By Chuck Martin
There’s buying into the Internet of Things and then there is buying in the Internet of Things.
This phenomenon became pretty clear in an interesting stat that was tossed out at the MediaPost IoT Marketing Forum recently.
During his presentation, Bill Lee, VP, Smart Home Marketing at Samsung Electronics America, recounted how Samsung spoke to a group of customers to explain to them the virtues of what Samsung could bring them in terms of smart home products.
After they heard, “67% of them raised their hands and said ‘Oh my gosh, that is amazing. Sign me up,” Lee said. “They asked ‘when is that available and where can I get this.’”
Once they learned what smart home products could do for them, they instantly bought into the idea and said they were totally on board with the Internet of Things.
But then Samsung took a different spin with the same customers.
“When we then pivoted and asked them ‘would you be ready to buy within the month, that number slipped down to 27%.”
While 67% had bought in, only 27% were ready to actually buy.
“To me, there’s a gap there, from ‘would like to have’ vs. ‘gotta have.’”
And that’s one of the monster issues around adoption and growth of the Internet of Things.
A consumer may want a particular smart appliance but perhaps not enough to replace one that exist and runs, even if not so smart.
This phenomenon may also play a role in some research, where consumers are asked what connected or smart products they may be interested in purchasing.
Billions of smart or Internet-connected things are coming and many consumers already buy into the idea of the Internet of Things.
They just may not be in a position or ready to actually buy Internet of Things things.
