Transterrestrial Musings  


Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay

Space
Alan Boyle (MSNBC)
Space Politics (Jeff Foust)
Space Transport News (Clark Lindsey)
NASA Watch
NASA Space Flight
Hobby Space
A Voyage To Arcturus (Jay Manifold)
Dispatches From The Final Frontier (Michael Belfiore)
Personal Spaceflight (Jeff Foust)
Mars Blog
The Flame Trench (Florida Today)
Space Cynic
Rocket Forge (Michael Mealing)
COTS Watch (Michael Mealing)
Curmudgeon's Corner (Mark Whittington)
Selenian Boondocks
Tales of the Heliosphere
Out Of The Cradle
Space For Commerce (Brian Dunbar)
True Anomaly
Kevin Parkin
The Speculist (Phil Bowermaster)
Spacecraft (Chris Hall)
Space Pragmatism (Dan Schrimpsher)
Eternal Golden Braid (Fred Kiesche)
Carried Away (Dan Schmelzer)
Laughing Wolf (C. Blake Powers)
Chair Force Engineer (Air Force Procurement)
Spacearium
Saturn Follies
JesusPhreaks (Scott Bell)
Journoblogs
The Ombudsgod
Cut On The Bias (Susanna Cornett)
Joanne Jacobs


Site designed by


Powered by
Movable Type
Biting Commentary about Infinity, and Beyond!

« Profound | Main | Beyond Parody »

Lousy Salesmen

A company threw away thirty-five thousand pairs of shoes, because they were like bi-pedal whoopie cushions:

Customers complained that with every step, their shoes made the sound of someone passing gas.

The problem wasn't the shoes--the problem was that they accidentally sold them to the wrong customers, who weren't in the market for that particular feature.

If the numbers here are right, the shoes cost them about six to eight bucks a pair. I simply cannot believe that they wouldn't have quickly emptied the shelves of them for much more than that had they made a minimal attempt to market them, as gag gifts, or a way to keep track of toddlers, or just for kids (of all ages) to annoy adults. Even without bothering to rebrand, or come up with a clever name (feel free to offer suggestions in comments), they could have gotten their money back with profit just by tossing them up on Ebay as is.

Heck, they might have even ended up with a whole new product line. They could have been partnering with the supplier who screwed up, instead of paying lawyers. It could go down in the history of accidental techological innovation, kind of like vulcanizing rubber.

Posted by Rand Simberg at February 17, 2005 08:23 AM
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.transterrestrial.com/mt-diagnostics.cgi/3432

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference this post from Transterrestrial Musings.
Comments

"Pull my shoelaces."

Posted by Karl Hallowell at February 17, 2005 12:21 PM

Gives a whole new meaning to the term "Air Jordan."

Posted by NukemHill at February 17, 2005 02:02 PM

Pooters
Windbreakers

Posted by Mister Hanky at February 17, 2005 02:45 PM

You must be thinking of the episode of "Cheers" where Cliff Claven sells mail order shoes to everyone in the bar, and they all squeak.

Posted by Raoul Ortega at February 17, 2005 03:37 PM

Foot-Tooters

Posted by Astrosmith at February 17, 2005 04:13 PM

Colon Haan?
Timberland's new "FiberEffects"!
Bruno Stinkgli?
Buster "Beans" Browns?

Posted by T Marcell at February 17, 2005 06:00 PM

Air Whoopie??

Posted by JorgXMcKie at February 17, 2005 06:20 PM

Reminds me of some Rockports I bought a few years ago.

Posted by Dave at February 17, 2005 07:13 PM

"Perverse Allstars"?
"Stinky McFarlands"?
Poufter Pooters?

Posted by Buford at February 17, 2005 07:52 PM

Doc Fartin's

Posted by Ivan in Cambridge at February 18, 2005 02:30 AM


Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments: