How a vast community of reliable product testers can test your products in the conditions they were designed for, any time of year

Testing in the right conditions

If you love working on products, there’s a good chance that your passion stems from your own product experiences. Just like you’ve grown to count on your favorite products, you can also count on the seasons they are designed for to change. While the changing seasons provide us with great inspiration, the requisite wardrobe changes can be challenging. You need to right conditions to see the benefits of the product you rely on. It’s not uncommon for a product development season to not align perfectly with the actual seasons. This makes product testing difficult.

In this post, we’ll look at how brands can test their products in the right conditions, at any time of year.

Tools for Testing Your Products in the Conditions They Were Designed For

On a macro scale, seasonal product development timelines may not align with the season outside your window. On a micro scale, your local weather forecast simply may not be cooperating with the arrival of your latest samples.

Matching product testing timelines to the conditions your product was designed for can either be continuously challenging or reliably easy. The difference lies in your ability to access relevant product testers who can provide condition-specific testing for your product, and gather their feedback efficiently.

Testing Sandals in Winter

Take, for example, a footwear company based in the Northwest that is designing a new outdoor sandal. Their spring product launch requires a product test now. Unfortunately, it’s the dead of winter.

This brand needs the right testers in the right places, fast. By using a product testing platform with a product tester community that is expansive and specific enough to supply enough of the right testers, brands can leverage the competitive advantage of engaging their target customers before they go to market.

And it can be to do it on tight timelines, any time of year.

With the right platform and community, the Northwest-based footwear brand example above can test sandals with numerous testers in the desert and waterproof boots with testers above tree-line, all without delay.

Enough Relevant Testers to be Confident in Your Findings

Access to testers is critical. Access to enough of them is important. To ensure confidence in their testing, brands often engage many testers doing the intended activities in the intended environments. This allows them to generate enough feedback to validate a product or identify critical issues. Otherwise, product failures during testing can be considered flukes. When that happens, important positive feedback is taken with a grain of salt.

So what is the difference between sending an outdoor sandal to a friend living someplace warm versus multiple testers across specific locations? The tester community option, like the one provided through the MESH01 platform, provides many reliable testers. These testers fit your target location as well as lifestyle, shopping habits, and other demographic criteria.

When accessing targeted testers at scale is efficient, brands can effectively improve their product- and assortment-level decision-making by infusing it with the voice of the customer-generated through the right experiences.

Effectively Testing Products in the Right Conditions on Accelerated Timelines

Many brands struggle with process bottlenecks when it comes time for product testing. Efforts to develop products closer to market and consistently deliver newness continue to compress complex calendars. This leaves some brands looking for areas to make up time. Since the myopic approach of foregoing product research and testing entirely can lead to serious pitfalls like higher markdowns and return rates and damaged brand reputation, pressurized brands often seek some level of testing that fits within their calendar. Fortunately, significant compromises in a product testing program aren’t necessary.

It’s no secret that technology brings efficiencies. One core principle of the MESH01 product testing platform that you can read more about here. But an accessible tester community that allows brands to quickly access testers anytime anywhere also contributes to speed. It’s this combination that makes comprehensive product testing on tight timelines possible.

Let’s take a look at an application to a simplified process:

  1. Market research
  2. Ideation
  3. Concept testing
  4. Prototyping
  5. Product testing

When you get to the product testing stage, there are three common elements that often come into play:

  • Your product testers: We’ve talked about the benefit of having a vast community of testers across the country to provide product testing anytime, anywhere. But before you send your summer sandal to southern California, make sure you know that the individual testing it is the right person for the job. The MESH01 product testing platform allows you to:
    • Access a pre-existing tester community
    • Confirm tester reliability
    • Select numerous relevant and reliable testers
  • Tools and tactics for more detailed information: Go deeper to learn more about each product tester with tools available through the MESH01 platform:
    • Basic profile info: See a bio and tester photo to become familiar with a tester
    • Enhanced profile info: Go beyond gender and basic demographics with profile details like shopping habits, work environment, etc.
    • Activity participation details: See what activities each tester participates in, including their level of interest and frequency – and whether it measures up to your product testing needs
  • Shipping features: We all know shipping can take time, especially depending on what you’re shipping and where it’s going. MESH01 offers an integrated shipping tool that allows you to:
    • Use your preferred carrier and connect your corporate account
    • Shop shipping rates based on service speed for shipment batches or individual shipments
    • Provide product testers with return labels
    • Even shop from multiple carriers to get the best pricing for your shipping timeline or for special situations

It truly is possible to test your products anytime, and anywhere. All you need is a reliable community of testers. Detailed tester information can take the fear out of the selection process. Features like streamlined shipping integrations ensure you can stick to product development timelines, no matter where you need your products tested.

If you’re interested in enhancing your product development process with an effective product testing process that can work on any timeline, let’s connect.