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Subject:
From:
Kent Dahlgren <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Kent Dahlgren <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 6 May 2001 23:39:18 -0700
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> There's an interesting thought: the difference between personal and
> corporate buying --

During this entire thread I too have thought of those with fat expense cards
paid by someone else....(and tried to figure out how UIE could develop a
study that both allows them to study users shopping for actual
needed/authorized items with their own card - as well as using the
relationships to sell more high profit reports.)

I'm a salesman trapped in an engineer's body.  So sue me.


I'm afforded a tremendous amount of lattitude in the use of my expense card.
I can go out and buy a printer if the need arises, and have.  I've over five
years experience in the printer business, on both the marketing and
engineering sides, and couldn't tell you the model name and number of a
vendor's printer to save my life, aside from the models I helped design.

I can, however, get sickenly verbose about the functional attributes of a
printer, right down to near quoting the printer MIB.

So, using this example, I've had to search/go many sites trying to map
sought features to model names because it seems not one vendor has figured
out the only people who truly knows what a DeskJet 710C is (and does) are
those who market and sell the DeskJet 710C.

Almost every purchase on the expense card, and there have been a lot, begin
with comments such as this:

"We need a black and white printer that everyone can print to and prints on
both sides of the page."

I then translate these stated requirements from English to vendor-speak:

"They need a monochrome workgroup printer that supports duplex."

I hit sites searching and browsing for models that map to these
requirements.  Eventually I get a model number, and then the shopping
starts.  Shopping starts at this point because no one allows you to buy a
product based on its functional description.

(A realistic limitation no matter how to slice it, with many non-web
analogues, except that the web sadly lacks many of the tangible attributes
of a traditional store that help a shopper to the cash register without
having to ever know the model name.)

Once I finally get the model number (HP 4050 TN with a duplex option tray),
I can start comparing other models (thanks to vendors and their competitive
analysis pages), and eventually price/availability.  By hook or by crook, I
use whatever tools the site makes available to find something that helps me
learn model numbers because few enable me to buy by functional description.

So I'm actually scanning for two things - keywords that match functional
descriptions of the product I seek, AND web-widgets that may help me in my
search (sadly there are few of these around).

(Just for kicks, go to HP's site and search for a printer that matches the
features listed above.  At one point you may be compelled to choose between
"inkjet, laserjet, and multifunction."  Tis a shame they lack
"dye-sublimation" or "phase-change" bullets in their controlled vocabulary
"search" function.  Tis a greater shame they don't just say the functional
difference between laser, inkjet, and something called multifunction).


I'm, of course, equating corporate expense card purchases with purchased
items such as printers and pens and toner and routers and servers, etc.
Maybe items more "consumer based" do a better job of mapping need to item
name....but my experience with web-grocery shopping has also supported this
dim reality (with momma out to the movies my son is crying for soy formula -
not Isomil soy formula with iron, product ID 8675309).



Kent Dahlgren
Celstream
503-975-5625

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