Conversations with myself

In a barrel-scraping attempt to come up with ideas to share which wouldn’t send you to sleep I have been spending my days contemplating which bits of my life I could consider as article content. The…

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Market Research

My product is a car phone mount.

This is a relatively new market that came out of the advent of the smartphone. When the iPhone was first released in 2008, the ability to create apps on a mobile device with navigation features became widespread. Rather than install an expensive GPS into someone’s car, one could use a phone mount to strap that to their car instead. There are several target markets, but generally, the user is someone who owns a car without a built in navigation system. Secondary markets include Lyft and Uber drivers, CDL licensees, and busy workers who want to use their phone in the car without being hands-on.

Common materials include plastic, metal, rubber, and silicone. Magnets are being integrated into newer models, creating a magnet suction on the back of the phone instead of a normal slotted or gripped system.

The first takeaway from this market is that it has a massive amount of variance in design. This is derivative from the fact that cars have variance in design and price point, but still, it was a fairly large undertaking trying to find everything in this space. So, I went to three different stores in three different areas, trying to find new and innovative concepts, along with a general idea of how the market worked.

Nicollet Mall Target

The great thing about going to school in Minneapolis is the fact that we have two large retailers based in the area (Target and Best Buy). I started off my retail adventure by going to the Nicollet Mall target via light rail. Of note — I would be taking public transit for most of this journey, but used my phone to help me navigate just about everywhere. The importance of mobile devices as navigation tools is one of the reasons, in my opinion, that the phone car mount came about in the first place.

One of the more unique things about this store compared to the others is that the car phone mounts were present in two different areas of the store, with two different brands and price points for each one.

This was the display in the home and auto improvement section. This shelf space was probably paid for by Scoshe, as they are the only brand on display in the area. The magic mount “try me”! was a nice touch, allowing customers to interact with the boxed product before they bought it. There was no true rhyme or reason to how the products were sorted, except for size. The shocking thing, to me, was the staggering variety of unique SKUs from this one brand alone, along with the amount of places to mount your phone in one car. They were displayed at a variety of price points, from the $10-$30 range.

If you were to head into the electronics section, there would be another grouping of car phone mounts, this time from the brand iOttie. These tended to be higher end compared to the other section, and mixed in with other more expensive cell phone accessories. Everything here ranged from $25–50.

Best Buy HQ Best Buy

After almost getting thrown out of the Nicollet Mall Target (they thought I was a comp shopper), I headed by bus to Richfield, where my other two stores were located. As Best Buy is completely devoted to electronics, the merchandising here was going to be different, and I was excited to see what it would be like. As I found out, they were located in the very front of the store, along with other phone accessories. This, I surmised, was probably because someone who needed a mount for a road trip or rental car would want to pick it up as quickly as possible (as opposed to larger purchases, like laptops, being located in the back of the store).

There were three brands present, two of which were new to me: there was iOttie, which had been at Target, and then Insignia and TripGrip. Pretty much everything here was in a very specific price range of $20–$25.

Richfield SuperWalmart

After my trip to the Best Buy, I walked a mile to my final stop: the SuperWalmart. The display here was fully stored in the electronics section.

There were a few interesting things that were unique to the SuperWalmart compared to the other stores. Firstly, there was the widest price range — ranging from an ultra low end $5.88 to a higher end $50. Then, anything above about $10 was locked away for an employee to assist with, which was unique compared to other stores, where one could just take a car mount to checkout without assistance. Overall, there was no real rhyme or reason to the merchandising.

Visual Benchmarking Chart

2x2 Chart

The moment you walk in to the online bazaar that is the Amazon Marketplace, you realize it is far more complex than one might imagine. Being a “red ocean” product, phone car mounts are ubiquitous, and therefore there are a few special sections that Amazon has included that act as a form of digital retail merchandising. These include sponsored posts, editorial recommendations, and Amazon’s own selections. Each of them contribute to the online shopping experience, making it closer to a traditional retail environment.

