How to gauge sales potential of physical product?

[PunchMyFace]

I am thinking of selling a product and have already had a sample manufactured. Before having a mold created and ordering thousands of the product I am going to be creating a sales page with a buy option. As I stated, I only have 1 product and was doing this to test if the item would sell or not. I am going to throw a bunch of traffic at the sales page. What method do you guys suggest for the test checkout process? I was considering just a form that look like a checkout page, once the buy button is clicked that asks for just email, name, address and a next button for CC info. This isn't a 100% sure method to gauge sales since many people abandon carts. I really am a bit confused on what way to go to test sales. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Paper_Chase]

Yea, that's the lean startup methodology right there.

I think it's a good idea to have a 2 stage checkout process like that to really test the users intent. On the 2nd page just say it's sold out but they have been added to an exclusive mailing list to let them know when it's available. They just need to confirm their email.

That way you have the number of people who made it to the 2nd checkout page, plus the number of people who confirmed their email address. The number of actual buyers would be somewhere between those numbers.

 

[smaxor]

I'd run some ads on facebook and see what kind of ctr's you can get. See if people have an interest.

Before you go to all the effort to build something out it makes sense to just run a few ads and spend 50-100$ to see what kind of interest you have. Then work you math from there once you know how much you're going to have to pay per click.

 

[nickster]

I'd be cheeky and go one stage further and have a totally fake CC submit (on an https page) and not actually take their card details at all, but when submitted go to a page that says "Sorry but we cannot currently take orders from [state]"

That way you can really see your numbers and can see the real abandon rates as well.

But I am a bit of a cheeky bugger

 

[Paper_Chase]

I'd be cheeky and go one stage further and have a totally fake CC submit (on an https page) and not actually take their card details at all, but when submitted go to a page that says "Sorry but we cannot currently take orders from [state]"

That way you can really see your numbers and can see the real abandon rates as well.

But I am a bit of a cheeky bugger

Yea but most people, including me, would be concerned that I was actually charged for something I won't be receiving. That would make it hard to get that person to buy something from you later on.