Market Research B3.2

IGCSE Business 🤍

Market Research

Market Research - The action or activity of gathering information about consumer needs and preferences.

  • It is carried out to find out what consumers want

Accurate market research aids businesses to produce new and improved products.

Market Orientation

There are two ways a business can go about their market research.

These are

  • Product orientated

  • Market orientated

Product orientated

This when the business produces the product first, and then tries to find a segement for it.

  • Make product —> Advertise it

Their concentration is on the product; it’s quality and it’s price.

Market orientated

When the business researches the market and finds out what consumer needs, and then create a product to put on the market

  • Market research —> Make product

They will set a marketing budget and undertake different aproaches of research to identify customer tastes, spending patterns, development opportunities and market conditions.

Types of Research

Business research can be conducted either primary and secondary.

Primary

Collecting information directly through potential consumers. It is a costly and time consuming method for businesses which could be a risk.

  • Questionarres

  • Observation

  • Interviews

  • Postal surverys

Secondary

Using information that has already been collected by other researchers.

  • Public sources

  • Commercial sources

  • Internet

  • Reports

For small businesses with smaller budget, most research is secondary, because it can be obtained faster and more affordably than secondary research.

Accuracy

Market research is not always accurate.

This is often the case with secondary research, as the research is personaly by the initial researcher and may be biased. This means the data may not be fit for another company.

Because:

  • The questions could be biased

  • Research may be outdated

  • Size of sample may be too small - not representative enough

  • Participant may be dishonest (innaccurate)

Presentation of Market Research

Research can be presented using

  • Tables

  • Tally charts

  • Pie charts

  • Bar graphs

You need to know how to analyse each of these!

Use of market research

  • Identify market opportunities and problems

  • Generate, modify and evaluate marketing actions

  • Improve the marketing process

  • Reduces uncertainity

  • Reduces risk

Market research is always needed and a very good idea!

Sampling

What is sampling?

Sampling - Sampling means getting information from people, chosen randomly form a specific group, to get information about the wider population.

  • It involves getting people to respond to market research questions such as interviews and questionarres so you can collect data about their wants and needs.

  • A target population may contain 1000 people, but we use 100 to represent a whole population. Those 100 people are the sample.

There are different ways of sampling (same as in psychology)

Random

  • We pick a ‘handful’ of the population randomly.

Quota Sample

  • People are selected based on certain charectarstics, such as age or income.

  • They are chosen out of a specific sub group of the population.

    For example: a researcher selling female hygeine products may pick a sample of 100 women from the age of 13-50 years old.

Quantative and Qualative

Factual/Number related information: Quantative

Detailed/Open ended answers: Qualatative

Only quantative data can be analysed statistically.

Quantative data is easier to analyse and may be more practical.