Household Market Research

When you’re looking to gain in-depth insight from potential or existing customers, focus groups are often the best technique to use. In an essential FMCG market such as household, where household usage is ubiquitous, it can be a challenge for new products to gain breakthrough with consumers who can be loyal to certain brands and products. Therefore it is essential to engage with consumers to find out about any frustrations or unmet needs they have with the products available. With convenience and sustainability among the major trends impacting this market, it is important to understand the value consumers place on such factors and what is really driving their purchase choice. Focus groups represent an ideal way to gain this level of insight while simultaneously offering the opportunity to test out new product concepts and prototypes.

Our focus groups are often held in public venues in major cities including London, Bristol and Manchester, with participants drawn from our HRA Research Panel. Where there is an existing relationship, we are able to hold focus groups in supermarket training rooms. This allows us to take respondents to the cleaning, laundry and household disposable aisles and get feedback on their decision-making process in a real-life store environment.

We also offer online focus groups when face to face isn’t an option. While household product usage is essentially universal, online focus groups are often ideal as they broaden the pool of participants to choose from where you have specific sample criteria. They are also an excellent way of gathering insight quickly as the logistical challenges of face-to-face groups can be avoided. Online groups also allow clients to view the sessions remotely, providing guidance on areas for further exploration.

In the household product categories, in-depth interviews can be an ideal way of gaining detailed insight from specific consumer groups. Depth interviews allow consumers to open up and share their genuine views without being intimidated by other group members.

Interviews can also be a great starting point for exploring customer views and pain points for clients using research to help in their Design Thinking process.

We can hold interviews face-to-face, on the telephone, or via Zoom where the ability to gather video clips of key quotes can be particularly insightful.

Cleaning, laundry and household disposables are all categories where brand credibility is key and therefore the in-store experience is central to consumer perceptions of brands. With a relatively small number of well-known brands dominating these aisles, it is important for new brands to optimise the shelf space they have available with compelling branding and pack design.

By using in-store intercepts, or ‘accompanied shopping’ we are able to gather in-store feedback on how your brand is being perceived ‘on shelf’ amongst competitors. This can provide valuable real-world feedback that would be difficult to gain through any other method.

Workshops can be an ideal way to stimulate and develop new ideas. We can either run these with clients, customers or a mixture of both. Introducing people from outside of the business is often an ideal way of seeing an issue with fresh eyes and identifying new, and previously unexplored, opportunities.

Ideation Groups (or Innovation Sessions) are a particularly great method for starting off the market research process by highlighting areas for further exploration by fully engaging with consumers, particularly exploring what they want category innovation to look like. This is particularly important in the cleaning, laundry and household disposable markets where products are used exclusively in home and seldom the topic of widespread discussion.

Within the cleaning, laundry and household disposable categories, in-home placement is a crucial component of the research process. With products in these categories used solely at home, it is important to understand how these products are actually being used in a ‘real world’ household environment. This gives a much more credible measure of genuine behaviour and thoughts than simply asking consumers about their cleaning routines or experience with laundry products. This method is an ideal way of testing out new products and gaining meticulous and reliable feedback.

At HRA, we recognise the value of using video extracts to summarise key research findings with video sometimes able to convey more in a few seconds than a whole page of text. Ultimately, market research is all about people and watching consumers speak is the best way of really understanding what they mean. Furthermore, for a category such as cleaning products where usability is key, we can use video to record how people actually use products and define what, if any, improvements could be made.

With our in-house video production capabilities, we can highlight and distil the key video clips for you in an easily digestible format.

Gaining consumer trust is incredibly important in the household product category and therefore in-store presentation is key. The last thing you want is for your brand to be merchandised in a way you hadn’t intended. Using our national panel of fieldworkers we can check up on stores and help iron out any issues.

Market Research Online Communities (MROC) are a popular technique in the cleaning, laundry and household disposable markets. Gaining feedback on products over time is vital to the development and preservation of any successful brand. Online communities are an interactive method, unique in allowing us to gain rich insight into consumer views, as well as the impact of various factors in their everyday lives. By logging on to an online platform over a number of days, respondents are asked to upload images, videos and diary entries, and participate in polls and group discussions.

As well as gaining rich insight into how consumers use products, we can also gather feedback on usability, branding and packaging by sending out samples to community respondents. This allows consumers to try products in their home – something clearly essential in the cleaning, laundry and household disposable markets.

While qualitative research is highly valuable in providing rich and detailed insight, quantitative research is often required when we are looking to gather reliable data from a large sample. This data can help us to make business decisions guided by robust insight.

When large-scale data is needed, online surveys are an ideal technique to utilise. Whether you simply want to get a quick sense check or you’re looking for an extensive data set, we can design a bespoke survey to suit your needs. Utilising our proprietary panel, we are able to recruit a sample to mirror your exact target customer audience; whether that be 1000 average users of laundry products or 100 toilet roll hoarders.

Our rapidly growing proprietary panel of participants is made up of a broad range of consumers spread across the UK. Whether you’re looking for household care experts or complete novices, we can recruit a sample of consumers reflecting your specific requirements. Our panel is thoroughly screened to ensure our participants are always engaged in whatever research we conduct. We believe in paying respondents fairly and in return expect them to take the time to participate fully. This ensures our research is always delivered to the highest standard.

One of the most valuable outputs of quantitative research is the ability to build consumer segments, all with their own views, requirements and habits. Using SPSS, we are able to build statistically robust consumer segments from large-scale survey data. This segmentation modelling adds significant value to quantitative research and ensures you have a detailed profile of your different customer segments, their views and purchasing habits. With cleaning, laundry and household disposables such universal categories, it is particularly vital to understand the key sub-groups of consumers within these sectors.