The latest Market Research trends in 2021

As business resurgence is taking shape, we are clearly seeing requirements of market research work increasing. Companies of different size and scale have started to reassess their priorities and they want to keep their eyes and ears close to their customers.  Most of them are trying to access customer preferences using online mediums to reach maximum number of people in localized areas. Compared to other traditional research, online research is much easier to deliver, you can reach a very large audience in a fraction of time and money and online research tend to be more accurate.

As in a McKinsey article [1] as consumer confidence returns, so will spending, with “revenge shopping” sweeping through sectors as pent-up demand is unleashed. That has been the experience of all previous economic downturns. One difference, however, is that services have been particularly hard hit this time. The bounce back will therefore likely emphasize those businesses, particularly the ones that have a communal element, such as restaurants and entertainment venues. 

How will these sectors respond to the renewed demand? One area that we have covered earlier also is predictive analysis in market research. Regular market research can give an instant idea of how customers will react at the present moment based upon the survey results conducted. However a predictive analysis model like a scale model or architectural model replicates a real-world scenario or idea and scales it down so that only the parts you’re interested in are included. To develop the model, analysts begin by gathering all the data and the variables that can predict some outcome of interest. I have taken this input from the Qualtrics site.

Predictive analysis can help us to predict the future trends of consumer behavior. In the United States, the penetration of e-commerce was forecast in 2019 to reach 24 percent by 2024; by July 2020, it had hit 33 percent of total retail sales.

To put it another way, the first half of 2020 saw an increase in e-commerce equivalent to that of the previous ten years.  In Latin America, where the payments and delivery infrastructure isn’t as strong, e-commerce use doubled from 5 to 10 percent. In Europe, overall digital adoption is almost universal (95 percent), compared with 81 percent at the start of the pandemic.

In normal times, getting to that level would have taken two to three years. Strikingly, the biggest increases came in countries that had previously been relatively cautious about shopping online. Germany, Romania, and Switzerland, for example, had the three lowest online-penetration rates prior to the COVID-19 crisis; since then, usage increased 28, 25, and 18 percentage points, respectively—more than in any other markets. All these facts above make predictive analysis the backbone of market research today.

There can be multiple facets of Predictive Analysis. Some of these include forecasting and future of series, segmentation, pricing analytics, analytics reporting and checkout buyer analytics. Based upon specific requirements clients can choose to adopt the functional element of the product that they want to use. These functions are reaching unprecedented levels of analytics with data for example being directly being collected from the PoS machine at retailers to understand the buying and spending pattern of customers. Today omnichannel marketing has created opportunities for companies to sell across multiple online and physical channels with online slowly becoming the more predominant mode of buying especially during these difficult times. Therefore it is becoming all the more important for businesses to get a grasp of these patterns.

Based upon an article in Marketing Interactive, technology now forms the foundation of market analyses. It has enabled new knowledge sources, diversifying market research to be even faster and more accurate than ever before.

Social media analysis, sentiment analysis, consumer engagement monitoring, video analysis, heat mapping, quick polls, and other tactics are now leveraged by researchers that are no longer focused on one domain only. Increasingly, they are utilizing their true potential within platform-oriented research fields. This way, researchers can find the answers to precarious business questions with simple, yet ultra-specific analyses. Those who are non-buyers of predictive analysis prefer to use situation analyses using the tools mentioned above.  The virtual leap caused by the pandemic means that presenting data and reports will take on new forms wherein companies will only focus on charts, short data points and key information.

In 2021, a real-time focus will be at the forefront. Fieldwork, data processes, and robust analyses that have taken weeks in the past will now be completed in minutes through powerful, automated systems. With these critical factors in focus, companies need to choose the path that they want to take for their market analyses efforts.

Market Research requires specific skillset that many companies do not have. Connect with us at info@intelligentq.co.in so that we can help you create an indepth technology driven research to help you know your customer's buying trends better.