Marketing: Market Research: Quantitative vs qualitative data - CCEA

We need to put in another order for some more t-shirts.

Shall I just get the same as last time?

Or we could get something different.

Maybe even see what our customers think.

Let's do some market research.

Yes, let's get some data.

Data?

So, we could either get quantitative data or qualitative data.

So, quantitative data is usually numerical, like a statistic.

For example, we know this is our best seller, sixty percent of our sales are of these.

Quantitative, like quantity.

Qualitative data tells us what someone thinks and feels.

For example, what do you think about this t-shirt?

It's simple, classic.

Exactly.

Qualitative data like the quality of something.

But qualitative data is usually time consuming and difficult to interpret.

Quantitative data is usually taken from a larger sample and collects things like number of responses, so it's easier to analyse.

But people might surprise you.

They might rate something five stars but we don't know why they have given it five stars.

We don't have the time or money to interview all our customers.

But interviewing a few people might come out with something interesting.

Okay, let's collect some qualitative data to find out interesting areas, that we can research further with quantitative data.

Yes, maybe when we interview people we find out that they want some more colour choices.

We can then run a quantitative data survey, to find out how many people want each colour.

Time to get asking.