Opportunities and Challenges in the Smart Appliances Market

Smart appliances connect to smartphones and tablets to enable alerts and remote control. For example, if you’d like to start the dishwasher or adjust your thermostat while you are at work, smart appliances will give you that ability.

Smart appliances offer many potential benefits to consumers, but will they gain traction in the market? For up-to-date industry analysis, check out the blog post below.

Topics: House & Home Industry Insights

Changing the Relationship with Your Market Research Supplier/Client

Market research clients and suppliers have what seems to be a long-standing relationship where each wishes the other would just be nicer, faster, and more realistic. There often seems to be tension between the two sides when it comes to schedules, deliverables, decisions, and even resource capacity. This tension ends up manifesting itself in internal discussions on the client side, “I have no idea why it’s taking them so long to get me my data,” and on the supplier side, “They’re being so unrealistic with their schedule!”

Topics: Market Research Strategy How To's

What’s Driving the Demand for Impact-Resistant Windows and Doors

A forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting a near- or above-normal 2016 Atlantic hurricane season (after years of below-normal activity) throws the importance of impact-resistant windows and doors — sturdy-framed, multi-pane products designed to withstand violent winds and windborne debris — into sharp relief.   

According to Mariel Behnke, a Construction Analyst with The Freedonia Group, impact-resistant windows and doors account for around 10% of the market for window and doors in value terms. And both products are expected to achieve steady, above-average growth through 2020.
Topics: Materials & Chemicals Manufacturing & Construction Industry Insights Heavy Industry The Freedonia Group

MarketResearch.com in the News: August Highlights

In August, MarketResearch.com's publishing divisions appeared in top publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNBC, and a variety of trade journals.

We've included a selection of press highlights below. Read on to learn more about what topics are trending in the media — from ancient grains and frozen foods to home organization products and wine packaging. To access more information about a particular subject, click the link to the report page.

Topics: Food & Beverage Industry Insights Heavy Industry

Why Surveys Don’t Work in Brick & Mortar Retail

Over the past few decades, restaurant and retail chains have struggled to easily collect voice of the customer (VOC) data — starting way back with the paper comment cards that customers would fill out, to the automated phone surveys in which customers talk to a boring robot asking questions over a 10-minute stretch.

The current trend over the past few years has been collecting customer feedback via digital long-form surveys, with a strong emphasis on mobile. Yes, this innovation has brought small increases in response rates for retail chains, but VOC response rates are still an issue the retail and restaurant industries must address.
Topics: Market Research Strategy Retail

Storm Damage Generates New Business for Roofing Industry

Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Hailstorms. To most Americans, these extreme weather events are a source of dread (and sometimes fascination). For those in the roofing industry, however, they mean something else: work.

Weather-related repairs play a significant role in the US residential roofing industry, often accounting for more than one-third of total reroofing demand in any given year. While many believe that the landfall of a hurricane or tropical storm is the weather event most likely to cause roof damage, a wide range of other weather conditions can necessitate roof replacement:
Topics: Manufacturing & Construction Industry Insights Heavy Industry The Freedonia Group

Updates to TSCA Will Bring New Regulatory Environment for Solvent Suppliers

On June 22nd, President Barack Obama signed into law the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, an update to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that will make a number of changes affecting the solvent industry and other chemical suppliers. While these changes give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) greater control over the evaluation and regulation of chemicals, and could potentially have profound effects on the solvent industry for years to come, on the whole solvent suppliers are likely to fare well in the new regulatory environment.

Topics: Materials & Chemicals Heavy Industry The Freedonia Group

Smartphone: E-Commerce Kingmaker

Like it or loathe it, it seems like everyone has one. No, not “an opinion,” a smartphone.

How many people in the US have a smartphone? About 60% of the total population in 2015. No small feat, considering the devices really only gained consumer market traction when Apple introduced the first-generation iPhone in June 2007.

What’s driving smartphone adoption? It certainly isn’t the ability to share meaningful voice conversations with friends and family — you don’t need a smartphone for that. The real value lays in the ever-expanding range of capabilities smartphones possess and the services they can access.

Topics: E-commerce & IT Outsourcing Consumer Electronics Industry Insights The Freedonia Group

What Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speeches Say About Candidates

The media has covered voter perceptions of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s presidential acceptance speeches to great length. Some have suggested that voters perceive the overall tone of the RNC, and specifically Trump’s acceptance speech, to be one of doom and gloom, and the tone of the DNC and Clinton’s speech to be one of hope and forward movement.

But is that true? To understand the nomination speeches, Beall Research analyzed them using a proprietary digital listening tool. We typically use this tool to reveal emotions, psychological processes, and cognitive processes for consumer brands, products, and services. We were curious what our tool would reveal about Trump and Clinton’s acceptance speeches.

Topics: Market Research Strategy Public Sector Media

The Truth About Wine Packaging: From Bottles to Boxes

Wine incites passion — in winemakers and sommeliers, in world-renowned wine writers, and in people who have the occasional glass with dinner or keep a bottle or two around the house. 

Whether it’s a celebrated vintage from a bygone era purchased at auction or an inexpensive selection grabbed from a display near the cash register for a quick weeknight dinner or Sunday picnic, wine needs to be protected from oxygen. It’s the packaging that does this, and while that packaging doesn’t stir the kind of emotion that the wine inside may, many people are very opinionated about how the wines they drink are packaged. 

Topics: Food & Beverage Manufacturing & Construction Industry Insights Heavy Industry The Freedonia Group