Secondary and primary research
The two types
- Secondary research (desk research) uses information that already exists, collected by someone else for some other purpose.
- Primary research (field research) collects new information, first-hand, for this project.
Secondary research
Internal secondary data — from inside the business:
- Sales reports — what actually sold, when, at what price
- Customer records and loyalty data
- Previous research the business has done
- Stock records, showing what moves and what does not
External secondary data — from outside the business:
- Government information and statistics — Stats NZ population and household data, the Census, MBIE regional reports
- Industry and trade journals
- Competitors' websites, catalogues and prices
- Media reports and published market studies
- Data from industry associations
| Advantages of secondary research | Disadvantages of secondary research |
|---|---|
| Fast and usually free or cheap | It was collected for someone else's purpose, so it may not fit your aim |
| Covers large populations that you could never survey yourself | It may be out of date |
| Useful for planning — it tells you what is already known | Competitors have access to the same information |
| Sales records show real behaviour, not stated intentions | You cannot check how it was collected, so its quality is uncertain |
Primary research
- Collected from the field, by you, for this aim: questionnaires, interviews, observation, focus groups, product testing.
| Advantages of primary research | Disadvantages of primary research |
|---|---|
| Directly answers your aim, because you wrote the questions | Time-consuming and more expensive |
| Up to date — it describes now, not last year | Small samples are easy to get wrong, which threatens validity |
| Confidential to the business, so it can be a competitive advantage | Respondents may not answer honestly, or may not know what they would really do |
| You know exactly how it was collected, so you can judge its quality | Poor question design produces data that looks fine and means nothing |
Secondary first — this is a requirement, not a suggestion
- The standard states that planning the research means collecting some secondary data to help plan the primary data collection. Skipping it is skipping part of the standard.
- Secondary research shapes the primary research in concrete ways:
- It tells you who to sample. Stats NZ data on the age structure of a suburb tells you which age groups need to be represented.
- It tells you what is already known, so you do not waste questions finding it out again.
- It tells you the realistic range for a question — existing prices in the market, so your price question offers plausible options.
- It can tell you the size of the market, which no questionnaire can.
An example of the two working together
Aim: to find out whether students at a Hamilton secondary school would buy a $4 hot lunch, and which options they would choose.
Secondary first. School roll data gives the number of students by year level, which sets how many of each year group the sample needs. The canteen's own sales records show which existing items sell and at what price, which sets a realistic price range for the questions. Stats NZ household income data for the area gives context on what families can afford.
Primary second. A questionnaire distributed across all year levels asks whether students buy lunch now, what they spend, whether they would buy at $4, and which of five options they would choose. Ten short interviews explore why students who currently bring lunch from home would or would not switch.