Product Testing: A Complete Guide for Retailers (2025)

Bringing a new product to market is a high-stakes moment. If it disappoints customers, its chance of succeeding in the market drops to about 5%, according to a finding from a NIQ BASES analysis of over 21,000 launches.

Product testing is the final rehearsal before the big show. Whether it’s a new lip stain or a new kind of chocolate chip cookie, proper testing guarantees your new product is ready to hit the market in its best form. 

Ahead, you’ll learn about different product testing methods and tips to ensure your products meet the highest quality standards.

What is product testing?

Product testing helps retailers evaluate a product’s performance with target markets. It lets you find the best products for consumers, identify cost savings, and meet regulations, ultimately allowing you to launch the best products.

Product testing also helps you reduce returns—as well as the many other expenses you’ll incur if you discover flaws after the untested product has launched.

The importance of product testing 

Retailers that want to launch new products quickly tend to overlook product testing. But skipping it means missing out on key benefits like:

Developing new products

If you’re taking a new product to market, you need to know if it will resonate with potential customers. Product testing helps you launch products people will actually buy. 

You’ll learn what customers think of your product, what they like or dislike about it, how they use it, and which packaging options influence their decisions.

Meeting regulations

Extensive testing can help you ensure a product complies with government standards and protects your company from lawsuits. 

For example, if you sell candles, you must ensure they meet the ASTM F2417 fire-safety standards for candles and their accessories, such as maximum allowable flame heights, stability, and secondary ignitions. 

Identifying cost savings

To avoid up-front costs, some small businesses opt out of product testing—however, this decision can result in missed long-term benefits and increased risk for their company. 

The American Society for Quality suggests that the cost of quality is around 15% to 20% of sales, but can run as high as 40% in some companies. 

Testing products can reduce the chance of defects and product failures, as well as fewer repairs, returns, and warranty payouts.

Improving existing products

Creating a product people love is hard. Sometimes, you need to make continuous improvements to meet new expectations and market trends. 

Regular product testing gives you valuable qualitative data to update existing products faster and uncover hidden use cases from the customer’s point of view. 

Discover new use cases

Businesses develop products to solve specific problems, but customers often find new ways to use them. 

The success of a product depends on its ability to meet its promises and fulfill its purpose. Rigorous testing ensures a product satisfies customer needs and builds brand trust before it hits store shelves. 

Types of product testing

Concept testing

Concept testing takes place once you start creating your product. It helps you test an idea and try different product concepts on potential customers before you invest in a prototype. The goal is to understand if there’s real purchase intent. 

Prototype and usability testing

A product prototype is the first model of your product. It acts as a minimum viable product (MVP) to test with people and use as a sample for production. 

You can create a prototype on your own if you’re skilled in a particular discipline—like pottery if you’re a home interiors brand. If you own a fashion label, you may want to work with a seamstress or pattern maker to develop an MVP.

Beta-testing or user-testing phases are vital for understanding how real users interact with the product. For instance, users might struggle with an interface that seemed intuitive to the designers, revealing a need for a redesign. 

Perhaps the printed insert with instructions for assembling a children’s furniture set is too complicated, so you create a short video to demonstrate the process instead.

Quality testing

Quality testing helps identify any defects, issues, or areas for improvement. It typically involves testing product features, which ensures the item works as intended, and performance testing, which checks how well it performs under certain conditions.

You can see this in action with a clothing retailer testing a new line of denim jeans. They might:

• Test the fit on different body types
• Run a shrinkage test to see how the material changes after being washed
• Test the fabric for color retention after it’s ironed

Durability testing

This test shows how well your product holds up over time. It pushes your product to the limit to see how it withstands real-world use. The goal is to find weak spots and confirm the product’s lifecycle before customers do. 

If you’re selling non-stick pans, for example, you might:

• Use a machine to simulate scraping the surface thousands of times
• Run the pans through 500+ dishwasher cycles to check for damage
• Repeatedly heat and cool the handle to prevent it from loosening

Product safety and compliance testing

Most products have to run through safety and compliance testing by law. It verifies that your product is safe for people to use and meets all official government regulations and industry standards. 

A brand selling a portable charger has to undergo various tests, like meeting the UL 2056 standards for electrical and physical safety, or passing the UN 38.3 transportation tests for vibration, shock, and altitude simulation. Knowing your product class can help you understand the standards you’ll have to meet. 

