- Questionnaires
- Telephone interviews
- Surveys
- Observing the consumers
- Consumer trials / Free samples
- Visiting the competition
Secondary research is based on already existing information that has been collected by studies done from another business. There are also many different ways of finding secondary data, including:
- Library
- Internet
- Company data
- Published Information – e.g. yellow pages
- Government publications
- Newspapers
Primary research is up-to-date and accurate as it is newly found. It can be used to find the answer to certain questions that are specific to your own business, making it a very popular and useful option. Secondary research, however, isn’t as up-to-date, and how accurate it is depends entirely on when the data was collected. Furthermore, it is not certain it is specific to your own needs, as you may not find the data you need, making it less useful than primary research.
However, receiving primary data also means taking time and money to go out and collect your specific information – making it expensive and time-consuming. On the other hand, secondary research is neither expensive nor time consuming. The data already exists and has been collected, meaning no expense, except possibly a small fee to browse the information. Also, it is not as time consuming as primary research as sources such as the Internet and books are quick and easy to use.
Deciding which one, or both, will be more useful to your business depends entirely on your company’s specific needs.
Market research is an essential part of any successful business. A business decision that is made with good market research and intelligence helps minimise the risk of making the wrong decision. It helps you to understand the market, the consumers and the competitors. Your consumers are a valuable information source, so by creating questionnaires to fit your specific needs you can find out what you want to know from the people that are most important - the consumers. You will learn more about them, what they like and, more importantly, what they don’t, making it easy to offer good products that are well targeted. By doing this, saves time and money.
Market research will help me to start my business successfully, reducing risks and helping me to make the right decision. It will be an important part of my business because of several specific reasons:
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Location analysis. I will locate potential shops and gather maps of the area around them, seeking out which one is most suitable. This is important because if you’re situated in a bad location, (e.g. somewhere that isn’t busy, somewhere that has the wrong shops surrounding it, a rough area e.t.c.) less potential consumers may enter your shop meaning less profit and a bad choice.
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Competitor analysis. I will take pictures of competing businesses and the products they sell, analysing what products/services they provide and their good and bad factors. I will do this to see if there is a gap in the market for my business, and to observe the quality of the competitors and their products.
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Market analysis. This will include me creating a questionnaire specific to my business, helping me get to know my potential consumers better (e.g. their age range, sex, likes and dislikes about certain products I am considering selling, e.t.c) I will then collect my primary data together and arrange it into tally charts, graphs and pie charts, making it visually easier to see my results and what they show.
