Same Product, Two Different Markets

Olympia, Washington is not a very large city. While it is the capital of Washington State and home to one of the more unusual 4 year colleges in the country, there is only a very small downtown area with some restaurants, shopping areas, movie theaters, and coffee shops. It is the coffee shops that brought up an interesting point about customer research.

Olympia is also among one of those cities that is not a tremendous fan of chains and large corporations. While there are a few Starbucks coffee shops peppered here and there, most coffee shops are owned and operated by an Olympia native. Two of the most popular coffee shops include: Sizizis Coffee House Burial Grounds While these two shops could not be more different, they also both experience a great deal of success.

Sizizis is an organic coffee shop that caters to a somewhat hipster/hippie crowd (although certainly not exclusively). They specialize in coffees and teas and are always busy during peak coffee hours. Burial Grounds is a rare themed coffee shop that works as a sort of morbid/goofy hybrid.

Like Sizizis, it does have its regular coffee goers that don't adhere to any label or group, but Burial Grounds also attracts the dark/gothic coffee goers as well, because its drinks with dark names work well with that audience. Both of these coffee shops cater to completely different markets, yet they still serve the same basic product.

Part of your business research is to try to anticipate, gauge, and address customer needs with your products. That's what survey research is for – seeing what your customers need, and addressing it accordingly.

But companies often ask – if two identical companies with two identical products both perform the same research, will it have an effect on their business? Won't they come up with the same conclusions? As the coffee shop example illustrates, not necessarily.

Sometimes it's about what questions you ask. Other times it's about tapping an untapped market. Sometimes it's about product quality or different marketing styles or speed at which you can release the changes to the product.

There are a lot of factors that go into what product customers will choose and why, and while you and a competitor may be offering the same product in general, your research will still uncover new and different ways you can target those whose needs are not being addressed by a competitor.