01:22 <jfhbrook> elastic mapreduce, ELLIOTTCABLE

01:23 <jfhbrook> it's amazon's canned hadoop product

13:12 <joepie91> so, here's an interesting thing

13:12 <joepie91> for those not familiar with Lidl, it's a bit like Aldi, except in recent years they've seriously improved the quality of their stuff

13:12 <joepie91> they carry some seemingly impossibly cheap tools, kitchen appliances, etc.

13:13 <joepie91> an excerpt: https://www.lidl-shop.nl/Elektrisch-gereedschap/h113490?sortPrice=desc&page=3

13:13 <joepie91> and most bizarrely, their tools and appliances are of fine quality; they're not crap

13:14 <joepie91> so I've been looking into this with somebody else, trying to figure out how the economics work here, since they seem to sell shit at effectively BOM cost

13:14 <joepie91> and we're strongly suspecting that Lidl is being used as a user testing venue for well-known brands like Bosch; releasing new/experimental models and features on tools and such under Lidl's brand first, then looking at how well it works in practice

13:14 <joepie91> and using that data to adjust their own 'real brand' products

13:15 <joepie91> further supported by Lidl products often having really handy but totally unknown features, that suddenly appear in brand-name products a few months later

13:15 <joepie91> this... would be one hell of a user testing strategy, lol

13:42 <ljharb> i don’t think it’s a new strategy

13:43 <ljharb> tons of companies own multiple brands and test things for one in another; look at banana republic/gap/old navy

13:49 <joepie91> ljharb: the thing is, Bosch *doesn't* own the Parkside brand that Lidl uses, so they're essentially outsourcing their user testing to a.. discount supermarket?

13:50 <joepie91> (and it seems to not just be Bosch)(

14:03 <ljharb> ah interesting

14:06 <joepie91> ljharb: basically the Lidl has its own selection of pseudo-brands, carried only by Lidl, but with consistent branding and packaging, manual design (which are surprisingly well-designed actually), and so on; and they use different suppliers/'importers' for the products sold under those brands, with the contact details of the particular supplier listed everywhere in the manual and on the box

14:06 <joepie91> and the supplier handles support, replacement parts, etc.

14:07 <joepie91> it's a somewhat strange model, but it means that the "Parkside" tools can actually come from like 5 or 6 different suppliers, and you may have a different service contact for every tool you have

14:09 <joepie91> so my guess is that Bosch, Einhell, and so on basically purchase 'product space' from the Lidl, where they supply a batch of tools to Lidl for below-BOM cost, and then get to put their own service contact on the manual and the box to collect complaints, and they get back information from Lidl about the returns, and then Lidl arranges the box and manual design and so on

17:02 <jfhbrook> this is facinating

17:07 <joepie91> so, further input from another discussion: this model would actually make sense, since it'd be incredibly low-key for the manufacturers involved (nothing would point at Lidl stuff being theirs, unlike if they had their own budget line), and they would need almost no extra logistics for a 'user testing line'; Lidl already operates at such a scale that they can do user testing across a massive amount of people, many of them in the 'vocal

17:07 <joepie91> cheapskate' demographic

17:08 <joepie91> so from the perspective of a manufacturer, they'd just benefit off an already-existing supply chain and service model, that works out of the box, with no risk of tarnishing the company's brands

17:08 <joepie91> and without having to deal with the nitty-gritty of return policies and such

17:13 <joepie91> and hey, if you're selling a single batch of stuff below-BOM-cost, then 1) it's not competing with your own continuous sales, and 2) that's a cheap way to do user testing :P