RESEARCH SKILLS FOR

MARKETING 2

LE THI DOAN QUYNH

G1148492T

Contents
1.

Introduction

2.

Qualitative Vs Quantitative Approach

2.1.

Benefits of Qualitative Approach

2.2.

Limitations of Qualitative Approach

2.3.

Benefits of Quantitative Approach

2.4.

Limitations of Quantitative Approach

3.

Procedures for Conducting Focus Group Study

4.

Procedures Selecting Respondents For Questionnaire Survey

4.1.

Probability Sampling

4.2.

Non- Probability Sampling

5.

Suggestions On Using Membership Card Information

5.1.

Benefits

5.2.

Limitations

6.

Conclusion

7.

References

Introduction
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In 1973, NTUC FairPrice Co-operative Ltd was founded by the National Trades Union Congress,
they opened the first NTUC Welcome supermarket in Toa Payoh. NTUC at its very first days was
guided with a social mission is to moderate the living cost in Singapore. Before, NTUC was the
largest retailer in Singapore, serving more than 430,000 people daily. Holding the network of over
120 outlet, including FairPrice Supermarket, FairPrice Finest and FairPrice Xtra. Their
convenience stores, FairPrice Xpress and Cheers, has a network across over 160 convenience
stores island-wide and caters over 100,000 customers daily, owns a Fresh Food Distribution
Centre and a centralized warehousing and distribution company. It all started with only one single
supermarket and this is to achieve greatness, because NTUC gained the customer's heart by
following its inception which is "making essential everyday items affordable to everyone,
everywhere."
Staying committed to their social mission and their aspiration to be Singapore's leading world
class retailer, NTUC FairPrice were still able to keep up to date with the needs of its consumers.
NTUC FairPrice, with their multiple retail formats, is still doing a very great job serving varied
interests of its consumers.
FairPrice provides a range of products and services with their multiple retail stores for customers
with wide-ranging needs and interests which include, FairPrice Supermarket catering the
everyday consumers, to ensure that every customer has the access to the quality products by
opening more than 90 stores nation wide.
FairPrice Finest with the prices that fair and affordable, FairPrice goal is to bring the finest life to
their customer by offering a wider product range and value-added services.
FairPrice Xtra: Provide the extra products and services which focus
on electronic products, casual and basic wear.
FairPrice Xpress: Offer the products with the very competitive prices through out their 24 hour
shopping convenience stores all over the country.
Cheers: With a range of 24 hour convenience stores which serve group of young and trendy
customers.
FairPrice Online: Allows the customers to shop within the range of FairPrice products from home
and get their grocery products delivered to their dorrstep, a virtual market and a hassle free
shopping for consumers.

FairPrice, as mentioned above is the largest Supermarket across the whole country, they at the
same time always put improvement its services towards their customers. FairPrice provides the

best possible quality products and services along with much effort to development as well as
promotions.
The development of FairPrice which are worth mentioning is FairPrice as they have upgraded their
warehouse and distribution and at the same time launched a partnership which programmed with
Pergas Halbiz consultancy in order to understand more about the Halal corner within its network to
provide a better service for Muslim customers.
FairPrice advertised many promotions such as, Everyday Low Price Items, LinkPoints and
Rebates, Rewards for Senior Citizens, FairPrice House Brand Products, Stretch Your Dollar
Programme. These promotions are created with a reason to make essential items affordable for all
its customers
With all the effort that FairPrice has provided, the recent research shows that FairPrice Xtra outlet
was instituted below the expectation. The following part of this essay will identify the marketing
problem, as well as the suggestion for FairPrice which can make a marketing decision on its
service improvement.

Qualitative Vs Quantitative Approach

Qualitative research is about understanding what people think and why they think in a certain way.
It is about getting people to talk about their opinions and to understand their feelings. It is also
used to uncover trends in thought and opinions, and dive deeper into the problem. The sample
size is usually small.
Quantitative research is about asking people for their opinions in a structured way in order to get
reliable statistical results. It is used to quantify attitudes, opinions and behaviors by generating
statistics from a large population of a targeted audience.

Benefits of Qualitative Approach

Qualitative approach is the best way to get in-depth feedback from face-to-face interviews and
group discussions. It is best used when developing new products or coming up with new
marketing initiatives to test the market reaction before making further changes to the strategy. This
approach can tell what existing customers and potential ones think and feel about a new product.
From interviews with individuals and small group discussion, qualitative research can dive in
deeper into the consumers mind, how and why they choose a certain brand of product and what
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motivates the consumers to choose it. Besides the product itself, how the design and packaging
influence the consumer to purchase a certain product and what kind of marketing messages will
attract or turn away customers. Last but not least, this approach will be able to determine if the
price will impact the decision-making of a customer. This unstructured way of getting feedback will
enable interviewer to discuss more in details when answering the questions. In this way, the
interviewer can get more insight into the consumers behavior and discover what the force behind
their decision-making is.

