New industrial goods typically undergo extensive product testing in the lab to measure performance, reliability, design and operating cost. Following satisfactory results, many companies will commercialize the products by listing it in the sales catalogue. Today, however, an increasing number of companies are turning to market testing as an intermediate step. Market testing can indicate the products performance under actual conditions, the key buying influence, how different buying influences reacts to alternative prices and sales approaches, the market potential, and the best market segments.
The most common method used in industrial goods market testing includes :
1. Product use test : In this method, the manufacturer selects some potential customers who agreed to use the new product for a limited period. The manufacturer's technical people observe how these customers use the product, a practice that often exposes unanticipated problems of safety and servicing and clues or gifts the manufacturer insights on customer training and servicing requirements. The manufacturer can also observe how much value the products or equipment adds to the customer's operation as a clue to subsequent pricing.
2. Trade shows. This method of market testing involves introducing the new industrial product at trade shows or trade fairs. Trade fairs draw a large number of buyers, who view new products in a field concentrated days. The manufacturer can see how much interest beyaz show in the new product, how they react to various features and terms and how many express purchase intentions or place orders. The disadvantage is that trade shows revealed the product to the competitors, therefore the manufacturer should be ready to launch the product at that point.
3. Distributor and dealer display rooms. The new industrial product can also be tested in distributor and dealer display room where it may stand next to the manufacturers other products. This method use preference and pricing information in the normal selling atmosphere for the product, the disadvantages are the customers might want to place any other that cannot the field, and those customers who come in might not represent the target market.
4. just marketing has been used by some manufacturers. They produce a limited supply of product and give it to the sales force to sell in a limited set of the graphical areas that will be giving emotional support, printed in catalog sheets, and so on.
In this way, the management can learn what happened under full scale marketing and make a more informed decision about launching.
The test marketing is not typically used in the case of industrial products. This is because it is too expensive to produce a sample of some industrial goods such as companies, airline, let alone put them up for sale in a selected market to see how well they sell in addition, buyers will buy durable goods without assurance of service and parts. This is why industrial goods and factors have to use other methods to research the market interest in a new industrial product.