Packaging testing

Product packaging has two jobs. The first is to protect your product from damage, and the second is to represent your brand with excellent product presentation. Packaging tests the strength of shipping materials and the quality of your customer’s unboxing experience. 

Say you’re selling glass bottles of sauce. You’d likely perform tests like:

• Run drop tests from various heights to see if the packaging prevents breaks
• Use a vibration table that mimics a bumpy delivery truck ride
• Ask people to open the package to ensure it’s not frustrating to unbox

Price testing

Price testing helps uncover your target market’s willingness to pay for the product. Instead of relying solely on competitor research or predetermined profit margins, price testing takes the product’s unique features, use cases, and opinions from the target market to determine the optimal retail price.

Product testing strategy

Without a well-defined product strategy, teams can become reactive rather than proactive, addressing issues haphazardly as they arise rather than systematically. 

1. Define your goals and metrics
2. Find and recruit your testers
3. Choose your testing method: CLT vs. IHUT
4. Execute the test and gather data
5. Plan a soft launch
6. Analyze feedback and iterate

1. Define your goals and metrics

First, you need to decide on your target audience and market needs. Understanding buyer preferences and interests allows you to validate and refine product concepts before investing in development. It all starts with a clear product vision. 

Business owners often hire market research firms or consultants, but given their love of spending time with customers, many retailers conduct their own market research. 

2. Find and recruit your testers

A focus group is the testing team interacting with your new product. This should be as diverse as possible—each member should bring varied perspectives that can catch issues others might miss. 

For example, cultural differences can affect how a product is perceived, and what might be acceptable in one culture could be problematic in another.

A product-testing website offers a broader audience and structured feedback opportunities. They give you access to testers who may otherwise be out of reach. Be sure to vet these sites and understand their tester pool, data handling, and privacy policies.

Some of the best product testing websites include:

• Influenster
• Vocal Point
• Ipsos iSay
• UserTesting
• BzzAgent
• Home Tester Club

Before giving your product away for free, ensure everyone understands the testing protocols, assessment criteria, and ways to score the tested attributes. Considering hosting a pre-test session to address any questions or concerns.

3. Choose your testing method: CLT vs. IHUT

Researchers use two product testing methods to assess a product: the central location test (CLT) and in-home use tests (IHUT). Both have their pros and cons.

Central location test (CLT)

A central location test is typically used to conduct qualitative research. Tests take place in a controlled environment, like a room in a shopping mall. The goal of CLT is to get feedback on products in a face-to-face environment with reduced bias. 

There are a few ways to carry out your central location test:

• Monadic: Everyone focuses on one product and assesses how it would work if taken to market.
• Pair comparison: People compare two products and choose which one they like best. 
• Sequential monadic: People assess one product using the monadic model. Then, they assess a second product and compare the two. 

The main advantage of CLT is that testers monitor everyone in the same environment, eliminating outside influences and presenting material in the same way. You can also monitor and observe body language and reactions. 

People may ask questions in person that they might not have answered online. This works both ways: A researcher can ask questions based on a participant’s actions in real time. As a result, researchers can test tangibles and intangibles together. Taking notes on participants’ sensory impressions is easy for testers.

Plus, CLT is a cost-effective method of testing. Market researchers can book a location and test many people in the same place, saving time, money, and resources.

In-home usage test (IHUT)

In-home usage tests are another popular market research methodology. As part of testing, you ship products to participants so that they can use them at home in a natural environment. IHUTs are common when the product is designed for home use, like a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner or Annie’s organic soup. 

The goal of IHUT is to understand the impression, appeal, and purchase intent of a product. It’s ideal for one-off or multi-usage products that require long feedback periods.

IHUTs let consumers fully test a packaged product before launching it to the public. This lets you work out any kinks and improve based on real-world feedback. Because IHUTs happen in a consumer’s home, the results are more realistic regarding product satisfaction, usage, and improvement areas. 

You can collect feedback over the phone, through customer surveys, video calls, or in person. Or, with IHUT market-research software, you can collect in-the-moment feedback remotely and ask consumers questions while they use the product. 

