Cambridge O Level Business Studies · Syllabus 7115 · Marketing
Secondary Research
What is Secondary Research?
The use of data that already exists, having been collected previously by another organisation or for another purpose, from sources such as online information, government statistics, published reports and commercial market-research studies. It is faster and cheaper than collecting new data and can cover very large populations, but it may be out of date, too general for the decision, or equally available to competitors.
This definition is part of the Marketing chapter in Cambridge O Level Business Studies.
Questions students ask about Secondary Research
What is the difference between primary and secondary research?
Primary research collects new data specifically for this decision, through methods such as questionnaires, interviews or observation; secondary research uses data that already exists, such as government statistics or published reports. Primary data is more relevant because it was collected for the exact question being asked, but it is not automatically more accurate — a badly worded survey on a small biased sample is worse than a reliable national statistic.