What are the advantages and disadvantages of online market research methods compared with traditional market research methods?

Compared with market research methods, using the Internet to conduct market research has many advantages, mainly in shortening the research cycle, saving costs, and being free from geographical restrictions. In addition, because there is no need for face-to-face communication with users, it also avoids the misleading tendency of the host brought by face-to-face interviews. Therefore, online research has become a market research method that cannot be ignored.

The advantages of online market research are obvious, but at the same time, its problems can not be ignored, mainly in the design of questionnaires, the quantity and quality of samples, the protection of personal information and other factors.

(1) The problem of the online questionnaire itself. Because the online survey takes up the respondents' online time, the design should pay more attention to skills, be concise and clear, and take up as little time as possible in filling out forms and online.

(2) Number of samples. For some websites with low visits, how to attract people to participate in the survey is a challenge. If the number of visits is small, it will take a long time to reach a certain number of samples If we increase the website promotion for the purpose of investigation, we need to increase a lot of promotion expenses, which may not be worth the candle.

(3) sample quality. The limitation of online survey is not only affected by the small number of samples, but also the uneven distribution of samples may lead to a large error in the survey results. Because the object of network survey is only users who surf the Internet, even among users, the structure of netizens has obvious characteristics, and the geographical distribution of users and the specific user groups of different websites are also factors that cannot be ignored.

(4) Personal information protection. Because people are worried about the abuse of personal information, they usually don't want to reveal accurate personal information in the questionnaire survey, and often quit the survey because it involves too much personal information. In order to get as much information as possible without causing people's disgust, online investigation should avoid investigating the most sensitive information as much as possible.

(5) the factors of the interviewee. In addition to the above main problems, the accuracy of the information provided by the respondents also directly affects the accuracy of the online survey results. Therefore, screening invalid questionnaires is one of the necessary links of online survey.