Market research is a crucial step in strengthening and supporting plans or hypotheses for business opportunities. In the process of evaluating these opportunities for our clients, we are often asked the same questions about potential opportunities and next steps with these being the most common.
1. How can I quantify the size of the opportunity when starting or exporting to a new market?
Strategic market research provides qualitative and quantitative information to evaluate mid and long term strategic decisions. It provides a comprehensive view of the market for the past, present and future, validating hypothesis and providing trends to better define and adapt corporate plans.
Using strategic market research, we identify a view on the total market of the product to be sold and/or exported, historical market performance and forecasts. This assessment helps answer whether the market is attractive or not.
2. My product is very new and revolutionary. How can I understand its potential?
If the product you want to sell is already a success in another country, but has not yet reached your new target market, look for information on a product resembling it in your target market to find perspective on the size of the opportunity. For example, assuming there is no quinoa market information, strategic information about cereals and rice can be taken as a reference. It is not exactly the same, but quinoa is a healthier substitute for both and with this information we have a better view on product potential.
3. Which companies lead the market and who will I compete with?
Using strategic market research information, including estimated market sizes and company shares, you can understand how monopolized or segmented the category and/or product is in the target country and whether the product would be well received. In addition, you can identify companies that have performed well to take as a reference and learn from them.
If the company is already operating with a certain product in a country, a scan data provider will give periodic information to understand the regular behaviour of the product, how the brand is doing against the competition and what prices are being handled.
The surveys or focus groups help understand the brand perception of a certain product through a representative sample of the population.
4. Which channel is more attractive for my product?
Through strategic market research, identify how a product moves within different channels. For example, the channel with 40% of target product sales are convenience stores, which grows 7% on average a year. However, supermarkets concentrate 22% of sales and will grow an average of 12% annually in the next 5 years. This helps to make the decision between selling in a more developed channel, with the highest concentration of sales, or, betting on a channel with lower sales but with higher forecasted growth.
Once the channel is identified, the following sources of information can also be useful:
A focus group allows you to understand why the consumer prefers to buy the product in convenience stores versus supermarkets, as well as attitudes and reactions of the same subject.
A household panel takes a sample of households and indicates the frequency of purchase in one channel versus another, products purchased for a family and details of the products.
The scan data provides periodic information on the movement of the product in each channel, sale prices and behaviour of the company versus the competition.
Big data or data mining combines internal and external information about consumer behaviour to help adapt and tailor their offerings as well as create consumer loyalty.
5. What characteristics should my product have? Which ingredients and flavours are more attractive? What price should I take as a reference?
When launching a new product there are infinite possibilities as to what ingredients, flavours and packaging it can have. Let´s say you are launching a baby food product. Strategic market research can provide information on the total market sizes of packaging types and flavours to identify the largest and fastest growing categories for baby food. For example, pouches versus glass jars, fruit versus vegetables or meat.
You can complement this data with:
- Store checks, which consist of visiting different points of sale in one or more countries to visualize the products, prices, who produces them, labels and most popular claims in baby food.
- Consumer surveys help to understand the tastes and preferences of parent for their children’s food products.
- "Data scraping" information extracted from websites through a computer program, help identify trending topics, how the products are perceived or any opinion / information related to the product.
- New Products Database services allow you to see products similar to the one you want to sell. This information shows types of packaging, labelling, ingredients and claims of the current offer.