3) Commercial surveys
Commercial surveys can be divided into three types: Periodic, Panel and Sharedsurveys. Each of them are discussed below
Periodic surveys
Periodic surveys
are conducted at regular intervals, ranging from weekly to annuallyheld surveys. They use a new sample of respondents for each survey, focusing onthe same topic and allowing the analysis of trends over a period. Periodic surveysare conducted by mail, personal interview and telephone.The disadvantage here could be that when periodic surveys are conducted at knownintervals, they might affect the behavior being measured.
An example of this kind of surveys could be TRPs.
Panel surveys
Panel surveys
, sometimes called
interval panels
, are conducted among a group of respondents who have agreed to respond to a number of mail, telephone or occasionally personal interviews over time. These need not occur regularly. But a
continuous panel
or
panel data
(explained more in panels) refers to a group of individuals who agree to report specified behaviors over time.The advantages of this method areThe research firm initially collects all the personal information about the respondentsand does not waste time again in collecting this information during interviews. Thisincreases the quality of the research data.The response rate can be as high as 70% - 90%.
Shared surveys
Shared surveys
, sometimes referred to as
omnibus surveys
, are administered by aresearch firm and consist of questions supplied by multiple clients. Such surveys caninvolve mail, telephone, or personal interviews. The respondents may be drawn fromeither an interval panel or random selection.The main advantage here is the cost factor.
4) Audits
Audits involve the physical inspection of inventories, sales receipts, shelf facing andother aspects of marketing mix to determine sales, market share, relative price,distribution and other relevant information. The different types of audits are storeaudits, product audits and retail distribution audits.
Store audits
The basis for the
store audit
of retail stores sales is the simple accounting arithmeticof Opening inventory+ Net purchases (receipts-transfers out-returned inventory +transfers in)- Closing inventory= SalesThese audits provide sales data on packaged products. The clients receive report onthe sales of their own brand and of competitor's brands, the resulting market shares,prices, shelf facing and other important information.
Product audits
Product audits
are similar to store audits but focuses on products rather than storesamples. Although they provide similar information as of store audits it differs as in ittries to cover all the types of retail outlets that handle a product category.
Retail distribution audits
Retail distribution audits are similar to store audits however these audits do notmeasure inventory sales: instead they are observational studies at the retail level.Field agents enter stores unannounced and without permission. They observe andrecord the brands present, price, shelf facings and other relevant data for selectedproduct categories.