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PRODUCT VIABLILITY

Written by: Anthony Testa

Article Overview: Viability business plan .....to help small business plan how to introduce a new product.

PRODUCT VIABLILITY

Where Vision becomes Real



PRODUCT VIABLILITY

In preparing your product for the marketplace you need you need to know how viable this concept is going to be?

Viability Report can and will answer many questions about where you intend to go with this concept and how viable it really is in the marketplace…



Product line viability

What does product line viability mean to our product? What we want to know is which product lines do the retailers already carry that appeal to our target or similar markets? Are they majors or small companies?

What variety of packaging is being used, blisters, clams or boxes. Are your competitors using similar branded packaging, and what type of market confusion or market manipulation are they engaged in.

Sometimes multiple products fall into a colour scheme, whether they are using green for ecco friendly or imitating each other…Using similar colours and packaging styles confuses the marketplace and is a great way to benefit from advertising from the feature brand and capturing some unconvinced customers into a decision in our favor. This can give you some insight as to the products that the retailer is comfortable with as well give you a heads up on the direction you should be taking. Blend in with the majors or stand apart from everyone. Get a scope of the playing field.



Traffic flow

Does the retailer carry any product which would be in direct competition to our product? Do they carry any support brand to yours where you could benefit from the “feature brand” created traffic? If there is a competitor, does it have our unique selling feature, how does ours differ, how is ours better? What is our competitor selling at?

If you’re priced higher, better be prepared to sell that point through packaging, size and style or product differentiation.



Point of Sale

How are products in our store plan area being displayed? Displayers have been making a slow and stead comeback to the retail floor. This is a great way to stand out from the competition; it facilitates finding the product much faster.

You need to examine what type of displayer will best show off your product and grab your share of in store traffic. These displayers will add costs to your bottom line. Be prepared to pay anywhere from $10.00 and up depending on quantity and complexity. If you take a walk through a store and come up on an isle where there are displayers you will notice how little attention you give to the products behind the displayer, as most of your attention is on the displayer and its products.



USP

What is unique about our products’ trademark that will add to the exclusive feature not only in name but in action as well? Sometimes you can name a quality or function of your product as part of your branding that can help it stand out among the rest.



Quantities

Quantities will be determined once retailer reviews your New Opportunity presentation. We need to get at least an idea of minimum quantities for a first time order. This will help in setting our manufacturing costs. It will also help in gauging our manufacturing turn-around times.



Retailer Mark-up

Many retailers want 50% mark-up. Some mark-up their products anywhere form 30% to 50%, this is based on quantities, suggested retail price and cost, Risk + value to business, and electronics are less. Here you need to examine your manufacturing costs. This is a big part of our products’ viability equation. If we are too expensive we can’t compete, unless we are offering more.





Retailers buying cycles

Retailers review portions of their business on pre-determined schedules. They begin in mid-summer with their suppliers, August and September, and then cut a PO with stock in Stores in February. So you will have to plan your manufacturing accordingly, as well as when you present your product to the retailer.

Retailers have consistently used Plan-o-Grams to determine product placement, shelf space or peg area. If you are not talking to them within their planning stages you will find it very difficult to get on board .These plan-o-grams are planned six months in advance and are very detailed with product placement and quantity per shelf space.

Knowing how viable you product is, is really the first stage in your product development. This will determine, packaging, marketing, target markets, manufacturing costs, and will fill in the blanks on many other questions some of which you may not have thought about. Once you know how viable your product really you can move on to the next step …Design and development.

Get your unfair market share!

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