Market Research

Today we collected our market research results from the questionnaires we sent on Facebook and SurveyMonkey. The results are as follows:

Question: Where do you usually purchase greetings cards?

Answer: High street shops or the supermarket

How does this benefit our research?
Since it has been predecided that we will be selling our cards on campus from a stall and not in a supermarket or high street shop, I think this question needn't have really been asked. It gives us no indication of what we should do in regards to the design of the card, the price we should sell it at, or anything. I feel we have gained nothing by asking this question.


Question: How much would you spend on a Christmas card?

Answer: £1 - £1.50

How does this benefit our research?
If we know how much the average person spends on a Christmas card, then we can base the prices of our cards around this. I feel this question has benefited us greatly, since when we discussed how much we anticipated students would be willing to spend on a card we put the estimate at 50p - £1, but the average from our questionnaire is much higher. This means we can use a higher quality of materials when using our cards, to make them to a higher standard without risking losing money in the manufacture, since can sell them for more money at the stall.


Question: What makes you buy a card?

Answer: Mixed results

1. Price - Results showed very important
2. Message - Results showed indifference
3. Image/Design - Results showed very important
4. Brand (e.g. Marks & Spencers) - Results showed indifference
5. Charity - Results showed quite important


How does this benefit our research?
By seeing what aspects of a card are more (or less) important to a potential customer when they are deciding what card to buy (or not to buy) we can ensure that we are focusing on the right areas to ensure a successful product. This particular question is vital to our research and has provided us with very useful information.

Price - Very important
We shall be certain to price our cards at a reasonable and fair price, and given our research we know what price range we shall be aiming for.

Design - Very important
Although it might seem obvious that the design of the card is what is going to attract a customer, our research has backed up this thought and we know just how important the design of the cards is - although as creative students I feel it is in our nature to design something attractive anyway, so this was never going to be an issue.

Charity - Quite important
It seemed that people would be more willing to buy a card if it stated that the profits were going to charity, even if that meant parting with slightly more money. With even supermarket own brands now sell cards with the profits going to various charities it is easy to understand why people would rather buy charity cards. However, this works in our favour as part of this brief stated that any profit we makes will go to charity (which has yet to be decided). I think if we advertise this fact then our selling could be more successful than if we weren't to mention it.

Message - Not important
Since our research has shown that people are not interested in the message in their cards we have decided to leave our cards blank. Not only does this save us researching and coming up with suitable phrases to print inside the cards, but it means the customer can 'customise' their card for whatever purpose.

Brand - Not important
This is another question that I don't feel needed to be asked. Since we are not designing a range of cards for a specific company, whether or not people are attracted by brand names is irrelevant. However, the research showed that people showed indifference as to the brand of the cards they were buying so this should not have a bad effect on our sales (i.e. people won't buy our cards because they're not branded).


Question: Would you be more likely to buy a 'charity card'?

Answer: Yes

How does this benefit our research?
Although this subject has already been raised (in the previous question) it is good to have more solid evidence that people would be more likely to buy a 'charity card' than a regular one.


Question: Do you prefer a blank card or a card with a message?

Answer: Blank

How does this benefit our research?
Again, whilst this question has already been asked (albeit in a different format) it confirms that we would be best off to not include any message in our cards.


Question: Do you normally buy Christmas cards in multi-packs or individually?

Answer: Mixed (results showed both individually and in multi-packs)

How does this benefit our research?
I feel this question has been beneficial to our research because we were unsure of how we should sell our cards - as separates or in packs. However, since there was no definite result from this question it hasn't really helped us, but we have decided that we shall sell our cards both on their own, and with the option to buy a pack for a lower price - for better value. This should ensure that people have a choice when purchasing our cards.


Has this research been beneficial?
I feel this market research has been very valuable to us, as it has given us some direction on criteria such as the price of our cards, how we should sell them and the importance of the design.