Economical Market Research

I did something kind of interesting yesterday. With a little time to kill, I went out and invested a few dollars on five magazines: “Better Homes and Gardens”, “House Beautiful”, “Metropolitan Home”, “Traditional Home”, and “Architectural Digest”. These are obviously, a few of the better-known names in shelter magazines. They are also places that many prospective furniture buyers go to research the type of furniture they would like to own. These magazines provide for these potential customers the visuals of the ambience in which they would like to live.Out of curiosity, I selected photographs of two different looks in furniture and design from each publication, ten different room settings in all. Armed with these pictures, in my mind I took the role of furniture buyer and ventured to three retail furniture showrooms to determine the success I might have in finding looks similar to the ones I had selected.

The results were startling. In one store, I could find eight out of ten vignettes that might have met my needs. Pretty good. In another, five out of ten and in the third only three of the ten looks would have potentially worked. Not exactly scientific, but revealing, nevertheless. In this final case, only three out of ten customers might have been sold some furniture if the price was right, timing for delivery was right, terms were right, color was right, if all other things worked perfectly.

What I am suggesting is that for about fifty dollars and a few hours time I did some fairly instructive market research. As every sale counts today, it seems critical that a retailer’s assortment coincide with what consumers are looking for. If many consumers use shelter magazines as a resource to determine the type of home furnishings for which they are looking, might it not be prudent to use the same resources to aid in selecting at least a portion of the store’s line-up? Market research need not be costly and might provide some much-needed guidance.

I would be interested in hearing from you about other inexpensive methods of research, which have helped you in operating your businesses.