Primary and Secondary Market Research

Primary Research is where a business will gather data from its own sources for its own specific reasons.
Methods Include:

• Observations
• Questionnaires
• Surveys
• Focus Groups
• Consumer Trials
  Advantages:
• Relevant and up to date
• Specific to the business
• Only available to the business
  Disadvantages:
• Can be costly and time-consuming
• Poor design could produce biased results
• May find it dificult to represent the market segments accurately

Secondary Market Research is where a business uses data and information that has already been gathered.
Methods Include:

• Internal Data
• Books/Newspapers/Magazines
• Competitors Data
• Government publications and statistics
• Purchased research material
  Advantages:
• Quicker to collect
• May be gathered on a much larger scale
• Can be very cheap or even free to access
  Disadvantages:
• Might be outdated, therefore inaccurate
• Data might not be relevant
• Data may be biased, might not be known how the data was collected