If you’re thinking about making a major change in your pricing, products, merchandising, or store operations in a retail chain, it makes sense that you would want to find out first if customers would like it.

One obvious approach would be to do focus groups and surveys to find out what customers say they want. The problem is: often what customers say they want does not predict well what they will do in real life when faced with a change in the prices or products they see in front of them. For instance, customers often say they would like more healthy options on the restaurant menu, but then when they’re actually making a purchase decision, they go for the bacon cheeseburger over the salad.

The solution is to conduct a controlled experiment. In this week’s episode I dive into how we conducted controlled experiments in the Quick Service Restaurant industry, and what sort of considerations you might take into account if you’re trying to figure out testing in a retail environment.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.pricing-evolution.com