Cycle & Style did a piece on Georgena Terry - the innovator who created women specific designed bicycles along with a company - Terry Bicycles. The bikes are on the spendy side, but within reason for someone who is very serious - particularly someone who is carless or who is dropping a car from the family stable.
A friend who is well beyond what is considered "normal", (more than 5 standard deviations out) sensitized me to the problem of product "fit". She summed up what she would like to see, but the problem extends to a sizable part of the population. Many of us have a few things that are difficult to find (shoes for me) and we make do with approximate fit. Others have mobility problems or issues from medical conditions. There would seem to be a lot of opportunity.
Online stores can help in finding a wider range of products, but often the specification of size is broken. Zappos gives great service, has a good return policy, and there is an amazing selection. The problem is shoe sizing doesn't really match what you need to fit a foot. There is a great variation from manufacturer to manufacturer and even within a brand. For me a visit to a very competent local shoe store came up with a fit that was much better than the time consuming iterative method I had been using. In twenty minutes I had something that fits much better than anything I have ever been able to find through online stores. It turns out the price was identical to what I could find online.
On bicycles there are a few types of "fit". One will produce a bike that will be comfortable, but how the bikes rides and handles is determined by the other. This takes shopping around with the help of an expert if you want something that fits your body and your needs.
But these issues lurk in many places.
There is a bit of a cautionary note. If you come up with something that solves a fit problem, you need to know how to market it. Colleen and I were involved with the promotion of a raised height cutting board for people who are over 5'10 and spend time with a standard height kitchen counter. The prototypes have proven to be extremely useful dramatically cutting back pain during food preparation. We wanted to help the small firm that makes these and tried the no budget social networking route - contacting blogs and making a video, facebook and twitter. Her promotion blog has had over 7000 page views since it went online and the video has had about 5400 views to date. The manufacturer has had several thousand visits on their product page, but this has not translated into sales.
The screen shot is from her outtakes video - recommended entertainment.
so if anyone has any great marketing ideas ...
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