A typical disposable tin baking tray says “Support the bottom of pan” - on the bottom of the pan.

Let’s assume most folks don’t consider needlessly supporting the bottom of an empty pan.

After they’ve cooked whatever’s covering the bottom how do they read the covert message?

Why don’t they stamp the message atop the side rims of the pan? That’s where we go to grab the pan in the first place.

A long-time lactard, I was thrilled to see new Lactaid Sliced Cheese in the dairy section (side note: why does the dairy section have pickles and chumus?). A few folks had an important ingredients question for the maker, so I submitted a ticket at Lactaid’s website.

Following Rule One of Lame Customer Service: “shifting blame”, Lactaid told me to contact the licensee, a Mid-Atlantic Cheese, and gave me a phone number. Already Lactaid looks bad - if you agreed to stick your name on a product, shouldn’t you be able to tell me what’s in it? Lactaid can’t.

So I called Mid-Atlantic. Repeatedly. For all the evidence, Mid-Atlantic Cheese might be a row of cows and an answering machine. Cows cannot answer phones (the buttons are too small for the hooves), so after a few days of a machine telling me to fax in an order if I want human contact (grrrrr!), I sent another note to Lactaid.

They doubled their efforts! That’s right, this time they sent back TWO numbers – both to the same machine! Nada.

I sent a third note… I got back: the same response!

This is how to kill a brand.

The only reason I picked up that item was because it said “Lactaid”, not “Mid-Atlantic Cheese”. It was their name that took the loan out on my trust, and it’s their name that’s defaulting. Mid Atlantic can fail to pickup their phone, make someone sick, and it’ll be Lactaid’s name in the news. Lactaid either needs to handle the customer service for all Lactaid products (that sounds obvious) or demand reasonable performance from their licensees.

iPod

It’s a bit ironic that Apple is the favorite tech brand among tree-huggers when you’ve got thousands of users tossing plastic cases into landfills so they can get the same case with a bigger drive or a different screen. Made modular, you’d be able to buy an upgraded disk, display, or firmware without tossing everything else. That white box would also be green. How do you like them apples?

Automotive

The same should be done with cars (which we Americans toss far quicker than anyone else). Designing a car that let’s you upgrade body and interior panels would save thousands of tons of steel each year, just for that line. Consumers would get a fresh look that’s more personalized, companies could cut back on production and shipping expenses (seeing as they’re losing money on each new car, it’d be a relief to profit on new panel sets), and consumers would be willing to spend a little more on technology and comfort features, knowing the car will still be in style (their style!) ten years down the road.

With ebay eating into their new product sales, many companies are looking at ‘Planned Obsolescence’ so their products will wear out or become incompatible before it’s worth ebaying them.

Here seems to be their plan and marketing strategy:

Your last experience with our product will be a disappointing one. Nobody will want it, not even e-thrift-shop bargain hunters. You will seek something better, which, despite our loyalty crushing plan, we hope will be another of our products.

Such companies ought to figure out how to make money selling upgrades.

I just picked up $7.85 of items at our local Duane Reed. My receipt is 16 inches long. 5 items 16 inches.

Half the receipt explains their “Dollar Rewards” scheme. First, who is reading this? Not enough people to justify doubling your paper output. Also, the ink is all grayed and streaked – the result perhaps of printing twice as much receipt as anyone needs.

To save trees – and money – Duane Reed should instead print their sales pitch and disclaimer on a nice color flyer, something people can and will read because it offers them actual value, perhaps by notifying them of items that will be on-sale next week. It should be optional: if you don’t want it, the cashier doesn’t stick it in your bag: more trees and ink saved.

In fact, the receipt itself should be optional. I’m not going to return a bottle of water, so I don’t need 8 inches of receipt memorializing my investment in Poland Spring. It’s like they’re saying ‘here, throw this out.’ What a waste.

This isn’t meager tree-hugging, cutting their receipt printing in half would not only save them thousands of paper rolls and ink refills, it’d cut the time wasted post-sale while everyone waits for the receipt to be printed. Time, Money, Customer Satisfaction.