Separate size from willingness to buy

Separate size from willingness to buy — supplied practice

Market size and demand answer different questions. Secondary counts establish context; a proposed demand test should specify an observable decision, sample boundary and alternative explanations rather than merely ask for compliments.

Fictional service: a printed route-planning organizer for adult bicycle commuters in two nonoverlapping reachable zones, A and B. The organizer is a document product, not an approved cycling route, safety certification or promise of safer travel. All numbers below are invented teaching inputs, not Census findings about an actual town. Required work uses these supplied cards on paper or in a local document; no riding, customer contact, payment or external account is required. Additional fictional card C1: two free organizer templates already exist, but their uptake is unknown. Card C2: three unsolicited favorable comments about the idea have no sampling method or purchase offer. Neither card establishes paid willingness among the defined commuter population.

1. 1. Separate the evidence types

   Classify M1 as population context, C1 as competing alternatives and C2 as limited comments.

   You should see: None is an observed count of paid purchases.

   A favorable comment and a population estimate have different evidential roles.

2. 2. State contrary explanations

   List free alternatives, adequate existing methods and mismatch with the proposed format as possible reasons to decline.

   You should see: The brief includes at least three plausible demand constraints.

   Ignoring contrary explanations turns research into promotion.

3. 3. Draft a bounded demand-test question

   Propose an optional authorized test asking eligible people to choose the organizer or their current/free alternative at a disclosed hypothetical price; define the response denominator.

   You should see: The draft specifies a decision and comparison, not only whether the idea sounds good.

   A choice with alternatives is more informative than an unbounded compliment question.

4. 4. Keep draft and observation separate

   Label all recruitment, price and choice records as proposed, unsent and unobserved; do not claim purchases or consent.

   You should see: No test result is added to the baseline range.

   Writing a sensible test design does not perform the test.