Companies are increasingly using planned obsolescence strategies that cause products to fail earlier in order to increase recurring revenue.
Rotating car seats, which are becoming increasingly popular, are an expensive variation on the car seat. Parents can use this equipment to position their children more easily in the rear-facing position, which is considered the safest position.
More than half of home appliances’ lifespans have been cut in half over the last 50 years, thanks to screens, sensors, and more complex moving parts (Wasserman & Roy, 2011). Companies are using planned obsolescence strategies that prematurely fail products in order to gain recurring revenue (Wasserman & Roy, 2011).
Exactly 100 years ago, the beginning of large-scale planned obsolescence began. GE and other lightbulb manufacturers agreed to artificially limit the lifetime of their products to 1,000 hours, thereby starting planned obsolescence.
It’s common for firms to employ any of a variety of other strategies when they’re unable to compel repurchases because a product has no breakable electronics, including setting plausible expiration dates or setting a higher price.
Consumers are especially willing to pay a premium for health-related products because they don’t want to risk damaging their, or their child’s, health.
Surprisingly, car seats are one consumer good that has an expiration date. Although independent experts concur that car seats for children should be replaced after a decade or more, many companies advocate replacing them after just half that time.
Parents purchase high-end baby items to avoid their children from reselling them to their peers. This is significant because baby product secondhand sales are at an all-time high. As birth rates drop, it is more difficult to spread some of the costs of raising children across multiple children. Hand-me-down clothing, for example, and other phase-specific products are now effectively more expensive as they can be used again and again.
Parents looking for an easy way to get their children into the safest rear-facing position can purchase an expensive car seat that rotates.
