To launch a new product on the market, to re-launch an improved version or to understand its positioning against competitors, Companies need qualitative and quantitative data summing up consumers’ opinions about the product in question.
Generally speaking, these are the reasons why Companies use product testing.
This has positive effects also for consumers and therefore for all of us.
Taking part in a product test
Taking part in a test – together with ensuring that your opinion concretely contributes to create a product – can offer important benefits.
Who would not like receiving at home the products they normally use and to try them for free?
By participating in the tests, you have the possibility to try cosmetic products, food products, technological products and many other types of products.
By filling out a questionnaire, each of us has the possibility to “have their say”.
How to evaluate the data from a test
The consumers’ assessment of a product, of the way it is presented or the comparison with its competitors on the market are all elements Companies must consider when taking their decisions.
The testing techniques and the experience of the researchers who apply them are essential to systematize and make each feedback collected usable for manufacturers: that is why the market research world always search for new techniques and innovative strategies that make product testing more and more effective.
The opinion of consumers who receive the products at their homes and test them, however, remain a subjective opinion.
Despite the undoubted importance of these opinions – because it is the subjective opinion that drives the consumer’s purchase – Companies need also objective feedbacks from people with a specific expertise in this area.
That is why there are appropriate facilities where testing the products in a more technical and specific way, producing in this way objective results to be submitted to the Companies.
A well-interpreted mix of consumers’ objective and subjective opinions will offer Manufacturers the essential data on which to base their strategies.
by Pierluigi Salzano