Today we faced our fears of public speaking – rather, going up to random strangers and talking to them about bug resistant clothing. We split up into two teams again, one team tackling REI while the other traveled to Bass Pro Shops. Adam and I went to REI, the first few minutes spent sitting in the car and trying to summon the courage to walk into the store. After walking a lap around half the store, it was time. We walked in and made a beeline for the bug repellent spray and clothing. We talked to a sales associate, who was an avid outdoorsman and admitted to using Insect Shield, the monopoly of the chemically treated insect resistant clothing. Prior to departing from HQ, I made a customer response survey that we would fill out after talking to each customer in order to keep track of our data and make sure the graphs from the Google Forms was usable. Mr. Self requested that we ask the customer if they would pay more for an organic product, and the sales associate agreed that he would, no hesitation. It was a good start to the daunting task.
We spent some more time in the stores asking customers about bug resistant clothing, and we received an overwhelmingly positive response to the potential organic product. We headed back to HQ to reconvene and organize the graphs properly. We learned about one more chemical, picaridin, which was the better alternative to deet, a harmful chemical which damages most clothing. There was a sales associate in REI who thought that chemical-free bite resistant clothing wasn’t plausible, and was also worried about cost and effectiveness. Although we do not know the cost or effectiveness, the point of our market research was assuming that it worked just as well as the chemical alternative. That said, although the machine for making the weave is expensive, it does not undergo additional chemical treatment with permethrin, essentially making Vector Textiles cheaper. Tomorrow, we are visiting Vector Textiles labs and starting to put together our final presentation. I am looking forward to gathering all of our information and research into one coherent presentation for Mr. Self!