4. Execute the test and gather data

Once you have a product prototype in place, it’s time to test it on real people. 

Be crystal clear on what you’re testing. Excellent tests start with a strong question, like, “Does our target audience find our product innovative?” Be as specific as possible.

Common metrics retailers test include:

• Purchase intent: Will people buy your product?
• Innovation: Do people find your product innovative? 
• Value: Is your product valuable to users?
• Relevance: Does your product meet users’ needs?
• Uniqueness: Is your product different from others in the market? 

Use a Likert scale to assess the opinions and attitudes of product testers. Then, turn these insights into actions to guide development and inform improvement. 

The easiest way to gather this data is through customer feedback surveys. You can use a free tool like Typeform to collect product concept feedback before shipping a prototype for testing. Be sure to ask no more than 30 questions per product concept test, or you’ll risk people dropping out of your survey. 

5. Plan a soft launch

A soft launch refers to releasing a product with little or no marketing push. Think of it as a rehearsal for the full product launch—a good time to get feedback from early adopters. 

Soft launches are an opportunity to deepen customer relationships. Invite VIP customers, or those participating in your loyalty program, to be early testers of the new product. 

These VIP testers get insider access and an opportunity to influence your product assortment, which builds a sense of ownership. It can turn VIP customers into brand ambassadors—even if the product you’re testing hasn’t yet been perfected.

Tip: Use a product launch checklist to make sure you hit all the right steps. 

6. Analyze feedback and iterate

Whatever method you choose to test products, remember that testing is key to every part of the product lifecycle. You want to continuously collect customer feedback and use it to make product enhancements. 

This process of continuous improvement is how sustainable electric toothbrush brand SURI operates. Cofounder Gyve Safavi explains that for his team, testing is an ongoing cycle, not a one-time, pre-launch event. Their goal was to move beyond a merely functional product to create something customers would genuinely enjoy.

"We did quite a few iterations, probably like 20 iterations before we launched. We conducted testing with dentists and sustainability experts early on, and as we've launched, we're constantly iterating the design of the brush. The main thing for us was that we needed to achieve minimal lovable product,” Gyve says. 

How long does product testing take?

Product testing should take place as early as possible. When product teams wait to test products, they miss out on discovering flaws and uncovering new insights. Delays—whether to save money or refine features—often result in launching products that miss the mark.

How long it takes to run the test depends on factors like the focus group size, the test method, and whether you need to retest after iterating on the product based on your initial round of feedback. 

If speed is a priority, run a central location test. It brings your testers together in a single location, often giving you feedback within a day or two. But speed can come at the cost of accuracy. In-home usage tests, where the focus group has the product in their usual environment, can highlight usability or quality issues that weren’t present in a simulated test environment.

Product testing tips for retailers

Product testing is prone to mistakes that can alter results and waste your time. Follow these tips to deliver a high-quality product that meets user expectations and works properly:

1. Document the procedure: Document every step of your product development process clearly. That way, you can easily replicate it. Consistency is key to generating reliable, comparable results.
2. Keep an open mind: Expect unexpected feedback, and don’t dismiss it if it doesn’t match your expectations. The best insights come from surprising feedback.
3. Encourage real-time feedback: Encourage testers to provide feedback while they’re using the product. This yields more accurate and authentic insights than delayed recollections.
4. Prepare for variability: Be OK with variability in your results, especially when working with human testers. Differences in perceptions, preferences, or habits can lead to variation. Plan to include a wide range of testers to ensure diverse perspectives are represented.
5. Have a data-management strategy: Collecting data is only half the battle. Managing it is equally important. Put systems in place for storing, analyzing, and interpreting the data you collect during testing. Tools like Qualtrics can help manage the process effectively. 
6. Communicate your results: Data is only as good as your ability to communicate insights. Translate your product-testing results into actionable, understandable reports for your team. Whenever possible, use visual aids like charts or graphs to illustrate key points.

Can your store benefit from product testing? 

A product testing process is a critical part of your company’s success. Research, plan and test continuously. It’s the best way to understand what works and what doesn’t—and stay competitive.

More than just a point-of-sale (POS) system, Shopify has many features that help retailers run product tests. Use built-in analytics tools to conduct market testing, collect customer feedback, and unify your data into a centralized repository for a single source of truth when refining new ideas.