1. Many consumers who respond to questions about new product concepts are indifferent because the product category is not important to them.

2. When consumers are using their own money, they are more responsible in their decisions than when they are just offering an opinion.

3. Consumers tend to choose conventional and familiar ideas over truly innovative ones because of conservative attitudes. Most innovative products are adopted because of others’ experiences.

4. Consumer motives for choices may be colored by vanity. For example, people may report choosing a small appliance to save space when they really want to save money.

5. Consumers may not have sufficient information to make informed choices in a research setting. They may, for example, have information on the price and physical characteristics of a new coffee maker, but they cannot pre-judge the benefits or problems that will arise in the course of actually using that coffee maker to make and pour coffee.

If consumer research cannot be designed to avoid these kinds of problems, the new product development team must learn to put themselves in the user’s place as best they can in order to develop products that the market will enthusiastically accept.