General, fashion, cosmetic, living, sustainable
Report 43 / 2021-10 -26
Price, design, functionality, and quality will have a new competitor: Pollution. The environmentally conscious consumer will make their decision based on the product’s environmental impact.
Online shopping can be very overwhelming, with many products on offer that can be easily compared. We live in a world where almost all products by well-known brands or even unknown brands have an acceptable quality. Many products are extremely similar in price, functionality, and design. Think of irons, jeans, eyeliners, and even sport shoes.
The differences between these products are often trivial. The large amount of choice webshops offer, combined with the limited differences between products, results in a new category being born in the webshop’s interface. Price, design, functionality, and quality will have a new competitor: Pollution. The environmentally conscious consumer will make their decision based on the product’s environmental impact.
Price, design, functionality, and quality will play second fiddle to pollution in the consumer’s mind. Especially when products have no significant differences, choosing an environmentally friendly product is an easy choice. This will mean products with a high pollution rate will not be purchased, especially when the other characteristics of the product do not outweigh its pollution rate enough. The consumer has a lot of respect for nature, and wants their product to carry that same respect.
Nowadays when picking a flight on Google Flights you’ll see pollution rates alongside prices. Before this we would choose a flight purely by price in relation to the airline. Now, we’re also picking based on how much our flights pollute. Seeing a lower pollution rate might even convince us to spend more, or fly an airline we normally wouldn’t. Similarly, seeing a high pollution rate might turn us away from cheap options or more prestigious airlines. This is the type of system that is now going to move into webshops, fashion, and cosmetics.
Step One - ASAP
Incorporate the respect for nature into your company and products, as the consumer is demanding this respect. They are going to make their choice on what to buy and what not to buy based on it. Change your existing product as soon as possible to buy time for step two. Having products with high pollution rates must be avoided at all costs. If your product has no discernible design, functionality, price, or quality differences between other products, a high pollution rate will absolutely kill your product.
Step Two - Short Term
Fixing your pollution rates is most certainly the first major step that ensures your company and products survive into this future, but to thrive you must think of more. Create a product that has low pollution and a great unique concept.
Start from a clean slate. Bring your product back to the core and build it back up with pollution in mind. Think of creative concepts to ensure a low pollution rate while creating a unique experience for your product, such as our concepts of Do It Yourself, Just 5 Ingredients and Local Perfumes.
Avoid a future where you will become stuck in a group where a low pollution rate is the only selling point.
Step Three - Long term
Rethink the product entirely and use innovative concepts that change the entire market. Think of immaterial design concepts, or a more concrete example: Autonomous cars with ride sharing services. It fills the same purpose but on a completely different level.
