Market research
Posted in Business studies, MarketingMarket research is the process of gathering and analyzing information about customers, competitors and the market. Market research is used by comapnies to look at things like market trends, customer habits and lifestyle, what price customers will pay for a product and what compeition exists.
Market research can provide companies with vital information which allows them to make choices based on what the customer wants. It can allow businesses to predict what might happen in the future of a market and how to plan for such events.
Types of data
There are two types of data which market research can collect: Qualitative and Quantitative
Qualitative data
Qualitative data is data which describes and explains something is - such as why customers act in the way they do or why a market is shrinking in size. It is generally any type of non-numeric data. Such data is usually highly subjective and may not be representative of the whole population. Data is inherently hard to analyse and quantify providing less scientific results. Qualitative data does however give a more indepth and rich description.
Quantitative data
Quantitative data is usually far more scientific and numerical, it can include percentages, trends and frequencies. As quantitative data is usually available in a greater quantity it is usually more representative. Quantitative data can help describe a market - such as it's size and growth - but it can't explain why.
Quantitative and qualitative research are the names given to research methods which aim to collect quantitative and qualitative data respectively.