Market research

A market is anywhere that buyers and sellers come together to ex­change goods and services. Market research is of great importance for any business. Market research can be defined as a collection, collation and analysis of data relating to the marketing and consumption of goods and services. For example, firms gather information about the likely consumers of a new product and use the data to help in their decision making process. Market research includes the following aspects:

• a demand for a product
• what style, shape color or Form it should take
• the price people can pay for it
• information about themselves - their age, likes, interests and life styles.

Market research can either be carried out by a firm itself or by a market research agency. The research involves collecting primary data. This is information which has to be collected to gain marketing advan­tages (получить маркетинговое преимущество над...) over other firms. Most primary information is gathered by asking consumers questions or by observing their behavior. The most accurate way to do this is to ask or observe all consumers of a particular product. However, this may be either impractical or expensive. That's why there are some other research methods a business can use. Among them are: questionnaires (анкета), personal and telephone interviews, postal surveys, obser­vation and many others.

1. Ответьте на вопросы по тексту:

What is a market?

What aspects does it include?

What research methods do you know?

2. Найдите в тексте эквиваленты слов и выражений профессионально-ориентированной лексики:

Покупатели и продавцы, собирать информацию, иметь большое значение,

потенциальные потребители, процесс принятия решения, самый точный

способ, дорогой.

3. Заполните пропуски словами из текста:

1) Market research … either be carried out by a firm itself or by a market research agency.

2) This information … to be collected to gain marketing advantages over other firms.

3) Market research can be defined as a collection, collation and analysis of data relating to the marketing and consumption of goods and services.