Synopsis: Electric Ranges and Ovens – New Product Strategies – New Market Entry

Our client, the Electric Power Research Institute, had the objective of increasing the use of electric technologies in cooking.   In the mid 1990’s when this research was undertaken, several new cooking technologies were emerging, from convection and light ovens to induction cooking and smooth-top ranges. The challenge to achieving this goal was to grow the electric cooking appliance market by stimulating manufacturers in the industry to adopt the new technologies.

The objective of the research was to identify what features could be incorporated into new electric ranges and ovens that would make them the competitive options of choice.  At the time of our research, the market for kitchen appliances was dominated by low price, limited-feature products. Manufacturers in the US were convinced that appliance market was price sensitive and not interested in new features.

Our objective was to identify consumer performance needs that could be met by the new technologies, then to determine the price consumers would pay for these performance benefits and finally how much of the market would be willing to buy appliances at different price points.  The goal was to identify feature benefits that would attract a large enough market at an attractive price for manufacturers to develop and market technologies to meet these new performance demands.

Using lifestyle research, QDI led a consumer-based research process to identify consumer cooking problems. We conducted one and one-half hour one-on-one interviews with 60 consumers in three cities.  We designed the sample to include higher income consumers who had purchased a new oven or range in the last six months and who would be able to afford to pay higher prices for ovens and ranges with new sets of benefits.

We targeted recent buyers as they would be able to describe their purchase process and why they purchased the product they did.  The interviews followed our life-cycle of interactions research methodology which basically explores each stage of a customer’s interactions with a product as shown below, from need identification through purchase to use and ultimately to disposal and or  replacement.

case-study-electric-range

Key to this research design is to understand the consumers’ lifestyle issues related to the preparation of meals and cooking.   Understanding the consumers’ frustrations, desires and concerns about meal preparation was critical to the process of identifying potential needs.  Based on the issues we identified, QDI explored innovative applications for the new cooking technologies and identifies specific benefits these technologies offered to address specific customer needs.

The second research step was to test the appeal these benefits had in focus groups. In the focus groups we explored the potential benefits as well as gave consumers demonstrations with some of the new cooking technologies.  From this step we learned the key performance features consumers wanted and identified the prices they would be willing to pay for them.

The final research step was to conduct a conjoint research study to assess the value of these benefits to customers to determine what portion of the market would adopt each of these technology benefits at different prices.

The research proved that consumers were willing to pay much more for cooking features that provided new and substantial benefits to them. The outcome of the work has been the adoption of many new cooking technologies currently sold at higher price points in today’s consumer appliance market.

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