Advantages & Disadvantages of Secondary Data

Advantages of Secondary data

(a)   It is economical. It saves efforts and expenses.

(b)   It is time saving. Researcher

(c)    It helps to make primary data collection more specific since with the help of secondary data, we are able to make out what are the gaps and deficiencies and what additional information needs to be collected.

(d)   It helps to improve the understanding of the problem.

(e)   It provides a basis for comparison for the data that is collected by the researcher.

Disadvantages of Secondary Data

(a)   Secondary data is something that seldom fits in the framework of the marketing research factors. Reasons for its non-fitting are:-

(b)   Unit of secondary data collection-Suppose you want information on disposable income, but the data is available on gross income. The information may not be same as we require.

(c)    Class Boundaries may be different when units are same. 

Before 5 Years	After 5 Years
2500-5000	5000-6000
5001-7500	6001-7000
7500-10000	7001-10000

(d)   Thus the data collected earlier is of no use to you.

(e)   Accuracy of secondary data is not known.

(f)     Data may be outdated. Historical data doesn’t give accurate results because as the time is changing people thoughts & preferences are being changed.

(g)   Data is not available of the same location. People are different at different locations; they have different culture, values, education, etc. It becomes bias when someone uses the data of one location in the research of another location.