Trend Briefing Speed Summary: Pretail
Want to know the future innovation for consumer goods?
Read this.
Or if you don’t have time, read this speed summary on Trendwatching’s latest PRETAIL trend: Why consumers now love to SHOP for products and services at concept stage. (also identified by JWT as a top 10 consumer trend)
What is PRETAIL? A mode of consumption that sees consumers buy or pre-buy products before they exist, or exist only as concepts – often via crowdfunding platforms, such as KickStarter. Why? Because that’s where current consumer demand exists for more innovative, exciting and unique products and services.
Why should brands care? For brands, PRETAIL is a next-generation compelling solution for assessing real world demand for new product concepts.
In 2012, the PRETAIL market grew 85% to USD 1.4 billion (Massolution, April 2013). On Kickstarter alone 2.2 million people put $275M of money where they mouths were – to see products put into production. Forget concept tests and artificial surveys, PRETAIL is all about the money – the rest is just conversation. Do people value your concept enough to put there own money into seeing it produced? If not, don’t bother.
The PRETAIL trend has given rise to a number of new sites for turning concepts into products and selling them:
- Kickstarter – king of crowdfunding site for new product concepts (with stringent rules)
- ChristieStreet – crowdfunding site for new product concepts
- Crowd Supply – crowdfunding site for new product concepts
- Outgrow.me – retail store for crowdfunded products
- Wrappled – retail store for crowdfunded products
- Tiny Light Bulbs – retail store for crowdfunded products
- Quirky – open sourced product design
- MakeThatThing – production agency for crowdfunded products
Whilst the Trendwatching PRETAIL briefing is about the trend itself and focuses on consumers and entrepreneurs, Muji has shown how brands and retailers can profitably harness the business opportunity of PRETAIL. By posting a PRETAIL page on their site, listing products it was considering producing and stocking, and asking consumers to commit to buying, Muji was able to identify, produce and sell products that outsold category averages four to one. For more on PRETAIL see this Forbes article, crowd funder insider.
So PRETAIL is not about co-creation – brands seeking ideas or help from consumers – it’s about identifying products that will sell using money not opinions – it’s the ultimate simulated test market.
Fancy, testing the power of PRETAIL? You’re in luck – there’s customisable crowdfunding software available for just $45 from themesforest. Trust us, PRETAIL is the future of innovation in consumer products. You heard it here first.
