Question

Topic: Research/Metrics

New Consumer Product Concept Survey

Posted by Anonymous on 7/25/2005 at 12:08 PM ET 235 Points
An on-line survey was conducted through a reputable Internet-based survey company. The survey was designed to study the potential market for a new consumer product. What survey results indicate a viable market for the product? For example, 30% of respondents answered "Yes" to the most direct survey question on this point ("Would you buy this product: Yes or No?"). Assuming good pricing and marketing, does this 30% mean the product will sell?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by ROIHUNTER on 7/25/2005 at 12:21 PM Member
    robertlarsen,

    Yes the product will sell, but does the 30% of the respondants represent any serious market share? Ths survey will not help you will the remainder of your marketing / business plan. You may have gained some good consumer information, but what about pricing, segmentation, location, competitve analysis, etc.

    Hope that helps ...
  • Posted by wnelson on 7/25/2005 at 12:26 PM Member
    Robert,
    30% saying yes means that 30% of those people who answered your online survey would buy your product. Other than that, with the limited data you supplied, not much else can be said. For instance, the key question is: Does this survey reflect the market segment you are targeting?

    If you say it does - and you're the one who has to do the upfront marketing to know this - then the question becomes: If 30% of my target market segment buy the product, is that enough to make money? How many units sold does this represent and can I manufacture it at resonable cost and sell it at a price people would still buy it? Can this pay for the marketing efforts to reach these customers? At this point, it is a business decision to tell if this answer means you have a business.

    So next step, determine if the sample reflects your target customers, and if it does, then do the business analysis to see if this is a good business proposition. If not, then you are back at the beginning with no relavent information.

    Hope this helps!

    Wayde
  • Posted by wnelson on 7/25/2005 at 2:53 PM Accepted
    Robert,
    Surveys that are designed well AHEAD of time for statistical significance and relevancy are extremely valuable as a predictor and the way you normally would say it is: The survey suggests that of people who have internet in their houses and are between the ages or 25 and 45 said they would buy this product, with a possible error of +/-5%. The idea is you know who you surveyed and qualify the results from that basis AND quote the statistical error.

    As far as the scaled questions, again, you have statistics like averages and percentiles. For your example, 20% of the respondants gave the product a "good rating" or above is a valid conclusion. A counter way of stating that, however, is more telling: 80% of the respondants rated the product fair or poor. Not so good, in my estimation. For question 2, it means that 80% lean to the "not buy" side. For 3, 80% lean toward the not interested side. Again, this depends on how reflective your survey is to you target market segment. Could be that the survey responants are kids, and they aren't the target market. There is cross correlation analysis for surveys too. For instance, of those who said they were extremely interested, 90% said they would "buy" might be a statistic of interest - right?

    For survey design, you must also put in demographic information so you know who responded. Additionally, you probably want to preceed the survey with some indepth customer interviewing to get qualitative feedback. Based on that, you design the survey, then launch a smaller scale, cheaper pilot survey to get some feedback quickly and cheaply. Then redesign the survey and launch the full blown version with the adjustments.

    There's my two cents worth!

    Wayde
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