@ThinkBig… Knowing my properyy rights are secure, I typically do informal testing. With the products I am currently making I can keep them in my pocket and bring them out when I find a suitable “tester”. The informal, “Hey, try this!” gets me tons of information and honest opinions. I use this to determine when and if I will bring a product out.

One word of caution. The inventor’s enthusiasm can skew any test. Inventor’s tend to have an excitement that is transferred to the product. THIS IS DANGEROUS! During the testing phase you are seeking honest and accurate information to base your interest in investing further in the product. I always make sure I simply demo the product and let the people give me their opinions about it.

It is often not easy but it is always, imho, necessary.

perrytheinventor.com

Thanks for info. What method(s) would you recommend for market testing ? Focus group, consumer survey, buyer input, sales trial or other?

In my opinion… Trade shows are NOT good for Market Testing. Too many people with factories get to see your product, hear your pitch and watch as potential buyers tell you if and for how much they’d buy your product.

You use the trade shows to SELL your product.

Many inventors think they can bring a product to a other’s Trade show booths to “sell” the concept/idea. This is VERY difficult to do if you do not know who you need to speak with and whether or not the company even accepts ideas. Most booths are stocked with sales people who cannot “buy” the rights to your product. And the executives who can say yes have pre-arranged meetings.

If you are attending the show to learn who the players are and to network and meet people, that works. But bringing a concept, that is not covered by patent protection nor ready to be sold, is not a great idea in my experience.

If you are looking for market testing there are better and cheaper ways to do that. If you are trying to sell your innovation there are better and safer ways to do that.

But I would not bring a product concept to a show if I didn’t already have the ground work ready to go. ;-)

perrytheinventor.com

Yes, the IHH Show is on March 5, but that is not the information I am trying to find out. As stated in my first post, I am looking for someone who has exhibited or attended the IHH show with at the concept stage and the value they place on show compared to other marketability methods. This did not come up in a prior search.

I searched (green button) Home Housewares and this came up:

2011 International Home Housewares Show March 5th

Thank you!

I have a friend who was recently successful in getting a product to market without a patent using NDA established during negotiations. Basically, all he did was find a manufacturer who had the right technology to solve a problem a company had with a current product and marry the two. He got all parties to agree to the NDA and became the distributor who is getting a compensation package for solving the problem. If it’s something they would have needed new technology for he would have gone after the patent app before disclosing anything to anyone. Unless you own the idea I think advertising it at the IHH show would be risky.

@ Elizabeth,
You are right, the lawyers can definitely advise on the legal aspects of the IP. But at this early stage I am trying if anyone has a method that was successful in getting buyer feedback within housewares industry.

I have no experience with this, but I plan to try a do-it-yourself online survey at www.surveymonkey.com as part of the marketability testing. You might want to take a look and research info on product concept testing.

@ Julie,
Actually I am looking for in specific info to the International Home and Housewares Show, a search didn’t come up with really any relevant hits for this. I probably should have shown this in the topic title. Thanks

Because this topic has been covered a few times before, if you will use the little green ‘search’ button at the top of every thread, you can find out what you want to know. Maybe search ‘Trade shows’ and also search ‘marketing at shows’. Good luck.

I am in the same stage and am planning to contact the major retailers/distrubutors of similar products myself in order to avoid manufaturing. A good attorney can point you in the direction of the contracts you are going to need and the best possible approach. If you want to save time you can always hire one of the companies who does IP brokering, but from what I have seen around here it can be a sketchy business and you need to investigae firms you work with thouroughly for successes. I wonder if anyone around here has done any virtual/computer generated market testing based on consumer use and how succesful that is?