Nowism and customer expectations

If you're like me and like to keep up-to-date on current consumer trends, you've probably heard of trendwatching.com. They use "spotters" all around the world to gather research and information on forming trends. In trendwatching.com's latest briefing they highlight what they've coined "nowism" - instant-gratification seeking consumers, embracing the "now" with more passion that ever before.

While nowism may relate most directly to the technology and real-time content we use everyday, for a product design and manufacturing business it is equally as relevant and challenging.

As is typical with many businesses making sportswear and other consumer goods, we normally work 18 months in advance of when a product goes to market. We have to allow time for product research and development and sampling, so that we can get products to distributors and their sales reps 9-12 months before the season starts. We have to book time with our factories and deliver products to the market in time for the relevant season.

With the way factories work, it is very difficult to come up with an idea and get it to market much quicker, without significantly raising costs. When I first started out and volumes were lower, it was much easier to change products as I thought of new ideas. That's not to say I still don't keep refining product design until the last minute (and sometimes beyond), but the timeframes are just much longer.

A real time example of this is some new wetsuits we're making. We started working with New Zealand free diver Will Trubridge  a few years ago to develop a free diving wetsuit. Being a relatively niche sport, with a fiercely loyal global community, free divers around the world have been emailing us, talking on forums and at events, about the new wetsuits. They see Will testing the prototypes and want one as soon as they can. It's fantastic to see the interest, and hard to explain that the production version of the wetsuit is still months away.

While we can't necessarily speed up the development and production of products, we do look to technology to help us communicate with our customers, create excitement and interest and manage their expectations. Our investment in new media and technology is a whole other story, but in the meantime what nowism means to Orca is a more direct and frequent communication with our customers.


Scott Unsworth