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Developing a successful product is a not an end line in product development, making it success in target market will seems good. Here we are going to discuss about seven best practices for bringing your idea to market as efficiently and economically. The below list of activities will help us to know about the Do’s and Don’ts of product development team.
I. Ask for Feedback: Sitting in room thinking for product development designing a product with inspired ideas is not enough. To come up with efficient product, go for early-stage plans and prototypes with potential target customers instead of going with your friends and family. The idea is to get customers to tell you whether the product meets their needs and fulfil their requirements, if not, what needs to improve. Whether the product is in right shape, right colour? Are its functional components and performance level is good, alike the way people want it? We can find these by selling beta versions in small 10- to 100-item batches through our website or sales force directly and collecting customer feedback on colour, shape, material and comfort. It is useless spending for weeks or months working on features and performance for product development finally it’s the customer who decides whether it is needed.
II. Make It Simple – Design: There is no use in going for extraordinary design if your product doesn’t convey what it tries to do in real life. A straightforward product development is significantly needed. Even your product has phenomenal features it should capture someone’s attention within the first three seconds. It is the fact that establishing quality by efficient design is the best investment which we can make. Product packaging is your only direct communication with customers and has its major contribution towards design; it should be clear and fascinating as well, with easy-to-read text. People need to know what we are selling from 30 feet away. When developing packaging first we should consider where our product will be sold? It should not take too much occupancy space in shelves, and try to go for eco-friendly method which will reduce the cost. A confused mind won’t buy so don’t give too many options for consumers in colours, styles, sizes and other variations.
III. Spend More Time on Materials and Manufacturing: Don’t select the vendor on the basis of cost, quality should speak more than it. This may lead to spend extra time and suppliers may tend to charge more for their investments in labs. Attend trade shows and gather industry recommendations or hire an agent to find a right supplier. However we must personally visit to the supplier’s place which we are planning to go with, even if it’s far away from us. To ensure that production is proficient, create detail guidelines on how it should result as a final product in every process of manufacturing. It’s not enough to design 85% of the process, For example, product development team should ensure that the grade of the steel had been mentioned clearly instead of simply specifying stainless steel.
IV. Quote Price Right: Many of us including product development team will fail to consider overhead costs including shipping and duties while quoting pricing. Common mistakes which we all do; understanding what consumers will be willing to pay for our product, confusing where we want to sell the product and thinking that we can make the same profit margin from low to high end retailers. We can’t fix the same profit margin for e-commerce as well as brick and mortal store, it should differ. To find out the price range, go for the beta testing of your product by selling product to limited customers in your target market. Their feedback back will give you so many insights on price factor.
V. Predict Future: Don’t dump finished products into warehouse, Make what you need. Anyhow don’t run out of product, Plan for the inventory in line with demand. Some suppliers will offer discounts if we go for bulk orders, Dumping inventory more than the need will lead us to lock in working capital. For example if you think that market demand for your product is 100 numbers, Purchase raw materials for 110 numbers instead of buying 1000 numbers. Product development should go for forecasting and EOQ techniques will help you to find out the reasonable demand. There are so many factors which will influence your forecasting. Everything matters, like Cash flows, storage space, shipping time and shelf life will dictate how much product you store.
VI. Beware of Privacy: Protect your ideas; Intellectual property laws can safeguard you only if we arm our self accordingly. We should learn about these protections laws and ensure that our idea hasn’t already been patented or registered by someone else. We should trademark our product name; purchase the respective web domain as much as possible. Since the market opportunities are very big for any good product it takes more time to reach out to every customer. Competitors around you are very keen to grab the opportunities to replicate your product even though you patent it by making similar product which will perform the same functions as yours does. Although you are first mover you can’t success if your supply chain fails and mistakes to meet target customers need on time. But you will always have an advantage of being first mover in product development but quite risky and costly too.
VII. Involve Stake Holders and communicate wisely: Half of the risk and challenges in the product development can be avoided by organising meeting with stack holders. We need to anticipate all types of questions, and search for the answers will help us to capture their particular customer base. Many retail outlets will demand us to bear liability insurance policy and provide flyers, display banners or fixtures, postures for our products. Ultimately we have to spend money to make money and we have to make sure that we have enough to spend don’t go with liability always. Sometimes you will not be able to sell your product in your preferred retail outlet for the first time if that’s the case, be persistent but pleasant you will get your way.
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