Testing

In my post last week I discussed a couple of methods for testing some of our demand assumptions.  After thinking this over with Adrianto we decided to give the conjoint analysis a try.  In order to do this we would have to create the conjoint survey, push it out to the web, and then recruit a handful of citizens from Jakarta to take the survey.  The intent of the conjoint survey will be to determine the willingness to pay for a rain suit with features specifically designed for motorcyclists, such as reflector stripes and water protection for backpacks and computer bags.  To do this the conjoint survey will give the user a series of questions (~15) and each question will ask the user to indicate their rain suit preference on the metrics of brand name, price, and features.  The image below is representative of this type of question in the conjoint survey.  

Adrianto and I are still working on finalizing the wording of the questions and then Adrianto will translate into Indonesian before we push it out to the web.  How useful will the results of our conjoint study be?  We don’t expect to have the conjoint study to clear up all of our demand uncertainty but at this stage of the venture we think it will provide us with valuable market data to help us determine if the product path we are headed down generates adequate incremental value to consumers to justify a slightly higher price point.