Market Potential Evaluation for Local Herbal Extracts Used in Skincare Through the New Product Development Process

Abstract

Thailand is well known for biodiversity of herbs which has been used for traditional medicine and cosmetics since ancient time. Recently, Thai government has launched the National Master Plan for Herbs to enhance the usage of their extracts as they are very interesting as active ingredients in cosmetics. However, some herbal extracts have drawbacks e.g. low water solubility and unstable in the environment leading to limitation of their use. Encapsulation technology has been widely applied to overcome the mentioned problems. A New Product Development (NPD) concept is adopted to develop a new herbal skincare product. The objective of this study is to evaluate market potential for the skincare through a NPD process defined in this study. New ideas were generated and screened. As a result, extract from mangosteen’s pericarp has been selected for suncare product development. Market potential for the new product and factors affecting willingness to buy the new product has been investigated.