WOBO Wallet Review

Prompted by a follow-up email request to review the WOBO wallet I recently purchased for myself, I composed the following review:

I bought the WOBO wallet for three reasons:  (1) I tire of replacing cracked drivers' licenses, banking and loyalty cards, (2) my previous (trifold) wallet was a giant lump in my pocket, stuffed so full with such cards that cash bills had to be literally crammed in, and (3) I know the WOBO wallet's designer personally.   

Now, let's face it -- there are other solutions for reasons #1 and #2, and #3 is not a product-based reason at all.  As such, my expectations were moderately high, but tempered by prior attempts at solving my wallet problems.  It is with pleasure, then, that I can report here that my expectations were met and exceeded. 

This is a solid product, well-conceived and well-constructed.  The 15-17 cards I carry around (including freshly replaced, now-crack-free NCDL and debit cards) are securely held and easy to access.  The whole package is about the same size as a small flipphone (which means I can comfortably and more safely carry it in my front pocket), and it's easy to slip bills in and out of the elastic strap.  And when I run into the WOBO designer around town I can continue to greet him with a smile and the promise of word-of-mouth marketing for his product. 

So my three reasons for giving the WOBO a shot are now three reasons to give it a shout-out.  That's a successful experiment in my book. 

(Though, I confess I was disappointed to learn from the designer that "WOBO" didn't stand for "Working Our Butts Off" as I had supposed...)

 A couple of additional thoughts for the WOBO folks to consider:

• Closing the wallet can be a challenge if the "top-most" card in the stack isn't smooth-faced (for example, if it has raised/embossed letters and numbers).  Consider providing a smooth, clear, plastic card that folks can put on the top of the stack if they really want a "bumpy" card to be the first one they see upon opening the wallet.
• While the video instructions are great, a paper-set of illustrated open/close instructions wouldn't hurt.  (I wonder if the IKEA folks outsource their artists...)