We’ve talked a few times recently about one pillar of our business — selling weird stuff that nobody else would at a huge discount. But this Dyson represents another potential pillar — offering something that everybody else sells because it’s great, but at a slightly lower price.
We say “potential” pillar because we’ve never actually sold a new Dyson before. They’re always refurbished. So this is a kind of a test — will our notoriously pinchpenny crowd (i.e. you) spring for this price on a new Dyson, or are you content with the greater-discount-but-possibly-scuffed refurbished deals?
Presumably there is some fraction of our audience that balks at refurbished goods and will delight in this discount off MAP price. Unless, of course, we’ve driven those customers away like so many dust bunnies by our persistent refurbishment-peddling. It could be that we’ve winnowed our flock into refurb-heads so those who would be potentially interested in a new Dyson won’t even visit the site today.
You see companies struggle with this problem all the time. McDonalds constantly tries to provide healthier options now that the world has figured out that their food is gross poison. The only problem is that those customers who would be potentially interested in their McQuinoa have long since fled the brand, leaving only those customer who enjoy their gross poison.
Other companies manage to successfully expand their customer base without alienating their core. You may recall that Facebook used to be a place for college students to post pictures of themselves. Now it has expanded to become the de facto internet and a means of undermining democracy. It’s a truly inspiring success story in how a brand can grow.
Truthfully, we’re not interested in appealing to everyone. We like the group of weirdos (i.e. you) we’ve collected. If selling new instead of refurbed Dyson brings in a bunch of boring normies, we won’t keep doing it no matter how much money it makes.
[Edit: We’ve been informed by management that we will in fact prioritize making money over maintaining our status as a rag-tag group of misfits. We regret the mistake.]
