- They ask consumers/customers their views on things with which they have no experience, typically new products. This gives results that are rarely accurate, as there is no context against which potential consumers/customers can judge the relative performance of the product or service wth what they already buy, or what they may no longer buy.
- They ask people what they buy, (which is worth knowing) instead of why they buy. Why consumers make the purchase decisions they do is the key data.
Retailers make this mistake all the time, simply because they now have so much information from the scan data about what is bought, down to when, and with what else it is bought, that they confuse this “what was bought” data with the more important why it was bought.
Well it’s plainly wrong. If a consumer has no experience of a product then researchers often give a consumer an experience (for example taste/product testing).
Also for consumers to trial a new product, they need to have a good conceptual grasp of the products benefits to them, no perceived benefit and the consumer does not purchase. Hence it is quite possible to get a accurate prediction of trail just through concept testing.
Also the common Usage and Attitude test, does just that, it tests what they buy (usage) and why they buy (attitude). Unless the client especially requests it researchers very rarely to a straight usage test.
I think that the points below are more relevant for people who just purchase scan data alone, and I would argue that no researcher would recommend that.
Tom,
My argument is that often market research is a crutch for marketers short of an idea, experience, or balls, ar all three.
In principal, I agree that reseach is about the best tool we have, but like all tools can be, and often is, misued.
I have commissioned a lot of research, including large U&A studies, and whilst much useful information can come from them, research by itself is no substitute for observing what happens in the real world, and applying common sense, informed by a good understanding of behaviour built up over time, usually informed by research that goes beyond asking a simple question that needs answering at a point in time.
Retailers use of scan data as tool is a whole subject that goes to the mindset of retailers, and they position they hold in the supply chain, specifically FMCG as a result of the scale they have.