Purchase Intent

Why this matters for your decision

Whether it is a new product, a higher price or a different product variant: many business cases start with an assumption about how many people would buy. This assumption often comes from a question such as "How likely are you to buy this product?" with a scale from "definitely not" to "definitely".

Research shows that these statements are related to later behaviour, but only to a limited extent. Intentions are acted upon in roughly half of all cases, and for new products the relationship between stated purchase intent and later sales is weaker than for existing ones. So precisely where the most is invested, the stated measure is at its most uncertain.

On top of that, the survey lacks price comparison, alternatives and the moment in which you actually decide for or against an offer. Planning on stated purchase intent means planning on a statement without consequence.

Two ways to measure purchase intent

Stated purchase intent: respondents rate a concept on a scale. Often the share of the top two answer categories is reported. This is fast, easy to compare across concepts and, together with open questions, provides valuable insight into motives.

Measured purchase intent: real people see a realistic offer in their familiar online environment, with a price and product description, and decide whether to click the buy button. What counts is the last binding click before the reveal. Horizon measures purchase intent in this way with Painted Door Tests: nothing is sold, and anyone who chooses the offer is then told transparently that it was a test.

Example

A manufacturer is considering offering a cordless kitchen machine in two versions: a basic version and a version with app recipes at a higher price. In a survey, 41% choose one of the top two categories for the app version and 36% for the basic version.

In the behavioural test, each person sees only one of the two offer pages. Of the visitors to the basic version, 3.4% click "Add to basket", for the app version 2.6%. The ranking flips: at the moment of the offer, the price premium weighs more heavily than in the survey.

The two sets of figures are not directly comparable because they rest on different bases. What is meaningful is the comparison of variants within the same method.

How it differs

Willingness to pay asks how much someone would pay at most; purchase intent asks whether someone chooses an offer at a given price. Sign-up intent is the counterpart for tariffs and contracts, for example in insurance, energy or mobile. Purchase intent is not a purchase: in a Painted Door Test it is measured without a contract being created or anything being paid.

Limitations

Measured purchase intent is not sales either. It shows how people decide in front of an offer, not how often they later buy again, return the product or tell others about it. It mainly answers the questions "which variant" and "how strongly" in comparison, less the question of exact market volume.

Stated purchase intent remains useful for pre-sorting many concepts and understanding the why. For the few variants that are actually invested in, measured purchase intent complements these statements with observed behaviour.