Limitations of Qualitative Approach

This unstructured and free-flowing way of getting response can become a limitation of this
approach. Clear and specific results are not easy to capture. This is because the response from
consumers may be just polite and superficial. In the discussion groups, there may also be a group
of consumers who are dominating and controlling the flow of the discussion. It may result in a
loop-sided discussion which may not be balanced. The view of the more reserved participants will
not be heard and the results will not be accurate. As this approach involved one to one interviews
or small focus groups, it is not a good representation of the whole targeted market. One other
limitation of this approach is the type of interviewee selected. The selection process needs to be
very careful as they should understand the product very well. One example may be an interview
on a new model of a luxurious car. The person selected should be of certain stature or maybe a
professional. You do not want to interview a person who have just graduated and started working
for one or two years. Besides the interviewee, the interviewer selection is vital too. He needs to
probe in depth for answers and make sure that the interviews are not out of the topic. At the same
time, they need to study the body language of the interviewees in order to get the most accurate
results out of the interview. All the above may pose as limitations to the Qualitative approach if the
selection process is not carefully considered.

Benefits of Quantitative Approach

Quantitative approach determines if there is a market for a particular product or service. It is able
to tell what level of awareness there is on the product or service. From this approach, it can
quickly determine how many people are interested in the product or service, what type of
customers are most attracted to the product and what are the buying habits of the consumers. As
a large population is taken from the targeted market, the results are more accurate and can be
derived faster. Quantitative approach uses structured questionnaire for research. By getting many
answers from a set of questions, it is easier to build up a report of what the consumers in the
targeted market really need or want. By repeating the survey approach, Quantitative research can
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help to determine the changing habit of the consumers and help businesses adjust to suit the
needs of their customers.

Limitations of Quantitative Approach

A structured questionnaire approach can have its limitations. Since this approach is not an openended questionnaire, respondents may feel constrained when answering the questions.
Respondents are given limited choices in the questionnaire and they need to choose one of the
best fit. In this way, they may not be able to justify or elaborate on their choice of the answer. The
other limitation is how the survey will be conducted. They are numerous ways like telephone
surveying, surveying by postal mails or emails and lastly face-to-face on the street. Each of these
approaches has its disadvantage. For example during a telephone survey, it is difficult to know
when is a good time to call the person to perform the survey. If a bad time is chosen, it may affect
the result of the survey. As for mail surveying, there is a high possibility that it will end up in the
junk mailbox or recycle bin for postal mails. Lastly, the perception of a persistent surveyor who
keeps asking for a face-to face survey on the street will put off anyone. Thus, how and who to
approach in this research will decide if it will be a success.

Procedures for Conducting Focus Group Study

A Focus Group is a small group of six to ten people led through an open discussion by a facilitator.
The group needs to be large enough to generate meaningful discussion yet small enough to make
sure no participant is left out.
During the planning stage, the research objectives should first be identified in order for the correct
participants to be chosen. A group of individuals with specific qualifications and/or characteristics
will be assembled. The selection criteria may include gender, age, profession and power. Once a
potential participant is identified, there should be some kind of relationship building. There must be
some trust and rapport between the researcher and the participant in order for him to be
responsive during the focus group study. Without this, they may not share their ideas or views
openly and truthfully, thus affecting the accuracy of the study.
Next is the location. A comfortable location will enable participants to feel at ease and will enable
them to share more openly and comfortably. Some considerations include the setting of the
environment, whether it is conducive for participants to share in an informal, casual way. Is the
location accessible in terms of parking, public transport, etc. The timeline is an important
consideration as well since the researcher needs to gather as much information as possible before
the participants call it a day. We do not want to keep them for long hours as this will have certain
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affect their sharing. Last but not least, the questions should be prepared and ready before the
actual day. It should be effective and open-ended. There can be some general questions before
moving to the more serious and specific questions.
During the actual session, the facilitator should arrive before the participants to get ready the
logistics like room and refreshments. The seating arrangement is crucial as a round seating
arrangement will enable all participants to see one another and will not feel isolated. Once the
participants arrive, the tone should be set for a comfortable and enjoyable discussion. The
objective is to let every participant go deep into the discussion topic so that analysis can be done
and data trending can be completed. The facilitator can first introduce himself and give a short
opening on the purpose of the session. This can be followed by a short introduction of each
participant and some warm-up questions to make everyone feel at ease. The session should not
exceed the time frame allocated and within the scope of the topic. The facilitator will make sure
every voice is heard and nobody is left out in the discussion.
After the session, the facilitator will first summarize the things spoken by each participant. After
which the summaries are analyzed to establish trending. Lastly, a report will be generated to
include all information about the background and purpose of the focus group, details of the
sessions, results, and conclusions.
Themes:
1. Anyone tried grocery shopping online or preferred the traditional way of going to supermarket?
2. Who in particular has influenced your shopping habit?
3. Why do you think some people enjoy shopping online?
4. What about those still doing shopping in supermarket? What attract them?
5. What do you enjoy about grocery shopping online or supermarket?
6. What are you most concerned with when shopping in supermarket?
7. What make a customer goes to a particular supermarket instead of another?
8. Is price a determining factor when you are shopping in supermarket?
9. What would make the grocery shopping more appealing to you?
10. Do you have any suggestions how you would want grocery shopping to be like?

