What are the most effective ways to test new category concepts with shoppers?

When it comes to defining objectives - It is more, much more than just sales. I strongly recommend also factoring the importance of driving category footfall, and increasing the numbers of shoppers how engage with the category. Once you know what you want the category concept, then you can devise methods that are effective at measuring and reporting your KPIs. Yes seek to understand the impact on real shoppers, really shopping. And No, showing images of the concept to a focus group isn't an effective tool.

In my experience, while sales uplift targets are typically clear, the factors driving the sales uplift are often not adequately defined. What are the target groups? Do you aim to increase traffic or basket size? Do you want to encourage trade-ups or add more items to the basket? The clearer you are about your objectives, the easier it will be to filter the various ideas (internal, from suppliers, from competitors,...). To have a clear understanding, you need to do your homework: what are the market trends? What is the current performance in the category (sales AND shopper behavior)? The more you understand the current performance, the easier it will be to define the right strategy for the future.

As I've already mentioned, it is important to understand how the category concept is received by real shoppers, really shopping. Surveys and questionnaires may tell you what shoppers rationally think, but you need to uncover deeper more implicit reactions. And this is where an understanding of shopper psychology and behavioural science is important. My recommendation would be an in-depth analysis of actual shopper behaviour at fixture. Also a specialist dialogue with shoppers (that goes beyond capturing what they say) and uncovers what they mean and their emotional reaction. There are some proven onlne tools that also uncover emotional and implicit responses to categories and brands within them.

When it comes to analysing the results, I always think it wise to have a control as well as a category test concept. So you can accurately compare them. Once you have the right metrics to test and the control and test research stimuli, then you are heading towards more meaningful analysis. One more thing, remember to incorporate the quantitative analysis (*the what) with qualitative data analysis to uncover the why. Incidentally, by way of credentials, I have been conducting shopper research specialising in category analysis for 25 years. I have done so for the majority of leading brands and retailers in UK and in more than 20 other countries. So if you have any questions around testing category concepts, then please get in touch.

When it comes to implementing the subsequent category actions, it's always good to have brands and retailers work together, for the good of the category. This is opposed to conducting category changes purely to benefit your own brand. Growing a category draws new sales from other categories or retailers. Whereas focussing just on your brand within the category is more likely to merely purloin sales from other brands in category and so be less of a benefit to the retailer or category overall.

Testing new category concepts with shoppers is not a one-time event, but a continuous process of learning and improvement. We like to encourage clients to introduce a structured test and learn program: a means by which the category continues to evolve, develop and grow over time. This is in contrast to conducting one-off initiatives either just to impress the buyer, or worse, just to impress your own brand team.