Home testing

Home testing by potential consumers allows you to avoid making decisions under conditions of uncertainty. In the practice of BCGroup, there were cases of testing product samples when the client changed the country of production with the same production technology: the perception of product quality by consumers turned out to be significantly different. Our research allowed the client to obtain this information before investing in another production and thereby not lose the investment. Having the results of the study, you are 95% likely to make the right decision.

Home testing is most often used when testing samples of a new product. As part of this type of research, consumers are invited to try and evaluate the product, compare it with alternatives, and companies are asked to obtain information about the results of organoleptic tests (taste, color, smell, consistency and other characteristics).

The minimum size of a representative sample for such projects per region is 50-100 questionnaires. By region we mean any territory for which separate analytics is required (this could be, for example, a city or country). In cases where it is necessary to separately consider and compare data from, for example, 2 cities, the minimum sample is 200 questionnaires. The duration of home testing of this quantity is from 2 weeks.

The cost of home testing (home test) consists of the cost of collecting a selected number of respondents (payment is taken only for fully completed test diaries) and the cost of analytics (usually no more than 10-15% of the cost of data collection)

The cost of home testing starts from 2,000 £.

Home testing is often less expensive than focus group testing and also allows samples to be tested on more parameters.

Home test is a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods.

It combines two methods: focus group and online survey. A focus group allows testing of products (organoleptic, i.e. assessing the taste, smell, appearance of the product), but does not provide representative information (since one focus group involves 8-12 people, and a home test - 50- 200). An online survey, on the contrary, provides representative information (200 people are surveyed), but does not allow you to evaluate the taste and smell of the product, only its appearance (through photographs and videos).

Therefore, for studies whose purpose is to test the organoleptic properties of a new product with a representative number of potential consumers, a convenient and relatively inexpensive option is to conduct home testing (home-test).

BCGroup’s work on preparing and conducting home testing is structured as follows:

1. A BCGroup specialist specifies the list of tasks facing the customer that need to be solved using a home test;
2. A BCGroup specialist agrees with the customer on the final version of the questionnaire or diary for the home test, as well as the sample size;
3. An NDA (confidentiality agreement) is signed between BCGroup and the company;
4. BCGroup carries out preparatory work from 2 working days, if necessary, pre-recruitment of respondents - from 5 working days;
5. BCGroup interviewers conduct a home test in a short time (usually no more than 2-3 weeks);
6. Next, the BCGroup employee transfers the data array to the customer’s representative in Excel or SPSS format;
7. After 5-7 days, a BCGroup employee sends an analytical report on the tasks set by the customer.