PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IN AQUACULTURE: DEDUCING PRODUCT FORM FROM PRODUCT CLASS INFORMATION

Marketing scholars argue that product development should begin by examining the needs and wants of consumers, but what should product developers do when consumers are not able to express their needs and wants for a new product? To overcome this problem, we propose and test a model using consumers' product class information to deduce preferences for a product form. It is shown that this application can help firms get a handle on the problem of consumers not being able to articulate their needs and wants for a new product.