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Impactful packaging, but seems gimmicky. Also, think about it from a supply chain perspective: water is heavy. Conservatively, assume the mp3 player in normal p
by basseq 13y ago
Impactful packaging, but seems gimmicky. Also, think about it from a supply chain perspective: water is heavy. Conservatively, assume the mp3 player in normal packaging is about a pound. 16oz of water is going to double that. And distribution channels for consumables is completely different from electronics. I can't imagine this is going to be widespread.
- visakanv 13y agoI can't imagine it needs to be; they just need people to watch the video and share the headlines on major news sites, Reddit, HN, etc. Suddenly the idea of Sony's waterproof walkman is in everybody's minds, almost free of charge. Most people will probably buy it online or from their favourite retail store.
- andygates 13y agoAfter a bunch of "sports players" which are not as waterproof as I'd like, the marketing is working on me. Disappointment is the norm in this niche.
- rahimnathwani 13y agoMaybe they could ship it through the water pipes direct to your house, thus saving packaging and transportation costs, and the pesky plastic for the bottle.
- welly 13y agoI wouldn't worry. There's only about 700 people who live in New Zealand.
- auctiontheory 13y agoWhat if the sheep want their own?
- ctdonath 13y ago16oz of water go for $1.50 or less everywhere. I don't think widespread distribution will be a problem. Bigger problem is that once you buy it, you still need to take it home, dry it off, and load music on it.
- SomeoneWeird 13y agoEverywhere? you should come to Australia :)
- desireco42 13y agoYet however heavy water is, they manage to sell you bottled water for pennies and still make billions off of you.
- Nacraile 13y agoVery different supply lines. Bevereages companies have many bottling facilities distributed throughout their markets, electronics companies tend to have relatively centralized manufacturing. With low value:weight beverages, transport costs dominate manufacturing, so it is most economical to have many bottling facilities relatively close to consumers, at the cost of reduced manufacturing economy of scale. With electronics, manufacturing costs dominate transport costs, so it is most economical to centralize manufacturing, taking advantage of economy of scale. Of course, sony could work with some drinks manufacturer to hybridize those supply chains, but I don't think there's value in doing this large scale. This is a (great!) marketing gimmick, and they can get most of the value by doing it one-off. There's not a lot of marginal value in scaling it out.
- bunderbunder 13y agoBottled water, though, is often absurdly centralized. Dasani bottles might get filled at a relatively nearby Coca-Cola bottling plant, but Fiji's water really does come from Fiji. Despite the outsize logistics costs associated with doing so, the company still manages to make money selling it for only a couple bucks a bottle.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoThe delivery guy could just fill it up from the tap at the selling location.
- DanBC 13y agoOne litre of water is pretty close to one kg. It is roughly a cube 10 cm * 10 cm * 10 cm. (I carefully put qualifiers in because this is just a rough rule of thumb and different altitudes etc make a difference).
- jablan 13y agoActually, one liter is _exactly_ a cube 10cm x 10cm x 10cm.
- DanBC 13y agoI get nervous about precicsion with this because there's the stuff about raising one cubic cm of water by one celcius uses one joule. But there are a bunch of caveats to that and I can't remember them. But thanks for the information!
- marcosdumay 13y agoIn fact, raising a gram of water by 1 °C uses one calory, not one Joule. Also, a cubic cm of water weights one gram, and both of those statements are full of caveats and rounding errors. But a liter is only another name for a cubic decimeter. The liter is older, and used to vary from place to place (and even measure area at some places), but now it on the IS.
- bunderbunder 13y agoThe caveats don't apply here, because you're talking about comparing units of volume to units of volume. So even though the volume of a given mass of water might be temperature dependent because water expands if you heat it, the the volume of a given volume of water will always be exactly equal to that volume of water. Sort of like how a foot is always exactly 12 inches no matter what the weather report says.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- etler 13y agoI don't think it needs to be widespread. I bet if you put this in a central vending machine in the food court of a college campus, everyone would know about it in no time.
- stephengillie 13y agoThe increase in sales alone will offset the increase in packaging and shipping.