[disturbed]

I'm doing a little market research project for school and I'm running into problems. My teacher is out of town on a temporary basis and will only be back when I have to turn in this project.
Darn it!

I though maybe some of you guys might have some tips ...

One of the things I have to find out is why people go to different supermarkets?

What is the best thing they rate over all about the supermarket? Example: Overall, the food selection is great at Supermarket A.

Find out what other things they like about the supermerket, example, parking space, discount etc..

Blah Blah Blah

What I am more intrested in here is "Research Methodology".
I know I can begin with 'Exploratory Research' to answer many of the questions but I am worried about the sampling method.
What sampling method do I use?

I do know that I plan to visit all the major supermarkets in my locality. Which totals up to 4 supermerket chains.

How do I segment the supermerkets based on nationality, age, gender and so on (questions like these frequently get answered here so no worries about getting sued

)

Someone please guide me .... I would really appreciate your help

 

[MacDEF]

Disturbed, unfortunately any answer you get here is going to be pretty worthless, unless the person writes 150 pages

Seriously, the topics you've raised are each chapters in introductory survey research textbooks. Your best bet would be to get a book on survey research -- not only will it answer your questions, but you'll really appreciate the "art" of survey research when you're done.

 

[disturbed]

Quote:

Originally posted by MacDEF Disturbed, unfortunately any answer you get here is going to be pretty worthless, unless the person writes 150 pages Seriously, the topics you've raised are each chapters in introductory survey research textbooks. Your best bet would be to get a book on survey research -- not only will it answer your questions, but you'll really appreciate the "art" of survey research when you're done.

Got a book on "the art of not losing your books"

 

[crazychile]

I agree with the comments that MACDEF made.

To really do this correctly would take at least a semester of research to get a good enough sample to derive your stats.

I'm assuming this is for an undergrad Marketing Research class? How long did the instructor give you to complete it? This may give you some indication as to what they are expecting. For example, if you had all semester to do this, you are screwed. The project should have been agressively pursued from the beginning to get a large sample size. If they only gave you a couple of weeks to do it then the expectations are probably pretty moderate, with the emphasis being on your understanding of methodology, not so much the actual results.

Here is how I would pursue it....

1. What are you trying to determine? (why they like a specific store, who shops at a specific store, etc.) Try not to make your goal too broad. If you do, you'll need to ask more questions later and have a greater chance of sampling error.

2. From #1, determine a set of questions that will give you info to help answer your original question/ hypothesis. Select these carefully and try to keep it short. If you can do it with few questions you will stand a better chance of having people participate. If you make it too long, you will lose them. This part of the process is the most important. If you don't ask the right questions, you won't get good data.

Get some buddies to help you with the surveys at different locations so you can save time. Maybe bribe some neighborhood kids to help carry peoples groceries if they participate in the survey. Try to give them something for using their time.

3. You've studied stat analysis by now right? Dump the numbers into an analysis program or compile manually and run your tests from these.

4. Comments


5. Conclusions

This is all very oversimplified. If you give me more info and can be more specific, I can probably help you some more.

 

[wallijonn]

most accidents happen within 20 miles of home.

this is becuase 98% of the time you are within 20 miles of home.

same thing with supermarkets.

1] you are most likely to go to your nearest supermarket.
2] you will probably stock up on sale items every three months.
3] coupons
4] parking and lack of long lines at certain hours
5] products


in my last town we had 2 supermarkets on either side of town. so they closed down the one I was closest to (because it was old) and opened it across the street from the first supermarket. (closer to the highway). then a third supermarket was opened AT THE SAME LOCATION. the one with the lowest prices went out of business as the other two, newer supermarkets, were of the MegaSupermarket kind. I would not visit one, as their products were not laid out correctly - I never did find out where they kept the water bottles. The other one had really good seafood. Because of it they put out of business the local seafood store. It became too much of a hassle to drive all that way for vitals. So I started doing all my buying at WalMart.

see, market research is not always right.

I now live in Scottsdale. the price of a roll of toilet paper (1000 sheets) is $1.00. (tip

) and I would kill to be able to find Goya products.

 

[disturbed]

Guys thanks for you help:

I chose 4 supermarkets ... gave them numbers and used the excel function: =1+TRUNC(4*RAND())

Kinda cheated here and there but expectations aren't too high because the professor gave it to us only a week ago and it's due in 2 more days. I think he's just testing our skills. He'll prrobably point out a million things that went wrong when we submit our work

Thanks for the inspirations