Procedures Selecting Respondents for Questionnaire Survey

Firstly, it should be decided on the sampling methodology to select the people for the
questionnaire survey. This can be achieved through random sampling by selecting a group of
respondents randomly from the larger population. Selecting a right sample size is important as this
will determine the accuracy of the survey. However, there are also other methods of selecting
respondents for a questionnaire survey. It can be in the form of an in-house list. This list can be
employees, customers and even potential customers. In the case of NTUC, the union members
who each have a NTUC membership card are in the NTUC in-house list. This is a useful list but
will be handicapped if this is used to determined market trend.
Another way of selection is through the buying the respondents from companies that are selling
the users information. This information can be profiled so that you can get specific respondents
you wanted. However these lists do not come cheap and in Singapore, there is already a law
passed whereby such information can only be distributed at the approval of the users.

Probability Sampling
Probability sampling begins with identifying a smaller sample size from the larger population of
interest. The smaller group will be the representation of this larger group. From the simple random
sample obtained through a larger population, it will then select, at random, a certain number of
individuals to comprise in the sample. With a simple random sample, every member of the larger
population has an equal chance of being selected. This is based on the assumption that there is
an even distribution of characteristics within the population. This method is easy to use and
accurate representation of the larger population. There is no need to divide the large population
into smaller groups and take further steps to break these groups down with selected people.

Non-Probability Sampling
There may be times when it is not possible to generate a sampling size, and the probability that
any individual is selected into the sample is unknown. What is most important, however, is
selecting a sample that is representative of the population. In these situations non-probability
samples can be used. One advantage is to select individuals based on availability instead of
random. Another advantage is to select specific individuals from each specific group. This will
prevent an individual of being selected more than once.

Suggestions on Using Membership Card Information

With the membership card information, NTUC will be able to track the usage of its members. With
NTUC setting up convenience stores around Singapore, they will be able to place each of these
stores in strategic locations so as to reach out to more customers. If they need to clear up certain
old supply quickly, they can make use of this information data and inform its members of the sales
items. They are able to identify the targeted market whenever there is any new product to be
introduced into the market. The collaboration with credit cards companies whereby there is
automated payment scheme; information can be shared between NTUC and the credit card
companies on customers decision making and shopping preferences.

Benefits
With the membership card information, NTUC will be able to tell what the members have
purchased in the specific NTUC branch. In this way, they can accurately predict the stocks to resupply, how much to stock up and where to re-supply. With this information, NTUC can clear up
certain old supply quickly by inform its members of the sales items. This will help them to identify
which group of members are users of certain product category and reach out to them rapidly. The
collaboration with credit cards companies will enable information to be shared between NTUC and
the credit card companies on customers decision making and shopping preferences. This will
serve a win-win situation for both NTUC and the credit card companies

Limitations
Although they are able to track the consumption of its members, NTUC does not have the
capability to track the non-members. This is a disadvantage as they can only predict a percentage
of its customers demand. This information may not be totally accurate as members may not be
utilizing the benefits of the cards. This may happen if a household has more than one union
member. This will mean that they have more than one card per household. In these cases, some
members will not have any information on its unused card. This will make the trending inaccurate
and not a true representation of the demand from users.

Conclusion
Through out the study, we can come to the conclusion that about Qualitative and Quantitative
Approach there are both limitations and benefits, realize the benefit and limitations of the two
methods will make sure that we can maximize the affection of the both method, in order to get to
understand about the consumer's behavior and their thinking, as well as asking direct from the
consumers about their desires.
We are able to conduct the best possible Focus Group study by choosing the right participants,
make sure no one is left out in the discussion, also need to build up the trust between the
participants and researcher.
About Procedures Selecting Respondents for Questionnaire Survey, will need to choose to use
between Probability Sampling and Non-Probability Sampling wisely, or even combine the two
together to get the most accurate result for the research
We also talked about Suggestions on Using Membership Card Information, about the benefit and
limitations of it. We can take advantage of the information gained from membership card to
understand more about the consumer buying behaviour, where they buy and what they buy,
therefore we can focus on developing the products and services on demand.

References
Deming WE (1960), "Sample Design in Business Research", John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (2005), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage
Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 38.
Gelo, O., Braakmann, D. and Benetka, G. (2008), Quantitative and qualitative research: Beyond
the debate, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, Vol. 42 No. 3, pp. 266-290.
Stephan FP and McCarthy PJ (1958), "Sampling Opinions", John Wiley and Sons, New York.

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Superbrands (1994), Superbrands Singapore, viewed 12 Dec, 2015.

http://www.superbrands.com/sg/pdfs/SPB-SG_FA_NTUC.pdf
FairPrice (2015), About us, viewed 12 Dec, 2015.
NTUC FairPrice leads brands index InsideRetailAsia, April 10th (viewed on 12 Dec 2015 from
http://insideretail.asia)
NTUC Annual Report (Consolidated Financial Statements) 2013 available from
http://www.income.com.sg/aboutus/annreport/2013.pdf (viewed on 12 Dec November 2015)
NTUC Income promises simple, honest and different insurance, Cooperative News, ,
http://www.income.com.sg. G. Bpond (2014). (viewed on 12 Dec 2015)

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