Dear manufacturers, please clean up your product lines

Imagine this conversation with a customer at a Digitec store:

Customer: Hello, I’d like to buy a DJI drone.
Salesperson: Sure thing. We have the Inspire 2, Phantom 4 RTK, Phantom 4 Pro V2.0, FPV, Avata, Mavic 3, Mavic 3 Classic, Air 2S, Mini 2, Mini 2SE, Mini 3 and Mini 3 Pro on offer.
Customer: Which one would you recommend?
Salesperson: Well, that depends.
Customer: On what?
Salesperson: How big would you like it to be? What’s your budget? Do you need a telephoto lens? What sensor size are you looking for? Do you need collision sensors? If so, are front ones enough or do you also need ones at the top? Will you be flying with FPV goggles? Are you after a 5.1K resolution, or will 4K or 2.7K do? Do you want a log colour profile?
Customer: ... OK, bye.

No one’s got a grip on things any more

Anyone looking to buy a piece of technology today has their work cut out for them. There are countless options for everything. Not even professionals can keep track of it all. The other day, representatives of a well-known brand contacted me about a new product. It sounded quite good. But then it struck me: the new device was just a mix of components from existing models. It didn’t replace any of them; it was intended to further diversify the manufacturer’s range.

I had questions. Which model is best for which use case? Are old models even needed at this point? Is the price of this new configuration reasonable? Does the name match the concept? The representatives were unable to give me clear answers. Even they were clearly perplexed.

Please, dear manufacturers, give it a rest.

To illustrate the problem, I’ll use two arbitrary examples: drones from DJI and cameras from Sony. I could just as well take other brands or product categories – headphones, processors, laptops, monitors. The list goes on and on. Two years ago, my colleague Jan Johannsen already let his frustration with proliferating smartphone lineups be known.

Novelty for novelty’s sake

If you ask me, the situation’s getting more and more out of hand. It seems like I get an e-mail about a new DJI drone every month. Most of them are minimally different variations of devices that have been on the market for a while. Take the Mini 3 as the cheaper version of the Mini 3 Pro, the Mini SE 2 as the cheaper version of the Mini 2 and the Mavic Classic as the cheaper version of the Mavic 3. The last real novelty? That was the DJI Avata back in August 2022. And then each drone is available in about 5 different bundles with various accessories and controllers.

How’s anyone supposed to keep count?! We in the Digitec Editorial Team rely on comparisons and reviews as a coping strategy. But it really shouldn’t be the case that you, the customer, have to read through all that to have any kind of overview. DJI is shifting a responsibility onto you that used to lie with the manufacturer. Namely, deciding what makes a good drone. Which cameras make sense? Which collision sensors make sense? Which video codecs are the best? These are just three of the countless questions you have to answer yourself these days.

Sure, you could also view this multitude of choice as freedom. After all, not all use cases require the same set of features. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a certain selection. There are priorities I’d like to set myself when it comes to specs. For example, how big I want my drone to be. The Mavic has room for a better camera than the Mini, but it’s correspondingly more massive. I prefer the small model and you might prefer the big one. But if I have to weigh up in 100-franc increments which DJI Mini offers the best value for money for me, you bet I’ll be losing my mind.

As far as I’m concerned, this «freedom» of almost infinite choice is a cover for clever marketing. With every new model, new videos are uploaded to YouTube and new articles are published on websites like this very one. It’s a fight for constant media presence out of fear of being forgotten – novelty for novelty’s sake.

FOMO

Fortunately, Sony’s cadence of new cameras isn’t quite as high as that of DJI drones. But the Japanese company suffers from a different syndrome: FOMO, or the fear of missing out. It’s worst fear seems to be not covering every single niche of needs, no matter how small.

This fear manifests itself in an assortment of models that overlap greatly. A current example? The new ZV-E1. It’s got the same sensor as the FX3 – which had the same as the A7S III. So, which camera are you supposed to use for what purpose? According to Sony, the ZV-E1 is for aspiring vloggers, the FX3 more so for professional filmmakers. The overlap is huge. And the A7S III? No one really knows who that one’s supposed to be for at this point.

But that’s not all. As a budding videographer, you actually have a lot more choices. There’s the FX30, which is an FX3 with a smaller sensor. The A7 IV doesn’t film quite as well, but can take good pictures in return. What about the A7R V? That one offers 8K. Or maybe even the A1. That one can do everything – for the price of a small used car. And keep in mind that this is just one camera brand in an entire jungle. It’s enough to make anyone go bananas.

Choice overload

None of the devices I’ve listed here are bad in and of themselves. On the contrary; I own a Sony A1 and several drones from DJI and would buy them all over again. But it took me forever to make an informed purchase decision – even though I deal with cameras and drones professionally. Manufacturers have long since crossed the line between offering a reasonable selection and completely overwhelming customers.

This phenomenon is known as choice overload. I research almost obsessively so as not to make the wrong purchase. I’m caught between the fear of buying something «too bad» and the fear of buying something too expensive. My colleague David Lee really hit the nail on the head in his article on how the process of making purchasing decisions has changed:

And this isn’t just my own whining. Dear manufacturers, there are studies like this one which show that too much choice can have a negative impact on your customers’ desire to make purchases. At the end of the day, I’d rather opt to buy nothing at all over buying the wrong thing. Sure, too small a selection has a similar effect. But that’s not a problem anyone’s faced in a while.

Password or product name?

The gigantic lineups also overwhelm the people who have to come up with names for the products. This leads to illogical, inconsistent and cryptic names. Screens from Dell have oh-so-harmonious names like Alienware AW3423DW, not to be confused with the Alienware AW3423DWF. Laptops from HP have names like EliteBook x360 1040 G9, not to be confused with the EliteBook 840 G9 – or any of the other 193 EliteBooks currently listed in our shop. Hoping to get the scheme? You’ll need a PhD in HP laptop name-ology.

Notebooks

HP EliteBook 840 G9

14", Intel Core i7-1260P, 16 GB, 1000 GB, CH

2

Notebooks

HP EliteBook x360 1040 G9

14", Intel Core i7, 16 GB, 512 GB, CH

9

Notebooks

HP EliteBook 1040 G9

14", Intel Core i5-1235U, 16 GB, 512 GB, CH

When it comes to DJI, the names look less like passwords, but the concept is constantly changing; the successor to the Mavic 2 Pro is simply the Mavic 3. The Mavic 3 Classic is another variant, though I’ve no clue what’s «classic» about it. In fact, it’s one of DJI’s newest models. Now, if FPV is included in the name, it’s clear that I’m looking at a first-person view (FPV) drone. But if I mention DJI’s FPV drone, I could also mean the Avata, a beginner-friendly FPV drone. Are you confused yet? So am I.

Less is more

Dear manufacturers, a confusing, opaque and cryptic assortment is a plague to your customers and a handicap for your business. Please give it a rest already. Less is more. I have this vision of what a consultation in a Digitec store should look like, namely:

Customer: Hello, I’d like to buy a DJI drone.
Salesperson: Sure thing. What size are you looking for?
Customer: Something mid-size.
Saleswoman: One DJI Medium coming right up. That’ll be 1,000 francs, please.
Customer: I’ll pay with debit.
Salesperson: Thank you. Have a nice day!