stupid?!

HOLD THE PRESSES!

lol not all of them but you know what I mean.

[OnyxCollie]

14. Any shampoo I like gets discontinued. nt