Market Survey

Definition: Market Survey is another most widely used sales forecasting method which is used to gather information related to the market that cannot be collected from the company’s internal records or the external published sources of data.

The market survey method is typically employed in the situations where the primary data or first-hand data is required to forecast the demand. Such situation exists when the company wants to introduce a new product or a new variant into the market; then it resorts to the primary data.

Similarly, the company entering into a new business relies on the market survey to forecast its demand or sales. Since, there are no past records available with the firm, so it has to collect information from the market or from the customers directly to forecast the sales. Usually, the companies conduct the survey among the sample of consumers to understand their purchasing capacity, attitudes and purchasing habits.

Sometimes, the channel partners are also surveyed to know their attitudes, likely purchases, and the overall industry trend. Often the market survey is used as a synonym of market research or market analysis, but this is not correct. In fact, the market survey is one of the techniques being used in the market research.

The main advantage of the market survey method is that it helps in gathering the original or primary data specific to the problem concerned. But however, a collection of primary data could be time-consuming as well as expensive.