Well, I guess that the "trouble" is that companies like to cheat the customers. It's not that they don't know what to make, when one gets some laundry detergents from Europe, made by the same companies, they work extremely well here. It's that they want to cut costs. Well, there you are. Instead of manufacturing the best stuff they can, we in US get the second, third or forth best.
Case in point: I know an awful lot of people who don't own their own laundry equipment and they used to *love* the tablets because they could carry just a few pouches to the laundromat, but the tablets disappeared anyway. Why? "Because they don't dissolve" is the usual answer. Well, yes, *originally* the tablets were made in Europe to be put inside a "dispersal net" inside the washer basket, not in the dispenser. Not too long after, they came out with the version you could put in the dispenser. *After* that, we got the tablets in US, and you had to crush them if you wanted to use them in the dispenser. The only one that dissolved fast enough in the dispenser was the Purex Tablets. How much do we want to bet that we got the formulas that needed the dispersal nets (which they never had here) when they could have had the improved version here from the start given what they already knew?
Liquids only seem "convenient" if you pretreat all the stains. But we seem to be heading towards liquid-only detergents in US. You know what is *really* convenient for me? It's to just put the clothes in the washer, put the detergent on the dispenser, select a cycle and let the *machine* do the work. That's what I can do with really good detergent, and it's what doesn't work with a lot of the detergents here, particularly the liquids.
Unilever used to sell very good formulas of Wisk, the tablets and the powder, despite not saying they were HE, were very low sudsing and cleaned stains really well. The liquid version is still ages behind and even the HE liquid version is still sudsier than the powder was.
Why are they running after a stupid strategy from P&G of having multiple scents and multiple formulas? Are they really saying that they can’t have *one* version of Wisk that cleans all the stains like the powder did and we need to run different cycles with different formulas of Wisk to remove all stains? How many scents do we need? I'd think that one unscented and one or two scents would be plenty.
Also, I knew a lot of people who were in love with a version of Snuggle (Pure & Gentle) that, while not completely unscented, was mild enough that most people, even the ones allergic to perfumes, could tolerate it. What do you know, they discontinued it. Then they release a bunch of new scents and nothing unscented. So, people who really liked how much softer the laundry was with Snuggle but didn't care for the strong scents, ended up buying Downy instead.
So, how much cheaper is it in the end to lose market share to save a few cents per package? I think they shot themselves in the foot. Also, one has to be extremely careful when one tries to copy the strategy of one’s competitor, and also when one listens to focus groups. When you call people to participate in focus groups, all they keep saying is what they think will make them look smart and/or what they think you want to hear anyway. Like, for example, no one asks the focus groups “would you like to have clean laundry that doesn’t have any perfume/scents on it?” or even “would you prefer laundry that *is* clean or laundry that is strongly scented so people know you cycled it thru the washer even if it looks dirty?” -- that’s the kind of thing we’d like to see answered. So, of course, when they ask “do you like these new scents” they get “yes” for an answer; when they say “which one of these scents do you prefer”, they get an answer -- which, more often than not, like in fashion, is the new stuff, because the focus group is bored with the old stuff. Then customers complain they liked the old scent better, so we have now at least two scents on the shelf. Can’t they say, sell an unscented version and then twelve small bottles of scents for one to put a drop or two or three in the washer as one pleases?
I think they are losing clients because they don’t have formulas that actually work any better than the competitor’s because they are trying to save money. Then they have to compete on silly stuff like how many scents they have on the supermarket shelves. Might as well compete on actual performance and regain the market share.
Also, what is so wrong with being number two when there are plenty of companies that would be darn happy to be number two, three or four? To me it smells like greed. Which brings me to the silly names the scents/perfumes have now, “Spring and Renewal” etc. What’s wrong with “Daisy”, “Rose”, “Violet”, “Water Lilly and Jasmine” etc, so you *know* what it’s supposed to smell like without having to open the package and take a whiff? Maybe they could rename the laundry detergents with scents that would make people want to buy them like “Rich”, “Stinky Rich”, “Rolling in Dough” etc. Then we could poke fun at detergents by saying that “Greed” doesn’t smell nearly as good as “Stinky Rich”. ;-)
