In India, online only accounts for a small share of the market research market. The overwhelming majority of market research projects here take place face-to-face. But the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in brands beginning to consider online options.
The dominance of face-to-face market research can be explained by a number of factors, and these need to be carefully understood in order to successfully pivot to an online approach. In metro and tier 1 cities, laptop ownership is commonplace and as a result online panels are fairly well established. But metro and tier 1 cities aren’t representative of India as a whole, and in suburban and rural areas it’s a different story. Panel coverage is limited and this, combined with low levels of literary and a cultural predisposition to trust in-person over digital interactions, means that face-to-face is the preferred approach for conducting research in these areas.
What’s promising though is the high levels of mobile penetration in suburban and rural areas. Thanks to new mobile data plans, most households in these areas have access to at least one mobile phone between them, and this only looks set to improve.
So what does this mean for online research in India? The first thing to be mindful of is that there is no one size fits all approach. Of course the methodology used for any project needs to be carefully considered, but in India it’s of crucial importance that you bear in mind the target group of respondents you want to reach and the devices they have access to.
Of course the methodology used for any project needs to be carefully considered, but in India it’s of crucial importance that you bear in mind the target group of respondents you want to reach and the devices they have access to.
In metros or tier 1 cities for instance, digital depth interviews conducted on a laptop or desktop via Skype will be a good way to reach more niche audiences that can’t be accessed through online panels, for example, people who own a particular model of car or buy a certain brand.