There’s more to affordability than price
“Affordability isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” –Paul Polak
When designing a product for someone making less than $2/day, affordability is a necessity. A top priority has to be designing a product that is low-cost enough that your customer will purchase it. But, affordability goes far beyond the initial price. On the surface, we might say that an extremely affordable product is one that is incredibly low-cost, or, as cheap as it gets. However, there’s much more behind this obvious description. For example:
Opportunity Cost. A person making less than $2/day has a huge collection of needs. Which need is the most pressing at any particular moment? Is it healthcare, improved nutrition, saving for the future? What will this choice mean in the context of this person’s life? How will this person weigh our product against the other options present to them? Purchasing a stove may mean foregoing the purchase of another product/service that satisfies another pressing need.
Investment. To our user, a $5-6 cook stove is a large up-front investment. However, a money-saving product like a cook stove that will save time and money (less firewood = $ saved), will be a particularly attractive one during this time of recession. An average Burmese family spends about $0.10/day on firewood. In about 3 months, a family should be able to recover the initial cost of the stove in firewood savings and beyond that, save about $1.80 a month.
Durability. How long will our stove last? While we were in Myanmar, we saw a lot of broken stoves in the corners of cooking spaces. Many women have tried various stove products and will demand durability.
In Myanmar, rural villagers sought out products that would deliver instant value and gratification. For example, a product like a drip irrigation system is an easy sell because it delivers rapid paybacks in income. One of our big challenges will be to help our users see a cook stove as an economic investment that will lead to bigger savings in the future.
Tags: affordability, long-term investment, money-saving product, opportunity cost, user-centered design
April 29th, 2009 at 12:35 am
I really like this practical way of looking at the reality of the daily needs of the poor. But I also like that it makes those of us who are more fortunate think about how much is wasted and how non-durable things lead to a non-sustainable world. Congratulations on this and other projects from Stanford’s Extreme Affordability class.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:11 pm
[...] for everything out of pocket, which does limit our reach. Although our stove is designed to be very low cost, the prototypes do cost a non-trivial amount of money. (Raw materials cost more money when [...]