CAIE A-Level Business 3.2.1 Market research purposes
Practise explaining why businesses collect market research and how customer, competitor and trend data support decisions.
- Syllabus
- 2026–2028
- Course
- Business 9609
- Level
- AS
Exam points
- explain why market research helps identify customer wants before product decisions
- use market size, growth or competitor evidence to support a business decision
- evaluate whether research is essential for product development in a given case
3.2.1—Market research purposes question 1
Direct News (DN)
Shila and Lucy own and manage DN, an online publishing business. DN produces a daily online local newspaper called QNews. Readers pay a subscription to access QNews. DN's mission statement is: 'to be a daily community newspaper for local people, about local people'.
DN recently tested a monthly online magazine aimed at the 18-30 age group called QLine. DN's plan is to stop publishing QNews and produce only QLine. Secondary market research suggests QLine will be popular with national businesses wanting to promote their products.
Shila is aware that revenue from online newspapers is decreasing. However, she has found national market research data about online monthly magazines (see Table 2.1).
Table 2.1 National revenue for online monthly magazines
Shila thinks that before the business decides to produce QLine, more market research data will be needed. Shila and Lucy will have to decide on new objectives for DN.
To ensure a quality product that meets customer expectations, Lucy thinks it is important to have careful management of the supply chain, from content creation to customer delivery.
Explain one additional piece of market research data DN would find useful before making the decision to produce QLine.
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