Skewed SKUs

[Beachguy]

Our son's girlfriend was given an Apple Watch 3 for Christmas. My wife and I were trying to figure our how much it cost, and I sent to the Apple website. HOLY COW! The combinations were limitless, it felt like. I had to look at this and wonder why in the world they needed so many SKUs, and came to realize that is the same case in other areas of Apple- way too many options. Not to the ridiculous point that Watch has achieved, but... seriously, WHY so many endless variants? Too many iPad options, iPhone options... I think this is part of the problem with the Mac lineups these days- I cannot upgrade so they have a bunch of SKUs. This is decidedly NOT customer friendly.

I was looking into buying a Watch, but just trying to guess what the one cost that we saw was so frustrating and confusing that I decided against it.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Bart Kela]

Unlike a computer or blender, a watch is a wearable, a piece of jewelry. As such it has some sort of function as a fashion statement by the owner.

That's why it comes in different sizes, styles, colors, etc.

It turns out that people want some choice in color/size/style for things they deeply consider to be personal effects, like a smartphone or smartwatch. Hence, different colors for many of these devices, cases for smartphones, etc.

 

[Beachguy]

True, but it would seem easier and clearer to offer a "base" model, and the other features as BTO things. As it is now, it's simply overwhelming.

 

[Bart Kela]

There are more SKUs in a typical grocery store.

In any case, there are really two base models: Series 3 and Nike+, a choice between a more refined look and something sporty, a choice made by watch buyers for decades.

The Hermes and Edition models are high end (starting around $1200 so definitely not in the base model category). If you're car shopping but you don't have the dough to buy Aston Martin or Maserati, you won't be considering any of those models.

Whether you pick Series 3 or Nike+, first question is whether or not you want cellular data, the second question is watch face size (this latter has been a question about all watch decision making purchases, not just smartwatches).

From there, you may have a few more choices to make about case material (same with traditional watches), color (same with traditional watches), and band style (same with traditional watches).

The Apple Watch decision making flowchart is not that much different than picking out a watch half a century ago.

Nothing unusual about the Apple Watch choices. If you think Apple has a lot of SKUs for its watch line, you know nothing about watches or jewelry.

In fact, Apple has done the opposite; they have dumbed this down considerably. First of all, there are only two case sizes. For the Nike+ watch, it only comes in aluminum with a handful of color and band choices. For the Series 3, there are two case materials, a handful of case color choices, and a handful of band choices.

Go to the Seiko website and see how many products they list, mentally noting that whatever region you clicked on (like USA) does not represent the entire product line. There are Seiko models that are not marketed in the USA.

Another example: Swatch USA lists 47 mens watches and 46 womens watches, a total of 94.

 

[kohlson]

Retro/legacy thinking that having many SKUs means inefficiencies. Turns out that there are many studies that show, especially with a younger generation, that people want it their way. See BMW Mini (which brags about how there are nearly 10 million configuration combinations; and Timbuktu (which will build a backpack any way you want it). Many manufacturing machines (and the associated operational ecosystems) are nearly as efficient at low volume (even 1) as high volume.