Topic 1.2

• Purpose of market research:

  Reduces risk

  Help to spot gaps in the market

  Things about their competitors e.g target markets
• Primary research is research collected by yourself:

  X questionnaires

  X Focus groups

  X Observations - Watching customers to find out their reaction to certain products

  X Interviews
• Focus Groups are groups of people that discuss a topic about a good or service

  If there is lees people in the group, not enough opinions are gathered
• Adv of Primary Research:

  x specific to business

  x provides detailed information

  x Up to date

  x mixture of qualitative and quantitative
• Dis of primary research

  x Time consuming

  x Expensive

  x Sometimes difficult to collect
• Secondary research is gathering data that has already been produced
• Examples of secondary Data:

  x Internet research

  x Market reports

  x Government reports
• Adv of secondary data

  x quick and easy to gather

  x Often easy to analyse

  Dis

  x Not specific to business

  x Could be out of date

  x My be biased or inaccurate
• qualitative data is detailed data that is based on opinions and feelings
• quantitative data is data that is numerical that isn't detailed
• Identifying customers needs:

  Price

  quality

  choice

  convenience

  design

  Reliability
• Benefits of using social media

  x cheaper than other platforms

  x Allow business to spot latest trends

  x monitor behaviour of competition
• Convenience is important as customers are willing to pay more in order for less difficulty. e.g delivery services
• Market segmentation is the process of splitting a businesses target market into smaller groups
• Examples of market segmentation: Age, Gender, Income, Location, Lifestyle, behaviour, demographics
• Demographics is the characteristics of people e.g gender, race, religion, disability
• Market mapping is using a graph to plot competitors and their products to understand a gap in the market
• A competition means the business needs to keep updating and bring out new products in order to survive
• A competitor is any business that sells a similar product or service to your business.
• Business may want to know about their competitors:

  quality

  Target market

  usp

  price range

  location
• USP is a strength that a business has over its competitors