I always keep a relatively compact umbrella in my travel bag, though it takes up a fairly significant amount of space for something that I use so infrequently. So, I recently started looking for a smaller, lighter replacement. What I found is that a lot of different umbrellas are marketed with terms like these:

– Travel size

– Mini

– Micro

– Compact

– Lightweight

However, the vast majority of them are no smaller or lighter than the one I already have.

Granted, it’s possible that my current umbrella is already state of the art. More likely, though, is that the manufacturers’ notion of terms like “travel size” is a lot different than how consumers like me interpret those same terms. This probably leads to a lot of disappointed customers who were expecting a much smaller and lighter item than what they received.

What’s the solution? It’s quite simple, really: if you’re marketing something as “travel size”, make sure that the description of the product that you provide to retailers and on your website includes the dimensions and weight of the product. If you can couple this with a photo showing the product alongside a common object to help customers form a visual estimate of its size, that’s even better. But don’t fall into the trap of just calling something travel size without backing it up with some basic specifications, since that’s a recipe for unhappy customers and above-average return rates.