Would you actually buy a coffee machine because it looks good?

by chee Leng (on coffee makers)
(Singapore)

Bunn Phase Brew HT won the Good Design award. Started in the 50's, it is a coveted award for products that feature some great design.

This award came about because of some great partnership between Bunn and Continuum. One of the highlight is visible brew funnel which users would be able to see the coffee brewing.

I think alot of effort must have gone into making this coffee maker, the way it is. And probably a substantial amount of money invested to arrive at this design.

My question is -it is worth it? If you reading this right now, would you buy a coffee machine because it looks better?

I am sure look is a criteria, but how important versus price and ease of operating it?

My S$0.02.

I think the drip coffee segment is still huge but no doubt it is shrinking, with many users migrating to single serve coffee and probably instant coffee.

The merit of both single serve and instant lies in its ease of use. The former is a push button operation while the latter only requires you to pour hot water.

So, if now Bunn needs to retain the user base, and they decided to do it by introducing a better designed machine.

It might worked but there are many factors working against it.

1. Price -Bunn coffee machine is not exactly the lowest price range and it does not enjoy advantage in price. So, for consumers shopping for economical machine, they would give Bunn a miss.

2. Demographic -the current generation look for instant gratification. 1 minute is 1 minute too long. Compared to many single serve solution out in the market, BUnn takes too long to brew.

So, they would likely lose this segment of consumers.

3. Competition -from single serve to espresso machines, the competition comes in all shapes and sizes and it is not easy to stand out even though you are the best designed drip coffee machine around.

My thought is Bunn should focus more on their single serve solution, i.e. Mycafe. And find more partners to grow this segment such as the recent Marley coffee.

I might be wrong, but I don't think the money is in the drip coffee market.