If you have stayed in the industry for a long enough time (like me, from 2006 to 2025, a span of 19 years), you will find that in the second decade of the 21st century, hotel locks have undergone some changes.
I summarize these changes as follows: They are all changes in appearance.
For example, 2006-2019, all the hotel locks are in appearance like follows.
This style looks quite normal, doesn’t it? Everyone can accept such appearance hotel door locks. No one will say they are ugly.
During 2020-2025, the looks of hotel lock becomes follows.
They look just like another family- a ‘New’ family.
Such hotel locks usually have the following characteristics ：
*A very thin shell, Make it looks cool.
*Black color, black makes it looks cool also.
*A Gem shape style, or cobblestone shape reader separately.
* Most of them use anodizing metal, e.g. Anodized aluminum.
So, are these ‘new’ hotel lock represent the future way of hotel locks?
Before answering this question, let’s first understand the types of changes
There are 3 types changes
1.Appearance
Changing the appearance might be the most common form to distinguish products.
Most users’ focus may also be on the appearance, and there is a certain logic behind this behavior.
Who doesn’t like beautiful things? If your work is only marketing and sales, more ‘beautiful’ may works.
If changing the style(appearange/look) of the product can gain some market share, then the cost paid for this will be very low.
But since you can obtain market at a low cost, so can your peers!
There is no winner in this war.
All participants can compete by the same way-change a appearance, and finally their respective market shares will return to the original proportion.
In all, beauty appearance does not have a lasting effect. When product development begins to involve aesthetics, this product loses its life very soon.
2. Novelty
This word originates from Latin word ‘novellus’. It means ‘New’ or ‘Never seen before’. Would the salesperson like to recommend such a ‘new hotel lock’ to you?
The sales persons call it ‘New hotel lock’, is just because they can’t figure out what the substantive differences are between this product and the previous old one, and they don’t know what the effect of this change is.
If the sales team don’t even know actual benefits of the product, how can users know?
Novelty is a very ingenious trap. It can indeed inspire admiration sometimes.
For example above structure hotel lock, you can find it in salto, vingcard, and many vingcard students.
‘Wow, how can that be?“
“How is this achieved? It looks amazing!”
These are what people will say when see it.
Distinguish whether the change is novel or true innovation. In fact, it’s very easy.
The simplest test method is to show this kind of hotel lock to others. Then listen to whether he can say “cool”. Then you can make a general judgment.
A very cool product is usually ingeniously designed, but not very useful.Most people won’t buy it.
But there is a kind of people who will buy very cool things, and they are the fans.
There must be such people around you.
3. Utility
We can divide the things that people are willing to buy into two categories.
It has aesthetic enjoyment or utility.
People buy curtains to protect their privacy, but what they care about is the color and style of the curtains.
People buy furniture for sitting and lying down, but they will test the comfort level first before purchasing. Under the same condition of comfort, people choose the more beautiful ones.
People buy a blue car because they like blue. However, one buys a blue car of a certain brand because they believe that the brand is safe and reliable in performance.
When people purchase products, they may consider the appearance, but they do not only consider the appearance. Utility is the top priority
《Detroit News》ever did a survey and found that there are a total of 21 factors influencing Americans’ purchase of cars. The first 4 are:
- Reliability and durability
- Process and quality
- Residual value rate
- Fuel consumption
The style ranks 7th and Appearance ranks 9th. There are total 19 factors related utility.
Useful changes are innovation. And innovation is the future of hotel lock.
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that for the average purchaser, the value of utility is the greatest, followed by appearance. Appearance’s vlue is much less than the value of utility.
The novelty is at the last.
Back to the title of our discussion-Changing a shell is very common now, in hotel door lock industry.
But in my opinion, this is no value. Changing the shell, for the manufacturer, their locks can not stand out in any other meaningful way.If there are 5% client like yours new shell is beautiful, they will choose. But balance 95% clients like other new shells. they won’t buy yours.
For the hotel clients, choose a new shell does not bring any new utility. And the more distinct the appearance style is, the more likely it is to go out of style.
Another problem is that, if you install such new and pretty look hotel lock, your hotel’s fitment can not be weak.
At the very least, you need a door with an appearance and style that matches this lock. You can’t put this ‘new ‘ lock on a very common door, which make it feeling weird.
Changing the shell is not useful change, they never tried tell a new story.
it can’t be the future of hotel locks trend.
