Distinction between Consumer General Research and Business Related Research

The general consumer market research focuses on buying habits of consumers, while business related research focuses on products sold in the business- to-business arena.

Research can investigate behaviourial factors that influence buying decisions, or emotions, or other subjective factors. To do this research, it is necessary to collect facts and opinions in an objective manner, in an orderly process. The objective is to pull out from the panel what people want to buy, more just how they feel about a particular product, once the wants are discovered, they can be incorporated into products.

 How Panel Market Research Is Conducted

A market research panel study may be ordered by the manufacturer of an item, or by a retail organization trying to determine what products or service to add to their inventory list. Usually management or marketing departments are the instigators of such research. They may devise their own groups, or call upon marketing research companies who specialize in this type of research on a regular basis.

The major disadvantage of panel research is that, it is prone to biasness if the investigators (researchers) allow themselves to be bought over.

 Overview of Available Research Types Haven Taken into Cognizance of Panel Research

The qualitative research is more explorative, and uses smaller numbers of person’s focus group, and interviews.

 Quantitative Research

The quantitative research is more random, and used to draw conclusions from test and sampling. It will use higher numbers of respondents for surveys and questionnaire research methods.

Research involves collecting information, analysis and interpreting data for the client. It is necessary to first define a problem, or the reason for ordering the study. Then it is necessary to determine what information is needed to obtain in order to work with the problem for improvement, and draw inferences between the two.

After the panel answers, those findings must be interpreted, implications made, and the researchers draw up a set of recommendations to fix the problem or make improvements to the product to better met consumer demand.

 Business Market Research Panel – The Orientation

Business market research panels are more specifically oriented towards the world of business. There would be more questions or discussions about competition, government legislation, the market the impact of the economy and other factors that are related to that type of business. There would be more hard facts rather than the emotional aspect of business decision making. The business panels may be more specialized towards specific markets. Some market research firms have these specialized panels available on a regular basis, rather than creating them from scratch every time they are needed and they may have many different types of specialized panels available to the business community.

Panel Data Analysis

Refers to multidimensional data frequently involving measurements over time. Panel data contain observations of multiple phenomena obtained over multiple time periods for the same firms or individuals. Time series and cross-sectional data are special cases of panel data that are in one dimension only (one panel member or individual for the former, one time period for the later).