I’m not really into gadgets, but I do follow the mobile phone market pretty closely. If you read the reviews of certain phone models, it’s amazing how many products suffer from poor battery life. Aside from the iPhone, with its non-removable battery, the battery life problem can usually be solved by just carrying another battery along. So why don’t the manufacturers whose phones are routinely panned for poor battery life just start including a spare?

The approach is simple: if you notice that magazines, blogs and customer reviews are complaining about your battery life, you should obviously try to address it in the long run by improving your hardware and software design. But in the short run, it probably pays to just bundle an extra battery with each new phone sold, and make spares available on the cheap to existing customers.

After all, a battery that lists for $30 probably only costs $5-10 to produce. If people are universally complaining about your battery life, a significant number of potential customers are probably seeing those complaints and deciding to buy something else. Assuming those new customers are worth more than $10 to you, including an extra battery with each phone should increase your sales volume considerably, and make customers a lot happier in the process.