1Do you see any disadvantages to scannerbased marketing rese

1-Do you see any disadvantages to scanner-based marketing research?

2-Why is competitive intelligence so hot in today\'s business environment?

3-Is it possible for marketers to reconcile the desires of consumers looking for the \"next big thing\" with those of consumers who like their product or service the way it is? Explain.

4-Is it possible to make a homogeneous shopping product into a heterogeneous shopping product? Think of examples such as flat-panel tvs and front-loading washers.

Solution

Q1) Below are the disadvantages to scanner-based marketing research -

1. As the scanner-based research relies on the past buying behavior and the influence of advertisments, promotion, pricing etc., its accuracy to predict future behavior as it doesn\'t provide any reasons to the consumer buyinh behavior rather it just provides the observations.

2. Cost associated with installing and performing analysis is higher.

Q2) Competitive intelligence provides information about all the aspects of competitive environment which include competitors, customer, products etc. to support the management in strategic decision making. It is a holistic analysis of competition in the industry and saves time and money for the firm as it doesn\'t require it to conduct separate analyses for each of the aspects. Firms can achieve significant shareholder value using competitive intelligence by designing and implementing strategies that are ahead of the competition.

Q3) It is possible for marketers to reconcile the desires of consumers looking for future products with those of consumers who like the product or service the way it is - By selling different variants of similar product at different prices to ensure the consumers from each group can choose to purchase the one they desire. This would help the marketers in saving on promotional costs as well as product development costs as what the firm builds for new age consumers is an add-on on existing one.

Q4) It is possible to make a homogeneous shopping product into a heterogeneous shopping product by adding new features to the homogenous products to ensure there is a considerable differentiation in the products. Based on this, the firm can launch future versions of the product with add-on features thus making it relevant for a longer time.