If you want to introduce a brand new product, launch a new offer or grow your business in
order to take your sales to the next level, then you need to know what’s going on in the market.
What I mean to say is, Research is very much important for the success of any business.
Likewise, Product research is something that you do before buying a product.
Have you ever gone online and searched for a product of your choice and thought that, brilliant
that’s exactly what I needed, before that you must’ve done a lot of product research behind the
scenes. So, Product Research is nothing but understanding what your customer truly wants-
before, during and after creating a product. It helps in avoiding guesswork and actually in
creating something that consumers will love, use it and even recommend it to the other users.
It is just like the homework we used to do before going to the maths class, likewise product
research is kind of a homework that a company does before launching a new idea or product in
the market.
The problem is 90% of the businesses are doing this research wrong and the other 10% are not
doing product research at all which leads to ineffective marketing campaigns, bad results and
overall it’s a waste of time, money and energy and sitting there wondering why nothing is
working. A successful launch of a product requires a lot of Research and now I am going to tell
you about the ways or means through which you can do the product research. One of the most
traditional and effective way is through surveys but it requires a keen smart interpretation of
questions otherwise it will lead to the ineffective results. Another is studying the competitors
and also analysing the market trend.
Now let me clearly give you the reasons why Product Research is very important because- just
imagine a product you created with all hard work but nobody wants it, it sounds scary and
devastating. Right? And to prevent that from happening we do the product research. Here’s
what it helps with- – Understanding customer needs like it shows what problems customers face and what kind of product can solve them. – It reduces business risks, product research helps filter out weak ideas and focus on the strong ones before investing time, money and energy. – Sometimes, people don’t speak out loud what they want but their behaviour shows what desire, so by studying competitors, reviews, and market trends, companies find opportunities that nobody has tapped yet, simply put it helps in identifying market gaps.
– Rebranding your product, like after reviewing valuable feedback from the customers,
organisation will get a chance to improve their product quality and provides with an opportunity
to rebrand the product and even improvise it. – The most important and valuable point is it helps in customer satisfaction, if the customer is satisfied it means he is happy and he will go on in the market and tell other customers also to buy that product which ultimately helps in increasing sales and revenue for the organisation.
These are some of the important points that shows how efficient it is to do the product research.
Like seriously, think for a second, if we don’t do any market or product research and blindly launched a product, then what if you create a product nobody wants, what if you create a
product that’s a complete failure and is not generating revenue at all, it has a higher chance of
getting a failure, what about the pricing decisions? Suppose without understanding your customers willingness to pay, you may overprice the product which will result in fewer sales
or underprice the product which results in low profit margins. In any case both hurt your business. Anyways it will all go down the drain, you will lose everything. So, Product Research is very essential for the business.
Okay so let’s end this with a very simple everyday example-
Let’s take something as common as handmade soaps. Imagine you want to start selling a
chemical-free, luxury handmade soaps that is something many small businesses do today.
So without product research there might be the possibility that you choose random fragrances
or you price it based on what you think looks right in your opinion or you design packaging
based on your personal taste. But it may happen that customers may not like the fragrance, may find the price too high, or may not understand your product at all.
But on the other hand with product research you interview like 30-40 potential customers and
you discover most people want mild fragrances because strong scents cause them headache and nausea or you learn that eco-friendly packaging is a big advantage or you find that customers are willing to pay ₹200-₹300 for premium handmade soaps or you analyse competitors on Instagram to see which fragrances and ingredients are trending.
So now, your product is based on your actual data and not just the assumption. This is my
opinion on product research.
Author – Mr. Anirudh Singh Parmar
Research Scholar
Institute For Future Education, Entrepreneurship and Leadership
Co- Author – Dr. Gaurav Petkar