Marketing Research in Shanghai
We started our primary marketing research in Shanghai on Monday, 9th May by visiting some electronic stores in certain malls. We wanted to better understand consumer behavior and pricing, and also be able to estimate the market size if we introduce our client's product to the Chinese market. Trying to talk to the sales representatives at these stores as college students working on a project, we realized that they were quite secretive about their sales information, and even refrained from sharing any in depth information about the products that they had on display. And so, we had to resort to some other story to tell the sales representatives in other stores in order to get them talking. We did not ask any sales information from then on, but tried to learn more about the purifiers that were being sold: the different brands, price ranges and also if they sold filters in the stores. It turned out that only one of the stores sold a particular brand’s filters, while all other stores mentioned that customers would have to purchase replacement filters in after sales centers of the various brands.The other difficulty we faced was in talking to the general public passing by the stores about their air purifier purchasing experience. Everyone seemed to have a bias about being open to people asking them questions, even though we had our Chinese experts approach them. They almost always assumed that we were selling air purifiers, and therefore were keen to get rid of us. However, when we tried the same with some of the Americans or Europeans living in Shanghai, they were very happy to share their experience and were much more open than the local people. So the important lesson we learnt was that it would be necessary to know the people you interview for primary marketing research information and not to try and talk to strangers in public places.
Also, we had a survey prepared to send out to known networks and this seems to be the most successful approach. Although people do expect some incentive at the end of the survey like ‘Red Pockets’, connecting to people through WeChat is highly effective. WeChat is the main social media channel in China and using it is very convenient to reach out to known people and groups and request them to fill out the surveys. We also grew our network with the help of Ms. Phoebe You, the director of the OSU Global Gateway Office. We learned that it would have been important and beneficial to make contacts here prior to coming in order to be able to get in touch with useful resources for marketing research.
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