At the top of the screen is a car mount promotion from Kenu. This is akin to a company paying for better shelf placement in a traditional retail environment.

This is an editorial-style recommendation that popped up while scrolling through the first of Amazon results for “car phone mount”. It appears to be run through Amazon’s onsite associates program, which is meant to “ bring product-related content from third-parties onto Amazon to help customers research and discover products they might be interested in.”

Amazon itself has made recommendations to the consumer based on their “Amazon’s Choice” program. Note the similarities to the iMore review that was through onsite associates.

I chose to analyze all of these “recommended” car mounts on Fakespot, as well as some of the other top options from Amazon, and common offline selections from Target, Best Buy, and Walmart. Something interesting to note — the brands displayed in stores and the ones displayed prominently online were overall completely different! This is where things got interesting.

Pretty much everything from this listing set had a C from Fakespot.The exception was anything from Tek/TripGrip, which all had high levels of deception present and both products were ranked D and F, respectively. Generally, the company with the best reviews was Maxboost, which was only present online, not in stores. Both of their products had about a 4.5 star rating according to Fakespot, with an average of ~67% of their reviews being real. iOttie also had stellar reviews all across the board and low levels of deception.

There was also an interesting insight into what people wanted from their car phone mounts. Generally, the main traits that a user was looking for in a car phone mount included flexibility, low price, and small size. Common complaints included mount bending, large size, and lack of sturdiness.

There are various macro and micro trends affecting car phone mount design. For this project, I decided to focus on four of these macro trends, which are on either a product level or a societal level.

Life on the Go

The increasing affordability of mass transit allows people across the globe to travel further and faster. From the expansion of public transit systems in major cities to the advent of cheap airlines, we are a people on the move. Lots of transit and navigation information is accessed through our phones and other mobile devices.

Interconnected Era

Wherever people go, we feel the need to look it up on our phones, snap a picture, text our friends about it, or share it on social media. We live in an age where people are pretty much always online, whether it be through or phones or through the Internet of Things. Phone car mounts allow us to stay connected even when we’re on the move.

Design Variance

There is no one way to solve any given problem. The world is a diverse place, lending itself to a variety of solutions to the same problem. There are many types of car, for instance. Some are made for performance, others for aesthetic, and still others to just be plain old tough. The design variance in the automotive industry leads to even more variance at the level of car accessories. Generally, this leads to a few design principles when it comes to phone mounts: accessibility, modification, and ease of use. You cannot make one phone mount fit all cars — but you can try to make it work with a majority of them.

Rise of Transit as Commodity

With the rise of companies like Uber, Lyft, and Lime, transportation is being viewed as a convenient commodity. An everyday person can now be responsible for what a trained and licensed taxi driver used to be solely in control of. Most of these services are accessed through our phones, making interactions between vehicles and mobile devices necessary and common. The driver-side interface in Uber and Lyft includes navigation, making hands-free use of the device necessary (this is where a phone car mount comes in).

After seeing what was currently on the market, as well as the most requested and least liked features on the market, I came up with ten initial ideas. As someone who tends to function better with user input than product comparison, this was surprisingly difficult, but in the end, I did come up with some rather novel ideas. Most of the creativity came from a materials perspective, but others explored alternate solutions entirely (mostly to get people’s hands AWAY from their phone on the road).

9/19–9/20: Stalk Amazon reviews with fakespot, talk to friends about where they generally bought their products. See what the typical “one star” and typical “five star” review is.

9/21: Make the trip to all the big box area stores (Target, Walmart, Best Buy) to do visual benchmarking. Take pictures, notes, etc. Make sure to be thorough, and buy a few of the more interesting ones for further evaluation.

9/22: Complete the product intro drawing, along with starting the large visual benchmarking chart. Check for accuracy. Make sure to research trends.

9/23–9/24: Complete the large visual benchmarking chart, along with the 2x2 chart. Check for accuracy.

9/25: Check over complete blog, see if anything is amiss, then submit!

Conversations with myself

Market Research

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