Quality or Quantity?

[cj]

I'm working on this month's article for klixxx, on Quality vs Quantity business models & I'm curious to hear how Opranauts think of their business and which business model you think you follow ...

Dictionary.com defines the words as follows:

Quality:

Superiority of kind: an intellect of unquestioned quality.
Degree or grade of excellence: yard goods of low quality.

Quantity:

A specified or indefinite number or amount.
A considerable amount or number: sells drugs wholesale and in quantity.

In my definition, Quality is a product that is superior and Quantity is a product that sells a lot but is made to a lower standard.


We talk a lot about 'playing the numbers game' and many of us have worked in the business model 'who cares about customer support' ... a few programs I have run the entire goal was to push as much traffic/joins/sales as possible, while Purve I've always considered to be high quality with a lower volume.

Lately I've been wondering if there is any place in this world for quality products at all anymore? It seems that all the money consumers are spending is on cheap shit that gets thrown away the next week, so is chasing a quality product something that will become obselete in the next few years/decades?

You may have heard it said 'we live in a disposable society' ... and the generations behind us certainly don't have much interest in quality. Are we also disposing of people (american idol overnight celebs for example) as cheap marketing tools?

I've been researching a lot about infomercials and the way the marketing *educates* the consumer to think they can't live without the product - many of you would have heard me preaching this 'education' of the surfer while marketing my womens sites over the years.

I've always been interested in the psychology behind why human beings do what we do, and infomercials fascinate me for this exact reason - we know its shit, but by the end we are telling our friends 'oh but it does this ....'

This is related to the asian market & shows just how big the 'mass produced cheap shit' market has become:

Advertisers use infomercials and home shopping television to identify
prospective buyers, support ad campaigns, and educate consumers by offering a demonstration.

In Asia, infomercials generate several hundred million dollars in annual sales.

Infomercials are playing a role in China (e.g., China Shop-A-Vision signed
up 20,000 "TV shopping members" in its first year of infomercials).

So I have a few questions and I would love to hear your responses in relation to your own business model .... I will be taking some quotes from this thread for use in the article, and including your name and url so please say so if you don't want to be quoted.




Do you consider your business to follow a quality or quantity business model?

Do you think its possible to incorporate quality and quantity into the same business model and do both effectively?

Can you think of any companies who have succesfully done both?

What examples can you think of that do either best? ie McDonalds is a classic 'quantity' business that lacks 'quality'. GM is quantity, BMW is quality etc.

Where do you think society will go in the next 10 years as far as consumption of products, entertainment etc?



Looking forward to hearing some comments