Primary & Secondary Data I (Week 2)

Question 1

What is secondary data?

Answer 1

Data collected for some purpose other than the problem at hand

Question 2

What is primary data?

Answer 2

Data originally collected by the researcher for the purpose of addressing the research problem at hand

Question 3

Why use secondary data?

Answer 3

• Save money
• Save time
• Proven data collection method & quality
• May be the only source available (for past events)

Question 4

What are the drawbacks of secondary data?

Answer 4

• Credibility of source
• Purpose of institution providing data
• When it was collected

Question 5

What are the sources of secondary data?

Answer 5

Internal
- Company records

External

• Publicly available
• Commercial (e.g. Research articles)

Question 6

What are some types of internally available secondary data?

Answer 6

• Sales e.g. aggregate level/for indiv customers
• Prices
• Advertising e.g. expenditures, creatives used

Question 7

What are some types of publicly available secondary data?

Answer 7

• Govt publications

- Publications by foundations, trade associations, unions, academic publications

Question 8

What are the types of commercial secondary data?

Answer 8

1. Retail store audits
   - Monitoring sales, distribution, prices, support
2. Consumer purchase panels
   - Home audit, mail diary audit

Question 9

What are the advantages of consumer purchase panels?

Answer 9

Makes it possible to analyse:

• Heavy buyers and their characteristics
• Brand-switching rates
• Repeat purchase rates

Question 10

What are the disadvantages of consumer purchase panels?

Answer 10

• Selection bias
• Mortality effect (drop out)
• Time consuming
• Testing effects

Question 11

What is scanner data?

Answer 11

Track purchases in large no. of stores

Sales, prices, coupons, etc. automatically recorded

Question 12

What is single-source data?

Answer 12

Track panel members’ purchases & media consumption over time

Question 13

What are the benefits of scanner-based audit services?

Answer 13

• High degree of accuracy
• Time saving (instantaneous)
• Ability to study v. short time period of sales activity

Question 14

What is qualitative data?

Answer 14

Typically obtained through observation, focus grps, etc
Small no. of non-representative cases
Unstructured**
Analysed using non-statistical methods

Question 15

What are the types of qualitative data?

Answer 15

1. Observation
2. Ethnography
3. In-depth interview
4. Focus groups

Question 16

What are the challenges of in-depth interview?

Answer 16

• Get relevant info
• Don’t steer conversation too much
• Be objective and neutral
• Respondents may try to maximise own (future) utility, need to be mindful

Question 17

What are the characteristics of a good moderator?

Answer 17

• Establish friendly environment
• Follow up questions
• Be neutral to showy participants
• Start with easy questions

Question 18

What are the advantages of focus groups?

Answer 18

• Richness of data
• Versatility
• Impact on managers

Question 19

What are the disadvantages of focus groups?

Answer 19

• Potentially misleading data (conformity & obedience)

- Lack of generalisability (small sample size)

Question 20

What are the advantages of qualitative research?

Answer 20

• Deep insights

- Useful for **generating hypotheses

Question 21

What are the disadvantages of qualitative research?

Answer 21

• Sample size often small – representative? generalisable? complexity of analysis - how do you quantify?
• Significance testing – v small sample size, not sig.