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Evaluating the Limitations of Market Research

Decent Essays

Explain Limitations of Market Research

Part of planning market research is outlining the flaws and limitations of the research itself. Any weaknesses in the research must be identified so they can be improved on. There are a number of limitations that may affect the results found by market research.

Reliability is vital when trying to find out information about large target populations. To avoid poor reliability, the sample chosen to participate in the research should be representative of the whole target population. The correct target sample must be established so that reliability is not a limitation of the research.

To improve poor reliability due to target sample, a list of the target population could be created and then have …show more content…

However, they must be careful in selecting the right sample for certain questions. If the Vodafone market research team would like to know what customers opinions are regarding Vodafone 's 3G Internet service, and they would need to carefully select a representative sample of people who have 3G Internet on their phones. It can be assumed that Vodafone has the ability to generate a list of all users who have Internet usage through their network so choosing a sample from the target population should cause no difficulty. Using a computer, a sample size can be derived from random selection or through systematically selecting proportional numbers of people from different countries in which Vodafone operates.

In order to increase reliability by using a large sample size could mean sacrificing their ability to gain quantitative data. Trying to generate the wrong type of results could mean gaining too much or too little information to gain a real understanding of what people think of the internet services provided to them. Analysing and interpreting data from such a large sample could prove difficult if results were qualitative. Whether being analysed by humans or by computers counting commonly found words, this would be a lengthy process. It could be recommended that Vodafone conducted their research

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