Retail management
Marketing research in retail
Data,
information,
knowledge
Can we make decision based on these customer data?
Age 2017 2018 2019
18-29 15% 10% 6%
30-39 18% 13% 13%
40-49 26% 22% 15%
50-59 18% 24% 21%
60-69 15% 18% 25%
70+ 8% 13% 20%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
Age distribution
2017 2018 2019
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
Age distribution
2017 2018 2019
Data and information differences
• Data is the most basic form of knowledge, e.g. the
brand of butter sold to a particular customer in a
certain town. This statistic is of little worth in itself but
may become meaningful when combined with other data.
• Information is a combination of data that provide
decision-relevant knowledge, e.g. the brand preferences
of customers in a certain age category in a particular
geographic region.
Goals of marketing research
•Understand the market
• Present
• Future
•Identify threats and opportunities
•Formulate marketing actions and assess its
effectiveness
Marketing research process
• PREPARATION PHASE
• Problem definition
• Situation analysis
• Research project planing
• Pre-research
• REALISATION PHASE
• Data collection
• Data processing
• Analysis and interpretation
• Visualisation and presentation
Problem definition
•Most important part of the research project
•Well defined problem is half-solved
•There are no bad answers in marketing research, only
bad questions
Case study 1: Retailer introducing new store
brand
• Retailer asked marketing research company to do taste research on
their new product.
• There were three new flavours of their soft drink: mango, banana and
pineapple.
• Research company offered sample of all three flavours to 350 people
and 43% chose banana flavour.
• Company introduced new flavour and failed miserably.
• What are the possible causes of this unsuccessful product launch?
Marketing research:
In-house or agency?
BRIEF
RESEARCH PLAN
Business
problem
Know-how
ORDER
RESEARCH REPORT
$$$ $$$ $$$
Knowledge
What is brief?
• Well defined assignment for agency is fundamental!
• Good breif consist of:
• Well defined request for the agency.
• Clearly stated goals
• Reasoning why do we need to carry research project
• Defined context of a problem
• Defined target group and methodology requirements
• Clearly defined outcome with acceptation criteria
• Timeframe, budget and team allocation
Research question
• Research question is a clear statement of the problem formulated in
sentence ending with question mark.
• Clear expression of what will be studied (Kolb, 2008)
• It influence whole research process:
• What literature we have to study in advance?
• How we design research scope?
• What access to the date do we need to negotiate?
• What type of research design will be chosen?
• What data will be needed?
• Sample selection process.
• Nature of a final report.
Research question examples
•What?
•What make our clients leave for our competition?
•When?
•When do our clients visit our store for the first
rebuy?
•Where?
•Where exactly Instagram influencers buy fashion
products?
Research question examples
•Who?
•Who spreads negative brand sentiment online?
•How?
•How product rebranding influenced attitudes of
general public?
•Why?
•Why do companies outsource marketing research?
Research types
• Quantitative
• Based on numbers
• Measurement and counting
• Large sample size
• Qualitative
• Based on text, sound, video and pictures
• Interpretation
• Small sample sizes
Exploratory
Explanatory
Descriptive
Problems with causality
• For example, a correlation has been found between having
breast implants and suicide (Koot, Peeters, Granath,
Grobbee, & Nyren, 2003).
• However, it is unlikely that having breast implants causes
you to commit suicide – presumably, there is an external
factor (or factors) that causes both; for example, low selfesteem
might lead you to have breast implants and also
attempt suicide.
Research types
• Primary data
• Do not exist at the beginning of the research project
• Data collected throughout the project
• Secondary data
• Data already existing
• Reports, statistical data, business data, reused data, analytical
data.
Sample and sample size
•Sample is a part of
population which, when
collected properly, can
produce results which are
generalizable.
•Greater the sample size
more reliable the results are.
•Reality = Parametr + Error
Population
Parametr
Data
Statistics
People
Sample
Ideal sample size
Favourite colour example
• In a class, teacher ask students what is their favourite colour.
• The realtime results goes like this:
Respondent Answer Results PINK in % Results GREEN in % Change
1 Pink 100 0 No data
2 Green 50 50 50%
3 Green 33,5 66,5 16,5%
4 Pink 50 50 16,5%
5 Green 40 60 10%
6 Green 33,5 66,5 6,5%
7 Green 28 72 5,5%
8 Pink 37 63 9%
9 Pink 44 56 7%
10 Pink 50 50 6%
Margin of error
• It is statistic expressing
the amount of random
sampling error in a
survey's results.
• The larger the margin of
error, the less confidence
one should have that the
reported research results
are close to the "true"
figures; that is, the figures
for the whole population.
Sample size in qualitative studies
• The data collection takes place as
long as there is no condition in which
further examination of the selected
sample does not bring new
substantial information.
• Theoretical saturation
• The goal of qualitative research is not
generalization, so it is not the aim of
the results to relate to the whole
population but to reveal the
connections and causes of a certain
behavior of customers.
Primary data collection methods
• Survey
• Interview
• Questionnaire
• Observation
• Experiment
Survey vs. Observation
Coop Jednota
Distant learners in UK
Data collection techniques - qualitative
•Deep interviews
•Focus group discussions
•Expert consultations
•Observation
Data collection techniques - quantitative
•Face to face interviews
•Telephone interviews
•Postal survey
•Electronic survey
•Observation
•Experiment
Data collection techniques - specifics for
retail
Data collection techniques - specifics for
retail
Data collection techniques - specifics for
retail
Data collection techniques - specifics for
retail
Case study 2: Pepsi challenge
• Famous Pepsi challenge research showed some disturbing results.
Despite the leading position of Coca cola, during the blind taste tests
people prefered Pepsi.
• Based on few sips of Coke and Pepsi, consumers immediately chose
Pepsi for its sweater taste. Coca cola reacted quickly with brand new
product: New Coke.
• However, market shares dropped down immediately and the new
taste was not accepted by the customers as managers predicted.
• What are the possible causes of this unsuccessful product launch?
Validity
•Valid questions are those that give us answers exactly
what we ask - what is the main goal of research.
Reliability
•It expresses the degree of sustainability of research
tools.
•To what extent the question remains reliable and still
valid in further iterations - for example, in other time,
social and cultural conditions.
Thank you