Fitbit has always had a first-mover advantage in the wearable technology industry. Not only do they own the biggest portion of “market share at 70%” (McNew), they also have a very high global brand and brand equity. Moreover, Fitbit offers a wide range of products with different price alternatives that appeal to every type of consumer. Fitbit is more focused on the health aspect and health monitoring features on the device, instead of Apple Watch who uses health monitoring as just an app or additional feature to the other capabilities it offers. Not to mention, Fitbit offers an easy to use app that incorporates all of your daily data for the average consumer to understand, which provides an extra benefit consumers never knew they needed. Because Fitbit is so well known, it is very easy to find one on any platform or at any retailer which is very convenient for consumers. With a growing product that is so widely available and used, Fitbit does a great job of being up to date with customer needs and persistent customer service.

In order to get a better understanding of our consumer’s desires and wants, we conducted a series of interviews with some students to try and grasp a deeper meaning behind their purchases. Focus groups consisted of 2 males and 3 females who currently owned Fitbit smartwatches. These sessions included mostly Georgia tech students because we believe their specific age group of 18-25 is targeted more than the average consumer for Fitbit products, and because we have access to data from a wide range of consumers here with our fellow students. All of our respondents were business majors because we gathered respondents at Barnes and Noble which is right next to Scheller College of Business. We asked consumers open-ended questions such as “what do you like about your smartwatch, what do you use your Fitbit for, what don’t you like about your smartwatch, and what changes would you like to see within Fitbit’s wearable technology?”

During the Focus Group, we concluded that people who are users of Fitbit, mainly bought it because they wanted to use it to track how they worked out and other health-related factors. They bought the Fitbit over other products because of the affordability. If it wasn’t for the price people would have bought the apple watch. People were satisfied with the Fitbit and its performance and functionality benefits. As a matter of fact, more people were surprised by how well the Fitbit actually worked. We realized the most important factors for the Fitbit were its cost, technology, and performance/functionality. Fitbit does a great job of addressing the cost aspect of its technology. Fitbit is a great alternative for consumers who don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on an Apple Watch. There is definitely room for improvement in the technology aspect of Fitbit. Fitbit is trying not to enter too much into Apple watch territory or brand delusion by adding a bunch of other factors to the Fitbit, however, there definitely needs to be an addition of some type of texting aspect to the Fitbit products to make it more competitive with Apple and Samsung. The functionality of the Fitbit is exceptional and better than consumers originally intended, Fitbit does a great job of marketing their app and tracking capabilities. Based on our survey we were able to conclude the top five most frequently mentioned needs and desired benefits. These needs are functionality with the sleep tracker and calorie counter, Value in the customization of Fitbit, the cost of the product, the functionality of communicating through text, and value derived from being part of a social group. Fitbit appears to address the cost, functionality with the sleep tracker and calorie tracker and the value derived from being part of a network. However, Fitbit does not make the product as customizable as Apple Watches nor does it give iPhone users the ability to call or text on the device. Although Fitbit currently only offers texting capabilities to android users, they could potentially increase sales if they were to add an additional app that allowed users to respond to their text messages on the device.

To further our understanding of the importance of certain products and how well each company is addressing each need we asked a sample of 15 students on a 1-5 scale basis how well they met the need and how important that need is to the respondent. The respondents were all from the Scheller College of Business and we made sure they were wearing either an Apple Watch, Fitbit or Samsung gear fit. There were about 9 girls and 6 boys surveyed. We then took the mean from these respondents to get our values. When looking at how well each company is addressing each need, we can get some very valuable information. For the need of the sleep tracker and calorie tracker we discovered that on a scale of 1-5 it is very important for consumers to have access to this function. Fitbit had the best sleep tracker/ calorie tracker followed by Apple Watch and then Samsung. Although customization is important to consumers, it is not as important as cost. Customers said customization had an average importance of 4 while cost had an importance of 4.9. Samsung has the best cost out of all three products, followed by Fitbit and then by Apple watch. However Apple does offer the most customizable products, Samsung and Fitbit are both working to incorporate more variation. Because Fitbit does not offer texting applications for Iphone users, they scored very low for a need that is very important to consumers. Although you can read text messages on a Fitbit and see you are getting a call, you cannot respond to the text message or answer the call making it the lowest scoring. The one good thing about the fitbit app is that it gives you access to a whole community of users generating data for you and others to look at and that is why they score so high on community and that is why being part of a community is very important to consumers. Consumers love to compare themselves to others and they love to compete which makes Fitbit a great platform do both on.

After we noted the importance of the needs we derived from consumer responses, we asked them how they would feel if those same features were present and absent. We asked consumers to respond on a “like it, expect it, don’t care, live with, and dislike” scale. When we first asked about being part of a community, consumer answers were fairly consistent. Most respondents either like or expect this feature and either don’t care, can live without or dislike not having it. Therefore we believe this is a very attractive benefit that consumers might not necessarily need but they like it and would be sad without it. The next feature we analyzed was the sleep tracker/calorie tracker function. Consumers really liked or expected this feature, when it comes to wearable technology, and were very disappointed when their smartwatch did not have this functionality. Therefore, this specific need was a performance-based need because consumers love these features and want more of them. The more performance features you can get, the more you can set yourself apart from competitors. We then looked at customizability and noticed results were slightly more skewed. The responses were a little all over the place in the fact that many consumers didn’t care about the feature or expected it, and when it was removed they just felt indifferent towards it. The low-cost aspect of the Fitbit makes it very desired by consumers. We noticed in the Kano model for cost that consumers really liked the low cost and heavily disliked it when this feature was absent. Those specific characteristics make cost a performance feature as well and will only enhance the brand of Fitbit. The last feature we analyzed was the ability to text on your smartwatch. After conducting our in-depth interviews we saw this was something they mentioned multiple times regardless of the type of wearable technology brand they had. In a day and age where electronics and online communication through social media is so prevalent, most consumers almost expect to have this type of feature, and when this feature is not present, consumers will turn to a competitor. Therefore, being able to text on your smart watch and respond to messages is a must-have feature.

After careful consideration, we have determined that Fitbit use these recommendations to better enhance their product. This will allow consumers who already have the product to produce a good word of mouth and raise sales for Fitbit. Consumers want it to be more customizable, on one hand, it already is somewhat customizable; however, when compared to the apple watch its customizable features are slim to none. Consumers want to feel like their products are theirs and are unique and by making it more customizable this allows them to have that desired uniqueness. If Fitbit wants to be able to compete with the Apple watch, they need to have a more accessible texting feature. As of right not you can text on your Fitbit if you are an android user. There are more Apple users than Android users, so you are cutting out a huge portion of your consumer base by not having access to that feature. Although it will make your product more similar to the Apple Watch, there are other ways to differentiate the product in order to make the Fitbit stand out. By taking risks and entering territory no other wearable tech has expanded into yet, they can easily be the market leaders for years and years to come. We recommend Fitbit think about partnering with a healthcare company, as a way to enhance their health features and use it as a way to monitor patients or people who have health concerns. This way the Fitbit can detect something before the person who knows based on heart rate. We think if these changes were to be made, Fitbit could easily be way more profitable than Apple Watches because they are a more affordable alternative. 

Sources

McNew, Bradley Seth. “FitBit’s 7 Competitive Advantages Over Other Brands.” The Motley Fool, The Motley Fool, 5 Sept. 2015, www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/05/7-competitive-advantages-fitbit-says-it-has-over-o.aspx.