Market research

• Market research is conducted by businesses to gather information about the market and what customers want, which can help them to be more successful and spot gaps in the market.
• One of the aims of market research is to identify and understand the needs of customers relating to price, quality, place and promotion.
• A business must ensure it is providing the right product, at the right price, in the right place, at the right time.
• Market research helps businesses to reduce their level of risk and make business decisions that are more likely to be successful.
• Customer needs change over time, so it is important for a business to keep up to date and be innovative with its products.
• Market research can either be done by the company itself or taken from elsewhere.
• Part of business spotting a business opportunity is understanding the purpose of market research.
• Market research collects information that might help a business to be more successful and spot gaps in the market.
• Identifying customer needs is one of the aims of market research.
• Market research helps businesses to understand the needs of customers relating to price, quality, choice and convenience.
• Market research is the process of collecting information about the market or what customers want to help a business be more successful and spot gaps in the market
• Market research is conducted to reduce risk and enable businesses to make better decisions
• When setting up a business, entrepreneurs face a huge amount of risk, often risking their own money, with many businesses failing within the first year
• Market research enables entrepreneurs to find out information such as what customers want, what needs aren’t currently being met, how much competition there will be, what target market the business should aim at, and how much the business should charge for its product or service
• A target market is a group of customers which a business aims its product or services at
• A business may undertake market research to help it make better business decisions, such as making changes to products, adding new products, or changing locations
• Before making changes, a business may want to find out whether customers will respond positively to the change through market research
• For example, a cafe might conduct market research before bringing out a new type of coffee to see if customers would buy it, increasing the chances of success
• Market research is the process of collecting information about the market or what customers want that might help a business to be more successful and spot gaps in the market
• Primary market research, also known as field research, is new research that a business undertakes itself, involving collecting new data and information that has not been collected before
• Primary research provides a business with customised research specific to its own circumstances and often uses the business’ own customers to gather information
• Primary research methods include surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, and observations
• Surveys ask questions to get opinions and learn about customers’ experiences with a product or service, and can be conducted online, on paper, through interviews, or in focus groups
• Questionnaires consist of open and closed questions to find out customers’ opinions, with open questions allowing detailed opinions and closed questions providing specific response options
• Focus groups are group interviews where people are asked questions or given scenarios to gather in-depth information about a product or service
• Observations involve watching customers to find out their reactions to certain products or services, providing valuable insights for businesses
• Advantages of primary research: specific to the business, provides detailed information, relevant and up to date, can gather a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data
• Disadvantages of primary research: time-consuming, expensive, sometimes difficult to collect
• Market research is the process of collecting information about the market or what customers want to help a business be more successful and spot gaps in the market
• There are two main types of market research: primary and secondary
• Secondary market research, also known as desk research, involves gathering existing data that has already been produced
• Sources of secondary research include internal data like financial or marketing information, and external data like internet research, market reports, and government reports
• Internet research for market reports includes data from competitors’ websites, newspaper articles, and social media, providing an overview of information relating to the industry and products/services offered by other businesses
• Market reports are industry-specific and may give specific information about an industry as a whole, helping a business decide which customers to target
• Government reports may consist of general information that is not usually industry-specific but can still be useful for a business in decision-making
• Advantages of secondary research: quick and easy to gather, can provide industry-specific information, often easy to analyze
• Disadvantages of secondary research: not specific to the business, could be out of date, may be biased or inaccurate
• Market research is the process of collecting information about the market or what customers want that might help a business to be more successful and spot gaps in the market
• Market research produces data that can be qualitative or quantitative
• Qualitative data:

  • Usually expressed as opinions
  • Includes descriptive information
  • Gained using open-ended questions, eg ‘What do you like about the product and why?’
  • Provides detailed information that cannot be expressed in a graph or chart
  • Time-consuming and costly to gather and analyse