A few years back, I was the Head of Design and Product Development at one of the well-known tiles distributors here in Malaysia. At the same time, I also run the additional department as a Deputy Marketing Manager too. Back then, we were just a start-up company at that time, so everyone needs to hold on to more than one portfolio to cover the workload. At that particular time, we have no product that we can claim as ours.
To tell you the truth, we have no capacity to fabricate even a single part. We were buying ready-made products from other companies which also supply for our competitors, get them to put our logo on the material and then we push the products out to the market. In other words, we were simply assembling the items, stuck a logo on them and push for the sales. The strategy worked pretty well. Nothing beats the feeling of selling the same product as the competitors at the price of 20% higher than them and still able to do very well.
This is how it’s done.
The secret behind the story is the power of design. We are committed to set the highest possible level of our packaging design to match with the big players in the industry. We wanted to become the benchmark of the industry. The same concept we applied for all our marketing collateral too, from our website to the advertisement and stuff on our digital platform. We want to showcase to the market that we are the leader. Base on the study, these are the customer behaviors that influence the buying products.
1- Brand – Design – Price.
2- Price – Design – Brand.
3- Design – Brand – Price.
There you go. Design can easily help you to create greater perspectives from the eyes of the customers and give them the impression that your brand is valuable and can be trusted. To beat your competitors, it’s never a good idea to go into the price war. You will lose too. Instead, beat them on design. If it worked for me before, it will definitely work for you too.