An attempt to analyze the Toshiba upgrade

For those who do not know: from July 1 to July 3, an action was organized organized by the Toshiba company (Russia), during which there was an exchange of old laptops for coupons of 10 kilo rubles that could be spent on buying a new laptop of Toshiba of any model.

I will not discuss poor organization, etc., I want to talk about why and why the action was held.


I myself did not take part in the action, so I judge it only by the feedback of the participants. Well, the idea is pretty bold. But, as often happens in our Raska , the organization was limping on both legs. The main reason was inaccurate rules that could be interpreted in different ways. This mainly concerned the criteria for those old laptops that were subject to exchange. Hence the lines, frustrated visitors who were denied, etc.

However, my post is not about that. As I already said, the action passed me by, so I consider myself not entitled to criticize the organizers, especially since the task of the action was nevertheless completed - 1,180 coupons were sold (for the whole country). So I want to reflect on what prompted Toshiba to take this bold step.

Banal calculations: 1180 * 10000 = 11,800,000 without organization costs that are comparable with this amount. I think Toshiba reimbursed the stores selling this amount, otherwise no one would have participated in the action. That is, in fact, the company paid twice for each laptop (in production and in reimbursement to stores). This is Toshiba’s loss. Income: sale of 1180 laptops, in the middle price category (including discounts) from 6000 to 15000. Let's say the sale of these laptops paid for the coupons themselves.
And what about the costs of organizing? And most importantly, the production itself? It turns out that Toshiba was left at a huge loss, which is natural.

Hence the reasonable question: what did they want to achieve with this action? Yes, the action had an awesome excitement, despite the rather meager advertising. Of course, it was predictable, like any large-scale freebie. Will the three-day campaign, which had an audience of about 2-3 thousand people across (!) The whole of Russia, increase interest in the brand? Stupid question. But faith in free cheese will increase.

Most of all, it is like selling poor-quality / defective / repair products. I do not find yet another explanation for myself, so the post is called “attempt”, as I did not come to certain results.