When I moved to San Francisco from Boston about a year ago the biggest change was not the weather, the food, or the hills, but the commute to the office. In Boston it took me about a half hour to walk to work across the Charles River via the Mass Ave. Bridge and through MIT’s main campus. In San Francisco it takes me about a half hour to drive down Van Ness to the 101, and down the 101 to Foster City, where Forrester’s main Bay Area office is inconveniently located (public transportation is unfortunately about a 1.5 to 2 hour ordeal, since the office is no where near CalTrain or BART).

Needless to say, this new set-up required a car, and I had not owned a car since high school — a red 1976 Impala station wagon, in case you were wondering. Like many Americans I embraced the freedom of a car and decided to go full bore and get myself a GPS for easy navigation to client sites, weekend get-aways, (eventual) cross-country drives, and alley trapping. The Garmin Nuvi 660 was the big winner and I have been pleased with the purchase. One of my favorite features has been the built-in traffic; the device has saved me from getting stuck in several major jams. However a couple of months ago the traffic subscription expired. Since I had been impressed with the results so far I decided to plunk down the $60.00 to get traffic for life.

This is where the trouble began . . .

Like many companies Garmin has a handy online purchasing process for many of its services, so one afternoon I grabbed my GPS, headed to my computer and set out to update the subscription. I was moving along quite nicely — I had found my device in their list and had found the traffic service — when I was surprised to see step 4 (below).

GPS? Check. Power source? We’re plugged into the computer so, check. Turn the key in the ignition . . . umm, my computer doesn’t come with an ignition.

After a few moments too long of dumbfounded staring I realized that Garmin either expected me to have an internet connection in my car, or I was to go to my car, find the receiver unit ID, and come back to input it. Now, I’m not a lazy man, but I was very close to packing it in right here. Since I live in San Francisco and park the car on the street, the trek to the car is not as simple as stepping into the garage and turning on the car. For me this meant first remembering where I parked, and second walking up and over Russian Hill — a brief aside, never try to park in Russian Hill unless its 10AM to 4PM Monday through Friday.

After completing this task I returned to my computer, continued my way through the process, handed over my credit card, and was presented with my next obstacle: a 16-digit HEX code that needed to be input back into the GPS once I returned yet again to the car.

Well, dear reader, you should be happy to know that I survived, and once again receive traffic updates on my GPS. Despite my triumph I couldn’t help but wonder how many others were less fortunate, and fell out of the process along the way and, further still, how much that cost Garmin in lost revenue. So, I decided to do a very rough back of the envelope calculation (most numbers are conservative guesses):

Estimated 2008 Device Sales: 18 million
Percent that are traffic enabled: 20%
Traffic enabled devices in 2008: 3.6 million

Percent of people with traffic devices that would pay for traffic: 10%
Potential traffic sales: 360,000

Percent of people who drop out of the online form: 10%
Lost purchases: 36,000
Lost revenue at $60 per purchase: $2.16 million

What would be the cost of at least informing me I would need to make the trip back and form to my car, or telling me what I would need before getting started? My guess is nothing at all.

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