week2 EOC

The market research that I decided to analyze was the U.S. market for coffee. America is the biggest coffee consumers in the world. Coffee is readily available everywhere from gas stations, airports, hospitals, trains terminals, and high schools. As a result of that the coffee market is extremely competitive. This survey mainly focuses on packaged coffee in supermarkets, convenience stores, club stores, coffee houses, and mail orders this survey used primary and secondary research. Primary research involved on site examinations including interviews, public relations and industry analysts with coffee marketers and consultants. The secondary research entailed data gathering from business and government sources. In the report it give the current market (2008) the marketers, competitive profiles, distribution strategies, the consumer, the products, and trends and opportunities.

The book essentials of marketing research defines descriptive research as descriptions of characteristics of object, people, groups, organizations, or environments. Since this surveys main object is to describe I believe that this is descriptive research. It is simply painting a picture of the market. Who buys coffee, what kind of coffee is brought, when do they buy it, where do they like to buy it and ultimately why. I also believe that this is a cross sectional study. Cross sectional studies seem to give you a snapshot of the market.  In this form of study they observe without disrupting the subjects and then gather the characteristics of them through data. However unlike longitudinal study cross sectional does not give you cause and effect relationships.