Case Studies

Here at Design My Idea we pride ourselves in our reputation for quality of work and repeat clientele. Every month we want to bring you one of our success stories: some product, idea or service that we were able to add key-value to.

Remote Totes Case Study

By Salem July 2007

“It has to sell right off the shelf for consumers…after three other designers failed; Design My Idea got it right the very first time”
–Jackie, Remote Totes on the new packaging design for her product.

The Start

Remote Totes began roughly six years ago and like many inventions began with a personal problem. One day Jackie’s (the inventor of Remote Totes) husband’s car-remote broke off, leaving it virtually unusable without the ability to remain attached to his key chain. He then went to his backup remote which broke in the same location as the first one. Not wanting to have to pay hundreds of dollars for a replacement, Jackie sewed a small leather bag for the remote to securely reattached it and help with future protection.

Pretty soon, friends and family wanted the product and said that they should be marketing these. Jackie remained unconvinced until both her own remotes and backup remote broke.

Getting Started: The first design

Jackie redesigned the former plain-leather bag adding a window and key holes. She did the first prototypes herself and shopped around for a manufacturing firm, eventually finding a smaller “mom and pop” firm to assist her in production.

Remote Totes was first successful by selling directly to the public at swap meets. Slowly garnering attention, smaller and eventually larger shops and dealerships began selling Remote Totes. Within six years Jackie’s small idea has turned into a successful company with sales rep employees, a self-contained manufacturing facility of 600 feet, and more and more clientele!

Growing Pains

Remote Totes hit a plateau with sales when a few key customers stated, “come back when you have a different packaging design.” Not only was the old packaging aesthetically and functionally obsolete, but due to the simplicity of the box-display shoplifting was a major problem as well. This called for a packaging face-lift.

Jackie shopped around for the right packaging design but got frustrated after three different designers failed. This iterates the problem with many designers: some have almost NO experience with Product related design as a good design must consider more then just purely aesthetics.

The new design according to Jackie: “…has to sell right off the shelf for consumers…Design My Idea got it right the very first time.” The new design includes die cutouts to enable hanging on retail pegs, eye-catching appeal for consumers and a simple fold over design to securely hold the product in place.

Jackie also had Design My Idea gather bids from various local print-manufacturers, comparing prices and thus was able to make an informed decision for who was going to print the new design.

Epilogue and Future Services

Remote Totes continues to grow, with Jackie returning to Design My Idea for Business Cards and a Sales Sheet allowing her to effectively pitch to large-scale distributors and retail chains.

Jackie and Remote Totes is a success story of inventing which shows that certain stages of development require certain strategies and adaptability. When Jackie needed to keep her current clientele and gain new clientele through updated packaging, she tackled the issue with finding the right designer with the right experience at Design My Idea.

To contact Jackie for whole-sale purchases or other questions please visit the Remote Tote homepage at:www.RemoteTotes.com

At Design My Idea, part of our mission is to allow the inventors their own choices, their own control, and ultimately the final decision as to how, when and where their product goes.