Including "touch-and-feel" in online consumer research: optimizing information gain given costs of data online versus in-person.

Given the high cost to corporations of in-person data collection attributable to focus group facility rental costs, recruitment costs, and honoraria, the corporate market researcher working with finite budget must weigh the pros and cons of in-person versus online research for tangible goods. The purpose of the study was to establish a practitioner accessible approach to maximizing information gain per dollar spent collecting sample. In phase one, a repeated-measures sample was obtained from in-person respondents who also completed the research online. Using the phase one covariance of online/in-person ratings, phase two online-only data were collected, transformed, and blended with phase one data to create a weighted purchase intent metric reflecting both online and in-person evaluations. By blending in-person (expensive) and online (cheap) data collection modes, cost-savings were realized without expanding the confidence internal around purchase intent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]