Consumers love novelty, but that doesn’t mean every new product is guaranteed success. There can be a significant financial risk if new products are met with disinterest. You can reduce risk considerably by implementing testing in your new product development process.

A solid testing process enables you to assess market viability before investing a great deal in production, packaging, and marketing. Once you’re reasonably sure markets are receptive to a product, your company will continue through several product development and testing stages

The role of stage-gate testing in New Product Development 

At the end of each stage, a stage-gate process calls for a revaluation of progress, followed by decision-making. Based on testing outcomes, your business may decide to discontinue further development owing to product viability concerns, call for refinements to a preceding stage, or move ahead to the next one.  

New product development testing is generally done in the third and fourth stages of NPD. It follows project scoping. And, if results look promising enough to proceed, further testing is applied after initial product development..  

The entire new product development process is carefully mapped, with testing at strategic points. Several stakeholders collaborate to keep the project on track, and the ability to share real-time insights and capture findings on a single platform helps them to work together effectively. NPD and PLM software fulfills this purpose, helping its users to optimise efficiency and share data such as the results of product testing.  

What is concept testing in new product development? 

The concept testing stage of new product development takes place in the first phase of your process. You don’t need a physical product yet. Instead, you are determining whether your idea interests customers and consumers.  

Effective techniques for concept testing 

Practical methods for concept testing in new product development include remote surveys, focus groups in which you can interact directly with customers, and online consumer panels. However, while you can gain some idea of whether customers like your new idea, the product experience is lacking from this type of research. Nevertheless, it indicates whether you should move forward to product development and prototyping.  

Benefits of concept testing for product development 

If markets aren’t interested in your new product idea, or like it but would like modifications to it, knowing this before investing further in NPD mitigates risk. This early feedback allows you to see whether your ideas are a good fit for the market, and unbiased input may indicate key improvements you should incorporate into your concept.  

According to MIT, 95 percent of new products fail. Even giants like Coca Cola have faced their share of new product failures. Coca Cola C2, a low-carbohydrate variant of its popular beverage is an excellent example of this. It is possible to be among the successful five percent, but to stand a chance of doing so, thorough concept testing is a prerequisite. 

Product verification testing 

Once concept testing indicates a potentially receptive market, your business enters a product development phase that includes the development of prototypes and their associated recipes and processes. Product verification testing is the next stage of the process and confirms whether the required project specifications have been met.  

In addition, it confirms whether proposed products align with food safety standards. Once this has been ascertained, sensory testing (taste, texture, smell) follows. Further tests determine shelf-life and confirm whether the proposed presentation meets packaging integrity and compliance standards

Market testing (product validation) in new product development  

Prototyping enables you to ask consumers to test your products so that you can gather feedback. If your product will be sold in retail stores, you can set up simulated test markets where you can observe how “customers” interact with your product and respond to different packaging variants and marketing approaches. Follow up with interviews and questionnaires to gain an understanding of their behaviour and purchasing decisions.  

These NPD testing methods allow you to gather qualitative and quantitative information. Analysing it enables you to observe and understand the behaviour you can expect from your target market following a product launch. Using your data, you can reach conclusions and make adjustments that take customer experiences and preferences into account. This increases the probability of your new product being positively received and adopted by its market.  

Common challenges in new product development testing 

Insufficient or skewed market research data may present a challenge. As with any other type of research, your choice of participants must result in a group of subjects that represent your targeted market segments. Keep purchasing decision-making in mind. For example, when buying a product intended for children, parents are the decision-makers.  

Work to eliminate bias in testing. For example, the questions you ask in surveys must be carefully phrased so that respondents will not be encouraged to respond in a particular way. In open-ended questioning, be sure that questions encourage participants to expand on their personal views, even if these may not support an NPD project you and your team are excited about.  

Resource limitations are always a consideration since extensive market research using large samples can be costly. However, you can realise economies by using software to analyse market trends and sentiments. This allows you to narrow the scope of your market-faced testing somewhat without significantly impacting the accuracy of your results.  

Streamlining testing for better product outcomes 

Developing ideas and products involves testing processes that range from confirming the properties of the products you hope to introduce to determining how the market is likely to receive them. It involves multidisciplinary teams including market researchers, supply chain analysts, and food technologists.  

At Foods Connected, we realise how important NPD is to keeping product ranges fresh and interesting and gaining market share. Streamlining and coordinating the process need not be an onerous undertaking. Our NPD software, designed specifically for food industry professionals offers valuable tools to keep your process on track.  

For example, you can create and manage specification templates that keep your teams on the same page, set review periods, identify the best ingredient suppliers, verify compliance with food safety laws, and develop packaging specifications using our NPD software suite.  

Would you like to see how it works? Request your demo today and discover the ways we can help you develop new products efficiently, effectively, and with greater certainty of success.  

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