A Gamble You Can’t Afford to Lose: Finding the Right Materials for Your Product

How to find the right materials for your product

Here are seven tips for finding the right materials to help ensure your product’s success.

1. Define the priorities of your product.

What makes a product stand out in today’s competitive marketplace? It could be the price point, the performance, the sustainability factor, the exterior appearance or something else entirely.

While you want to make your product excel in every aspect, realistically, most products have just one or two core differentiators that drive purchase decisions. For example, according to a McKinsey & Company study, 71 percent of consumers expect personalized products, making targeted material selection important. Identifying these key selling points directly informs your material selection strategy. After all, if a product looks premium on the shelves but falls apart after minimal use, it will only generate customer disappointment and negative reviews.

2. Examine the material’s property specifications.

Technical specifications are readily accessible through material databases and supplier documentation, making them invaluable when evaluating new or unfamiliar material options. By comparing the baseline properties — such as tensile strength, thermal resistance and chemical compatibility — across different materials, you can narrow down your options.

At this stage, it’s also helpful to evaluate materials in their raw state. Quality raw materials are not only easier to process, but they also create less scrap. If you’re open-minded about material options at the outset, it’ll help you overcome preconceived notions and develop a short list of viable options that still ensures product quality.

3. Run production samples.

Develop a production prototype as soon as possible after narrowing down your material choices. Once that product exists in physical form, any issues with the materials — or the manufacturing process itself — become immediately apparent.

Production samples serve as critical testing grounds for products still in development. Specific issues to look for include weak tolerance, surface imperfections, mold lines, material shrinkage and warping, or any signs of potential product failure. Identifying and addressing these challenges early prevents them from becoming costly problems during full-scale production.

4. Test early and often.

Each material brings numerous properties to evaluate: tensile strength, tear strength, elongation, compression set, resilience, temperature stability, UV resistance and accelerated aging and so on. It’s possible to reference this data based on an industrial standard size, but materials are fundamentally transformed when being turned into parts and products.

Real-world testing is the only way to get accurate and actionable data. Testing should begin as early as possible, and it should be repeated as products evolve through each iteration. One of the common traps business owners fall into is assuming that some variables will stay the same even as others change. 

5. Embody the end user.

You understand your product better than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean your understanding is perfect or unbiased. The nature of the design process makes it easy to lose sight of your larger goal. As a result, entirely avoidable issues with materials can carry through into the final product.

As part of your ongoing testing effort, you must enlist independent and objective evaluations. Ideally, actual target users (usually five to 10 people) should be doing the testing. Set benchmarks for performance, but other than that, allow test users to explore and engage with prototypes according to their own whims.

This type of unguided, hands-on testing is invaluable for identifying product flaws that you’re otherwise unaware of, and it’s something your end users likely enjoy.

6. Weigh the risks and rewards.

Unfortunately, comprehensive testing isn’t always possible. Some materials require production tooling to be created before test parts can match their final form. And until that happens, effective prototyping is impossible. That forces you to balance the risk of moving forward with an unproven prototype against the risk of investing in tooling that may need to be altered later on — and that process won’t come cheaply.

Both options present advantages and risks that vary based on product complexity, market timing and budget considerations. You should only consider forgoing testing at any point if you’re supremely confident in the product.

7. Consult with the manufacturer.

While materials consultants offer valuable expertise, the manufacturers themselves also possess knowledge about their products’ capabilities and limitations. Throughout the material selection process, manufacturers serve as essential resources for technical data, application guidance and troubleshooting support. This is especially true when working with innovative products or unfamiliar materials.

You can either find the flaws during the product development phase, or you can rush your product to market and let consumers find the issues themselves. Either way, the problems will become apparent, but that doesn’t mean they have to inspire buyer’s remorse. Carefully considering what materials to use ensures that designs become better, not worse, once they debut.

The risks of using the wrong materials for your product

Choosing the best materials for your product is important. Here are some risks associated with using subpar materials.

Your product won’t be as durable.

Every company should prioritize creating products that deliver long-term value and remain safe to use. When you compromise on material quality to reduce costs, you typically sacrifice durability and reliability. Products could malfunction, break or even fail to operate as intended. This includes how you package your product. If the packaging is poor, the product could be damaged by the time it reaches the consumer. 

Choose materials that can hold up under anticipated conditions, endure normal usage and keep consumers satisfied. Otherwise, you will lose consumers to other companies due to unreliable or cheaply made products. 

It can tarnish your brand’s reputation.

No one wants to be known as a company that has poorly made products or whose materials are cheap. Once consumers buy and test out your products, they will most likely talk about those products with others and show them off at home. However, if a new customer determines your products are not worth the investment, they may steer others away or leave negative reviews, which can impact future sales and customers. 

To maintain or elevate your brand’s reputation, avoid picking the wrong materials to make your product. With top-quality materials, you’ll retain more customers and bring in new ones, increasing your revenue and reputation.

It affects your costs.

While purchasing cheaper materials in the beginning may seem beneficial, it can result in rusting, warping, fading or breaking. If you fail to use the proper materials, you may end up putting in more money than anticipated to fix the products or ship new ones to customers. 

When working with poor-quality materials, consider the costs of reworking, shipping, chargebacks and returns. Reworking products due to errors in production or quality can cost a few dollars per item, which adds up in the long run. Additionally, you may begin to notice a drop in sales and customer retention, ultimately affecting your bottom line and the survival of your company.

Kimberlee Leonard and Sean Peek contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.