Picture this. You’ve noticed personnel staffed at a mall by a fast-growing food brand. They’re asking people to fill out a printed form in lieu of a quick sip from the new energy drink. Out of a thousand people being approached on a crowded Sunday, a handful respond, sip the drink, and fill in their opinions. Nine hours of effort gets the person the data from random people that can give their study a new dimension. Such a process is called convenience sampling.

But what’s the benefit of such a haphazard data collection mechanism, you might ask. Well, this also has a place in market research. Let’s round up on the convenience sampling mechanism today.

What is Convenience Sampling?

With convenience sampling, you target a small group of people who might be interested in your survey because they’re somehow related to the study’s concerns. This process is simple and easy. In most situations, the audience doesn’t cover a large population but still fulfills the purpose.

Convenience sampling has only one criterion: to find people willing to participate. Since the data doesn’t represent any particular demographic requirements, this process is known to generate results with errors. Your sampling population is so random it can skew the results. Or worse, may not conclude anything concrete.

However, if done intelligently, market research has a place for this random process.

For instance, you can place the samples outside beauty salons and cosmetic stores rather than testing people’s opinions in a mall about a newly launched perfume. Despite being random and having no specific demographic criteria, customers in such outlets are more prone to understand a new fragrance. And hence, it narrows down your approach to a focused fragment of a larger population. You’re still doing convenience sampling without much effort.

When and Why Should You Use Convenience Sampling?

    1. If You’re Pressed for Time

You’ve money and resources but are pressed for time. You need to collect data on a time-sensitive topic. In such a scenario, convenience sampling works well because it doesn’t need elaborate planning or strategy to execute the research. Convenience sampling is also useful in trend analysis.

Say you’re introducing a new mobile in the market in the next 3 days and decide to offer a freebie that fits the trend. You don’t have time to roll out quantitative market research because you will use the next 3 days to find the freebie and arrange for it to reach the outlets in the market and online stores.

In such a case, you simply should ask through your social media handles about your users’ choice of a freebie worth your budget. Toss them a few choices you’re willing to invest in and monitor the replies, DMs, and comments for a day. And Tada! You know what to offer as a gift to your customers.

    2. When You Run Out of Budget

You’ve already exhausted a huge part of your finances in product development and other activities. You have now run out of cash to conduct online surveys for cash in India with a niche audience. Also, waiting on the results and analyzing the outcome using a data analysis tool can be heavy on your pocket. You might run a 2-question survey with your prospects in such a situation.

If you’ve recently launched a new clothing line and have received a good response, you want to now gear up for the festive season. But you’re not sure which color would sell better. And you’ve all the cash in the pipeline booked for the business. In such a case, you can ask the customers online and offline about the colors they want to see and get a gist of their liking for a festive season.

    3. When the Invested Efforts are Limited

This sampling method can be fruitful for new businesses with a lot to take care of from the start. If you’re running out of time and resources—social media reach, data collection methods, a sophisticated panel, data cleaning mechanism, and reporting tools—use convenience sampling.

For example, you’ve just started a new book store at the center of a busy street and have a good collection of books. Now you want to have an inviting display for daily sales of magazines and newspapers. You can ask people crossing the road and stepping inside your outlet about the journals and dailies they like to read or admire. This helps you stock the pile at the newspaper stand without rolling out a stretched and expensive study.

You can even ask your customers’ preferences at the cash register to get an idea. By the end of a week, you know what needs to be stocked up in the magazine rack, and you haven’t used any helping hand or extra time to walk out of your store.

    4. If Expertise isn’t Your Forte

Convenience sampling is as easy as walking in a garden and as handy as mobile these days. Anyone can perform this research for whatever purpose they have in mind without having tools in their grab.

A new home baker about to start their business can collect data using convenience sampling. They only need to ask what people prefer in cakes and confectionery. Their target audience need not represent a large population or should fit into a niche category of age and profession. The baker can simply invest a day in a garden and apartment complex to seek people’s views.

No more than investing the time and you gather data just in a day.

Before You Leave…

Convenience sampling comes with a cost, too. The data is so random and the audience is so arbitrary, your result is bound to have a huge scope of improvement and is unfit for qualitative market research. Biases also sneak in. And the results don’t represent a large population.

However, there is no valid reason not to perform refined market research when you are resourceful and want a good result. For all such needs, you can contact our parent brand, Track Opinion, to start a discussion on the right method for you.