macwright-com-rvs3gc.txt (2239B)
1 [1]Tom MacWright 2 3 [email protected] 4 5 [2]Tom MacWright 6 7 • [3]Writing 8 • [4]Reading 9 • [5]Photos 10 • [6]Projects 11 • [7]Drawings 12 • [8]Micro⇠ 13 • [9]About 14 15 I want brands 16 17 2024-12-03 18 19 I think a weird thing that’s happening with capitalism right now is that I want 20 brand consistency more than ever. It’s come up in conversations with friends, 21 too, how brands like OXO, IKEA, Costco or Muji are starting to feel like an 22 escape, rather than a luxury. Even Target, in-store, is kind of a place where 23 you can, mostly, buy a thing that is fine. 24 25 It’s mostly because of the Amazon effect. Amazon went from a store to a 26 ‘marketplace’ of drop-shipped nameless junk that takes too long to wade 27 through. Alibaba was this kind of experience before Amazon even thought about 28 it. Walmart is the same sort of experience now. It’s an overwhelming and 29 complicated experience: I’ll look at t-shirts, and for the same ‘brand’, there 30 are multiple ‘sellers’ from whom Amazon dynamically picks to serve my sale. The 31 color blue is two cents cheaper than green. For anything more complicated than 32 a t-shirt, the odds of it being a [10]counterfeit are fairly high. 33 34 I don’t want to engage in the supply chain this much, and I don’t think most 35 people do either, even if it enables incredible new levels of cheapness. 36 37 To some extent, Amazon has to be a reflection of consumer preference: buying 38 more stuff, faster, for the cheapest price possible. And e-commerce is a hard 39 industry. 40 41 But I strongly believe that there’s an opportunity for a brand like Costco’s 42 ‘Kirkland’ or OXO to become the standard place for middle-class people to buy 43 stuff. Paying 5-10% more for something with better odds of being genuine and 44 high-quality, and for a less overwhelming junk-pile buying experience… there’s 45 something there. 46 47 48 References: 49 50 [1] https://macwright.com/ 51 [2] https://macwright.com/ 52 [3] https://macwright.com/writing/ 53 [4] https://macwright.com/reading/ 54 [5] https://macwright.com/photos/ 55 [6] https://macwright.com/projects/ 56 [7] https://macwright.com/drawings/ 57 [8] https://macwright.com/micro/ 58 [9] https://macwright.com/about/ 59 [10] https://prospect.org/power/2024-08-28-amazon-counterfeit-problem-ink-cartridges/