This is the movie in which stored personal information is accessed by computers when the shopper walks by. The computer then “verbally” offers a special product promotion offer to the intercepted shopper, who in this movie is Tom Cruise…..subject matter for another blog.

What if you could see the future for a new product before it is introduced? What if you could know what is going to happen before launching? You can rehearse your new product introduction before spending significant $$$s for tooling, inventory, sales collateral, advertising, etc. For example, what if you could obtain a sneak preview (or at least a preliminary estimate) of: units sold, market share, optimal price point/price elasticity, pricing corridors, value-added feature/benefit differentiators and effective key words/messages.In the last 2 years, HLB has conducted several successful New Product Shopping Simulations for Nestle, Fortune Brands, Bemis, Rexon Tools and others, including a new product that is launching at Sears this month.

What is a Shopping Simulation?
It is a simulated retail shopping experience that is conducted for the new product against category leaders in store-like setting. All products are branded, packaged and merchandised as in a real store. Prices are added after price expectation, price elasticity and purchase expectation data is captured. After the prices are disclosed, purchase intent is again captured as is demand mapping and the identification of pricing corridors. This technique is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative user research that uses attitudinal segmentation to identify the high potential market segments that have been previously identified by market research and customer profiling.

When and how do you use them?
Shopping simulations are used after traditional market research is completed and when visual models, alpha or beta prototypes are available. Prototypes or visual models that are non-functioning are appropriate, unless in-store demos are planned when the product is actually launched. Shopping simulations are best timed for just prior to final engineering so that final changes can be made to the engineering data base prior to tooling.

How does a Shopping Simulation work?
A sample size of 100-200 respondents in 2-3 of the high potential market segments, with a 90%+ confidence level/acceptable margins of error, are pre-recruited to a central location and the simulation is conducted in 3 parts:

• 1 A Lobby Survey is used to capture general store, category, usage and brand awareness information prior to the retail shopping experience.
• 2 Groups of 6-8 participants are then taken to the retail store/product setup and they “shop” the category. A facilitator guides them through the self administered questionnaire that they fill out without making comments that might bias fellow shoppers.
• 3 The facilitator then leads a group discussion that focuses on a few key areas and questions to understand why they made the choices they made. Key quotations are recorded or keyed and can be used in the merchandising and communication strategy.

A wealth of sales and marketing metrics that include projections for the new product and for competitive products such as: units sold, market share, optimal price point/price elasticity, value-added feature differentiators and effective key words/messages.

What is the cost of a New Product Shopping Simulation?
The cost is a small fraction of the cost of final engineering, tooling, inventory build or sales and marketing materials or what Tom Cruise gets for a movie.