Amazon Alexa Crowdsources New Products

Interesting approach will examine further and post here.  Thoughts about usefulness?

Amazon is using crowdsourcing to create new products   by Tom Ryan  in Retailwire  with further expert comment at the link. 

Amazon launched a new program, “Build It,” that in a crowdsourcing scheme enables consumers to vote on which Alexa-enabled products will be developed.

Built It represents the extension of Day 1 Editions, an invitation-only program that offers a select group of consumers the chance to purchase an in-development product at a special price. In exchange for the discount, the buyers provide early feedback to Amazon so the team can review any flaws while gauging potential demand for a rollout. Day 1 Editions led to the 2019 launch of Echo Frames smart eyeglasses and Echo Loop smart ring.

Build It, which is open to anybody, is more geared toward accessing potential demand and apparently creating some buzz around launch.

Consumers participating in the program are offered a chance to pre-order in-development products at a special price as long as enough others pre-order, mimicking a Kickstarter campaign. If the concept reaches its pre-order goal in 30 days, Amazon will build it and those pre-ordering over the 30-day period receive the item at the discount price. The price increases when fully rolled out.  ... ' 

Digital Product Development from Visualization

And forward to product design and development, from visualization. 

Visualization Adds Transparency to Digital Product Development

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Germany),  January 4, 2021

Visualization software developed by researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (IGD) and Austria's Linz Center of Mechatronics could embed transparency within digital product development. The Fraunhofer IGD team applied this tool to the development of electric motors, while its Linz partner produced technical data and mathematically modeled all product parameters. The visualization covers all criteria relevant for motor development, and portrays the interactions of individual parameters, relaying what occurs when any value is changed and the impact on other criteria, in real time. Fraunhofer IGD's Lena Cibulski said, "The software is an ideal choice whenever dealing with many design options and a number of incompatible quality criteria that require a compromise to be made."

Why do People Buy Products Unrelated to Search?

In Amazon/Science an interesting study.

Why do customers buy seemingly irrelevant products?
Analysis points to better algorithms for product discovery.
By Liane Lewin-Eytan

Product search algorithms, like the ones that help customers place orders through Alexa, aim at returning the products that are most relevant to users’ queries, where relevance is usually interpreted as “anything that satisfies the users’ need”. A common way to estimate customers’ satisfaction is to rely on the judgment of human annotators. (We annotate a very small fraction of 1% of interactions.)

We’ve noticed that customers frequently engage with voice shopping results that annotators label as irrelevant. At this year’s ACM Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM) conference, in February, we will present a systematic analysis of this phenomenon.  .... " 

Crowdfunding Marketing

New thing for major CPG.  Looking for other examples.

How crowdfunding helped Gillette, Coca-Cola test new products
Gillette and Coca-Cola are among the brands that have launched products via crowdfunding, allowing the firms to connect directly with consumers and gain input ahead of a wider launch. "[T]his one-on-one conversation we can have with the really enthusiastic group is something interesting," said Gillette's Andras Papp of the decision to test the company's new heated razor on Indiegogo. .... "    (requires registration)