Management of Marketing Research Projects: Does Delivery Method Matter Anymore in Survey Research?

Abstract

This study compared both online and offline survey modes in a single study about people's attitudes toward furniture shopping. Differences in sample characteristics were obtained between modes and between sample and population parameters. Overall, online and offline modes of survey delivery appear to be equally susceptible to population parameter biases except for gender. Online modes had lower response rates and higher item omission rates than offline modes. Online modes did not emerge as the lowest cost per respondent as hypothesized. Furthermore, results suggested that the quality of data obtained by online modes may be somewhat inferior to data collected by offline survey modes.