FYI, I made another visit to my local MicroCenter (a US retail chain) today, probably the 4th visit in 2013. Notable trends:
The DIY electronics section is expanding at the expense of computer books. I estimate that the linear footage has tripled.
The number of DIY electronics vendors is growing and their sections are now distinct and better-organized - Sparkfun, Parallax, etc. Even Arduino has its own product space now. Earlier this year the boards (usually UNOs) would be randomly tucked in between non-Arduino items.
There was a single Beaglebone White lying on a shelf, out of context with other products. There was nothing else there from CircuitCo.
My real job is a non-IT management position for a major home improvement retailer so I speak with some authority:
CircuitCo, get some field reps into MicroCenter stores and fight for some shelf space! What I saw today was lame.
CircuitCo, your lead product is the Beaglebone Black at $45, not the White. You have a winner now. Look at how fast this Google+ community grew this year. It is time to put some real marketing dollars into this. Design a kiosk or wingstack - retailers love something that sets up in 10 minutes and starts ringing up sales 10 minutes after that.
You are competing for mindshare as well as market share. In addition to the great price, you can leverage the BBB’s tight relationship with Linux, Javascript, and node.js - all proven, open source winners. And all representing skills that are in demand.
I’d put some emphasis on currently. We won’t necessarily gear up for it, but I think there is interest and we know roughly what needs to be done. Just need to figure out if it is worth the effort or not.
Sparkfun had apparently had trouble getting to be distys for the BBB, so there might still be some supply chain problems. Still I never thought I’d be jealous that we have a Fry’s here but no Micro Center.
I think the BBB is at a market share turning point.
I am inferring from some of the previous comments of this post that MicroCenter has placed some BBB’s and BBW’s in its stores without a promotional “nudge” from CircuitCo, Beaglebone.org, or TI. In the shelf space I looked at yesterday, the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino were well represented. However, most of the space was the “proto” add-on products like joysticks, servos, Xbees, etc.
In general, we see MicroCenter clearly trying to improve its merchandising of DIY electronics. In the background we all know that they are putting their “brick” infrastructure up against Amazon’s “click” infrastructure. This is a tough battle and you need to help them without offending Amazon.
My point is that all of this skill and knowledge improvement was leveraged off of a somewhat complicated, somewhat hard-to-get, yet awesome $45 product.
So here are the market share turning point opportunities: Simplify the “complicated”. Streamline the “hard-to-get”.
Simplification > I think you need to bundle some items with the BBB that are interesting and instructional. Yes, that increases the price but one can still be well under $100. One of the biggest reasons I hesitated was the 47+ forks of Linux and the whinging about Angstrom issues in this community; I am doing my own simplification by sticking with Angstrom for now. I think your next market opportunity is the 8-year age interval of high school and college science students.
Streamline > Someone has to talk to MicroCenter (and Fry’s) and get the product in the channel with the proper support. At my company, a big retailer, we guarantee that the customer will see our vendors’ products displayed in a consistent, professional way in California, Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania (where I live), and everywhere in between.
Open source is wonderful, but it is the enemy of simplification.
The Apple II+ I bought over 30 years ago was anything but open source. Yet one could write Basic programs within 15 minutes of opening the box. It had a really good spiral notebook manual. It was a simple learning experience. Its price was many multiples of $45. As such, the Apple II+, which pre-dated the Mac by years, was a historical moment in marketing a new technology to a skeptical public. Perhaps it is a benchmark lesson for the BBB.
Be careful what you wish for… CircuitCo gets bought out, the board only flashes an LED and makes barking noises, and is available at the big box store for 9.99. I’m actually sick of this business model myself.