15 - Market Research

Question 0

What is primary research?

Answer 0

This is first hand data that has been gathered specifically for the firms needs

-This data is more up to date and relevant to the firms needs and it’s confidential as no other firm has access to it

• Can be costly as marketing agencies can charge thousands of dollars
• It is time consuming

Question 1

What is market research?

Answer 1

This is the process of collecting, recording and analysing data about consumer, competitors and markets

Market research can be used to:
-Reduce the risks associated with new products, this can be done by investigating potential demand and identify what needs consumers have that are not being satisfied

• Predict future demand changes, they can investigate social and other changes and see how these can effect the demand of a product
• Explain patterns in sales of existing products or market trends, they can investigate why and how certain patterns develop and use this to their advantage

Question 2

Whoa is secondary research?

Answer 2

This is data collected from second hand sources

Sources of this include:

• Government publications
• Population census
• Social trends
• Economic trends
• Family expenditure survey
• Market intelligence reports
• These are very detailed reports on individual markets and industries produced by specialist market research agencies. They are very expensive
• Newspaper reports
• These can be used to find out information on public limited company’s and their financial state

Question 3

What is qualitative research?

Answer 3

Research into in-depth motivations behind consumer buying behaviour or opinions

Question 4

What is quantitative research?

Answer 4

This is research that leads to numerical results, that can be statistically analysed

Question 5

What are focus groups?

Answer 5

This is a group of people who are asked about their attitude towards a product, service, advertisement or new style of packaging

Question 6

What is a sample?

Answer 6

The group of people taking part in a market research survey selected to be a representative of the overall target market

Question 7

What is random sampling?

Answer 7

This is when every member of the target market stands an equal chance of being selected and taking part in the survey

Question 8

What is systematic sampling?

Answer 8

This is when every nth person in a target population is selected to take part in sampling

Question 9

What is stratified sampling?

Answer 9

This is when people within a subgroup or segment of the population are chosen for sampling and an appropriate number of people are selected from each stratum

Question 10

What is quota sampling?

Answer 10

This is when the population has been stratified and the interviewer selects an appropriate number of respondents from each stratum

Question 11

What is cluster sampling?

Answer 11

This involves choosing from one or more specific groups to draw samples from

Question 12

What are open questions?

Answer 12

These are questions that invite a wide ranging or imaginative response

Question 13

What are closed questions?

Answer 13

These are questions with a limited number of preset answers

Question 14

What are the methods of presentation?

Answer 14

• Tables, these are useful for:
• When a wide range of results needs to be recorded
• When there is a lot of text that can be put into different categories
• Line graphs, this is useful for:
• When time is a variable
• When there are two or more sets of data that needs to be compared
• Bar charts, useful for:
• when the data is quantitative

Question 15

What is the arithmetic mean?

Answer 15

The result calculated by devising the total by the number of results

• It includes all items of data within a set, in the calculation
• Can be a more precise mid point
• It is commonly not a whole number, making it harder to understand
• It can be affected by extreme results and make the result misleading

Question 16

What is the mode?

Answer 16

This is the value that occurs most often in a set of data

• It is straightforward and easy to supply in the context of demand
• it is easily observed and there are no calculations required
• The result is a whole number; easy to understand
• Only considers one item within a set of data
• There may be more than one modal result, which can cause confusion

Question 17

What is the median?

Answer 17

This is the value of the middle item when the data have been ordered or ranked

• This is less affected by extreme results, there is no scewing of the median
• Can be used in wage negotiations, ‘half our worker earn a wage below x$ a month’
• It is less precise than the mean
• Can only be found when there is an even number of items

Question 18

What is the range?

Answer 18

The difference between the highest and lowest value in a set of data

Question 19

What is the inter quartile range?

Answer 19

The range of the middle 50% of the data