Applying Web Technique in Market Segmentation and Product form Feature Analysis

Portable pencil sharpeners are one of the stationeries students cannot do without and play an important role in the pencil market. Nowadays, a product wishing to survive in the market should possess an attractive appearance, a design closely related to the consumer´s life style and of high preference. In this study, ten representative portable pencil sharpeners are used as samples for marketing research. Through Web-based image scale analysis, the purchase inclination and salience of product form are evaluated by 55 subjects. Each subject located all of these portable pencil sharpeners on the website image scale according to his or her own subjective perception. The average coordination values of the subjects were then further analyzed for market segmentation and quantification type I analysis. Major competitors and their form features were clarified to serve as references for the marketing research and product form design of new portable pencil sharpeners.