Conducting Market Research

Your sliding price scale should convince customers to buy food that:

1. They wouldn’t normally buy, and
2. Would otherwise be thrown away.

Use this resource to learn more about using market research to build your sliding scale.

Surveys

Companies use surveys to conduct market research for their products. Whether that research is useful depends on the quality of the survey questions.

As you write your survey questions, think about what information you want to learn and whether your question will give you that information.  For example, suppose you are trying to learn about how your sliding price scale will work for bananas. Here is an example of a useful question and an example of a less useful question.

As you read each question, think about what the company might learn from it.

1. Useful Question: 

What discount would convince you to choose bananas that look like this?  {{EMBED HTMLFRAGIMAGE 229.1}}These bananas have been on the shelf for fewer than 5 days.

1. I would choose bananas like this at full price. 
2. A 20% discount
3. A 40% discount
4. A 60% discount
5. An 80% discount
6. I would not buy bananas that look like this.

1. Less Useful Question: 

What types of produce do you buy at the grocery store?

1. Bananas
2. Apples
3. Strawberries
4. Oranges

Survey Writing Tips: Use the resource to learn more about writing survey questions. Web Link - Writing Good Survey Questions