How could a business carry out primary research to find out if there is a market for their new toy?

Businesses carry out research for a variety of purposes; these include gathering data of their current customers, looking for new customers, determining the sales of their product, assessing the feasibility of creating a new product, determining what product life cycle stage their product is, how people perceive the company's products, what are the buying and decision making patterns of the company, what changes can effect the company's performance etc