HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Chelsey Patrick
For my hypothesis testing, I asked four different people what they thought of our venture after I pitched them our basic outline. I didn't get the response I had anticipated as all of the people I asked had some criticisms.
The criticisms I received in my feedback was:
1) How come any of the main deal sites right now can't use the same technology and filter their coupons? What is stopping them from adopting this?
2) How will you build up a consistent user base? Once people get the good deal they want, how do you plan on keeping them going back to the same retail store rather than just using the one time deal?
3) Organic products cost more to manufacture and grow...how do you make sure the farmers aren't losing out on their income? How can you offer coupons for organic foods when even the organic grocers have a hard time doing so?
4) Fair-trade products cost more because it offers people in developing countries good work conditions, wages, food, etc. and then there are also shipping costs. How can you possibly offer these kinds of products cheaper?
5) It is still often more out of the way to get to a lot of ethical, green places than it would be to go to Safeway or a local grocery store.
The plus side:
1) I would like to stop getting so many useless coupons (one example was oil change coupons for people who didn't drive).
2) I would like to save money while continuing my lifestyle of being healthy- so if this would help with that, that would be good.
3) The digital coupon market seems to be up and coming so this would be good for today's market.
I think that these people's criticisms and advice helped a lot because it gave our team some very realistic feedback and made us take a step back and think about the course of our venture. We agreed that we may need to find an even smaller niche and more specific group of customers.
You ever thought of going with a little bit of Utopia with the coupons? Get a discount but do a review sort of thing. If you've ever done those "get 5 cents for every survey you fill out" things then you would know that they already have data bases that split all their demographics at the very least. Not only do they get more feedback but you might get the kind of deals you guys are looking at.
ReplyDeleteYou could have a store front, like Utopia, that has various different ethical products all in the same place with a discounted rate. This would be similar artist coops or farmers markets, but if you could some how twist on it.
ReplyDeleteThe criticism in point number four is very valid, how are you planning on over coming the issue?
Ethical products do not only include fair trade products, they include green products, organic products etc. There are numerous websites already offering discounts for ethical products. The problem is most people don't know about them and even if you did, it is a hassle to keep track of these websites.What we are doing is putting these websites in one location and allowing the customer to personalize what type of coupons they receive.
ReplyDeleteUtopia is an interesting idea which we will definitely be looking at.
And one more thing I agree that number 4 is a valid criticism and it is one of the reasons why we have postponed any partnerships with retailers later. If we can prove that the model we are trying to build works we will effectively work with retailers to tackle point number 4. We already have a few ideas in the back burner.
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