“Anyone who launches new products will immediately appreciate the power of this resource to influence design direction, target appropriate price points, and select materials with high consumer appeal. What I love most is that it facilitates open and powerful discussions across the marketing, design and business teams. It minimizes reliance on “the gut feel” of just one individual in an organization and helps create a unified vision for success.”
Most of our key clients focus their product development for specific retailers. They want to go into retail presentations able to say “we tested these new products/designs/concepts against the products you have on your shelves today and these products were preferred over the existing products by consumers who shop in your stores today – by your customers.”
That’s a powerful message that goes a long way to getting shelf space for new products. But it requires a sample of current retail consumers to test the products with. We can provide that. In fact, we recommend testing new products with a broad range of key retailers’ customers. We usually include 5-10 customer groups. That way, products that are poorly received by one group and therefore are not recommended for that retailer, might succeed with another group and succeed for that retailer.
We strongly recommend using consumer research to support your sell-in efforts. Our key clients have become repeat clients because they understand and appreciate the advantage offered by consumer research in general and consumer research with retail audiences in particular.