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0 pointsSomeone14d ago0 comments

> IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models -

I see your point, but as a counterexample, look at the TV industry, at PC monitors, at washing machines, etc. There manufacturers have, for decades, created SKUs left and right, sometimes only so that a large dealer can offer to match lowest prices because no other dealer has access to the same SKU.

> it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs.

I don’t know how they do things nowadays, but it used to be the case that the same SKU didn’t even guarantee you the same hardware. Two machines of the same order could even be slightly different, requiring different drivers.

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pxeboot14d ago

> I don’t know how they do things nowadays, but it used to be the case that the same SKU didn’t even guarantee you the same hardware. Two machines of the same order could even be slightly different, requiring different drivers.

Apple is guilty of this too. For example, two iPhone's purchased at the same time can have displays from different manufactures, with noticeable quality differences between them.

mikestew14d ago

And unless you looked it up, you'd never noticed the difference (save comparing the two side-by-side). Whereas the cheap laptop requires one to know the difference so you can get the right driver, or other jackery because your WiFi card was a mid-year change. It reminds of me of mid-year production changes on cars, where VINs XXX-YYY need part number ZZZ, but VINs AAA-BBB need part number CCC.

doubled11214d ago

What colour is the stripe on the spring? I can't look this up, not even by VIN.

Wore off eight years ago. Can we guess?

dylan60414d ago

Creating SKUs to avoid price matching is still just having one product coming out of the factory. It's just extra space in a database somewhere, so it costs nothing. The PC makers do have to create new physical products for each of those SKUs though. So it's apples and oranges here

SomeoneOP14d ago

> Creating SKUs to avoid price matching is still just having one product coming out of the factory. It's just extra space in a database somewhere, so it costs nothing.

They also have to label the products. But yes, it costs almost nothing to the manufacturer, but the effect on the consumer is large.

Also, for flatscreen monitors, I think differences go further than model numbers. It’s things like number of inputs, number of outputs, max power delivery, color of the frame, etc.

philistine14d ago

Washing machines and the others don't have a company like Apple that is so differentiated that customers love their products so much they get to own something like 80% of the profits of the biggest personal computing market.

andyclap214d ago

I know a few Miele fanboys...

imglorp14d ago

The epitome of "sku engineering" is mattresses, to keep consumers from comparison shopping. Retail HATES competition and informed shoppers.

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