Market research

• Disadvatages of Market research:

  • Budgetary constraints
  • time constraints
  • reliability of data.
• Disadvantages of product differentiation :

  • competitors can easily replicate techniques
  • neglects customers wants and needs
  • problematic if demand doesn't outstrip supply
• Advantages of Product orientation:

  • can exploit economies of scale for maximum efficiency
  • low-cost for customers
  • efficient outsourcing
• Advantages of market research:

  • gain more understanding of the customers needs
  • reduces the risk of business failure
  • forecast future trends
• Primary data collection

  Advantages:

  • Information gathering is focused on the needs of the business 
  • The business can get in-depth information from respondents,
  • Primary market research is more up-to-date and can be used to ask specific questions and so will be more relevant.
  • Disadvantages:
  • The sample size may be too small and unrepresentative
  • Bias may mean that researchers can guide respondents to answer questions in a particular way
  • A business may need to hire a specialist market research agency to help and the process can be expensive and time-consuming
• Secondary data collection:

  Advantages

  • Information is already available and so is quick to collect 
  • Information is often free and is cheaper to collect leading to lower costs compared to primary research 
  • Suitable for a small business that lacks a large marketing budget 


  Disadvantages

  • Information has been collected for other purposes and so may lack relevance or may not be factually correct e.g. Wikipedia 
  • Can be expensive to purchase market specific secondary data from specialist companies e.g. MINTEL reports