Primary research
Primary research involves collecting primary data. This is information which did not exist before the research began. In other words, it has to be collected by the researcher. It can either be carried out by a business itself or by market research agency. Because of the high costs of using the services of a market research agency many small businesses choose to conduct market research on themselves. Most primary information is gathered by asking consumers questions or by monitoring their behavior. The most accurate way to do this would be to question or observe all consumers of a particular product. However, in all but a few instances this would be either impractical to carry out or expensive. It is usual to carry out a survey of a sample Om f people who are thought to be representative of the total market. Methods of choosing samples are dealt with in the next unit.
Methods of primary research
-Personal interviews
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The interviewer rather than the interviewee fills out the responses to questions on a questionnaire, which contains mainly ‘open’ questions. The main advantage of interviews is that they allow the chance for interviewees to give detailed responses to questions that concern them. Long or difficult questions can also be explained but the interviewer and the percentage of responses that can be used is likely to be high. If needed, there is time and scope for answers to be following up in more detail. Interviewer, however, can be time consuming and ten to rely on the skill of the