Okay, well ultimately the customer is king, but that applies more to the process of getting them to part with their money as they pay for whatever product or service you’re offering. Otherwise in the words of the great, late visionary, Steve Jobs, “[Sometimes] the customer doesn’t know what they want, I [producers, designers, etc. manufacturers] know what they want.”
That certainly applies in the case of products such as tamper-proof labels, with a little bit of a twist in that this time customers will just have to keep using and paying for a type of product which they hate using, but will continue to use nonetheless.
In a survey commissioned by label company, Data Label, 529 people in the UK aged 18+ were asked if they found tamper proof labels to be a nuisance or a necessity. While the two options ultimately prove not to be as mutually exclusive as the question may suggest, a colossal 49% of the respondents said they did indeed find tamper proof labels to be a nuisance. In fairness the general sentiment is that while they are a nuisance, this annoyance is indeed a crucial part of security measures which are a necessity in many industries. Nevertheless, this 49% collective indicated that they’d actually prefer to do without them altogether, despite their obvious importance.
Managing Director of Data Label, Philip Carlyn expressed surprise at the results, stating: “We were surprised to see that so many people are averse to tamper evident labels. Over the past few years, retailers have reported a massive increase in price label swapping – from small boutiques to larger high street stores. Worldwide clothing retailers have reported losses into the hundreds of thousands of pounds over 6 month periods due to this, so using tamper proof labels on items in store makes sense.”
The survey which was featured on Fresh Plaza highlighted three main reasons for people finding tamper proof labels annoying, including the difficulty with which they are removed, the marks they leave on purchased goods and the difficulty they create in them (the consumers) getting into the packaging.
Well yes, the end-user who is the one dealing with the detested part of the tamper proof labels isn’t the one who buys them, but as with just about every consumer product or service, the price which the end-consumer pays has a whole lot of production- and delivery-line costs incorporated into it. This is how customers are effectively paying for products which they hate using, but will keep having to pay for until somebody comes up with a better way of delivering the function associated with tamper-proof labels.
Numbers adding up to 49% of spending consumers who have expressed their unhappiness with certain aspects of having to handle the goods they purchase or use makes for a big opportunity for anyone who can pour their time and effort into coming up with a better solution or improving upon the existing one. Until then, we’ll all just have to keep enduring the little bit of a nuisance that comes with ensuring our products, documents, etc. are secured when delivered to us, as the most effective way of monitoring whether or not they’ve been tampered with.