After more than four decades, the answer is usually no. I can see before I buy something if it will be useful.
But when you buy baby stuff, it’s not for me. I can’t see how the baby would use or enjoy it.
Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) are the essential point of a solution. Remember that marketing story about you don’t need a drill, you need a hole? The hole is the JTBD, the drill is the tool to accomplish it. The basic JTBDs for babies are feed them, get them to sleep, keep them clean.
But the marketing for baby items doesn’t address JTBDs and it’s hard to find parents who think like this. I don’t care what pattern a burp cloth is, I want to know if it’s absorbent and easy to clean.
It’s hard to tell the functionality from a website and even in person it’s hard because I’m the one trying it out, but I’m not the one that’s going to be using it. And even if the one who’s going to use it was here, he won’t be able to tell me what qualities he values for years.