International polling Dec 2010 - we're back with a bang

The RIWI Corporation is a highly-respected, Canada-based polling organisation which undertakes internet polling on an international basis.

In December 2010 Barcelona Green undertook polling with our friends at RIWI to help gauge market response to our proposed retail stores on a trans-European basis. Five questions were translated into local languages for, as well as our native Spain, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Turkey and the Ukraine. Breakdown results per country were also provided, which largely reinforced the trans-Europe trends.

We are still going over the results detail but feel that the conclusions drawn from the poll overwhelmingly support our strategy and business model, and we therefore wanted to share the initial findings with you as soon as possible:

- 41% of respondents realise they're responsible for taking action, not government or business

- 60% of respondents would buy our goods

- Around half the people who are prepared to buy environmentally, acknowledge they will act only if we make it easy for them

- Top barriers to buying for respondents are:

1. Don't know what/where to buy

2. No explanation of products

3. No established brands

4. Poor shopping experience

Total of these: 64.9%. If we solve these problems – which we do – we are removing barriers to buying for 64.9% of the population.

- As many people want to buy in a store as online. Interestingly, the percentage who prefer a store roughly agree with those people who think shopping experience and goods explanation important. However, this does not mean that online-preference buyers will not buy in a store as well! It also neglects the “push-pull effect”: that is, we believe there are customers who say they want to buy online (pull buying) rather than in-store (push buying) when polled, but never actually bother to get up and do it!

- As long as it is less than 50€ and the product ultimately pays for itself, purchase price is not important to 58% of respondents. Great news: this vindicates our comparatively high margins.

- Some customers seemed a little confused by what our name meant, but this was much less of an issue in Spain and we don’t see it as a highly significant issue. We will monitor this and change it if we see that it makes a difference in our marketing.

So, as you can see, the results are pretty exciting and back up what we have said in our presentations to date.

We also have a number of fundraising meetings planned for February and March, so: bring it on!