A comparison of online and postal data collection methods in marketing research

Abstract

The widespread acceptance of the use of online techniques in market research necessitates appreciation of the relative advantages and disadvantages of these techniques over more traditional research methods. This paper reports on a study which directly compares online and postal data collection methods using the same survey instrument on two samples drawn from the same population of football club subscribers. The results confirm that the online and postal respondents are demographically different. Online data collection is shown to be less expensive per respondent and that data collection is faster, however, an overall lower response level is achieved relative to the postal data collection method. Of greater importance, though, are the findings that respondents seem to answer questions differently online than they do via postal methods. The conclusion here is that online data collection should not be treated as a direct substitute for postal data collection in every instance.

Differences in responses to Web and paper surveys among school professionals

“…In addition, Web surveys are linked with substantially higher rates of nondelivery. Nondelivery rates between 18% and 67% have been reported for electronic mail surveys (Bachmann et al, 2000;McDonald & Adam, 2003), contrasting sharply with negligible nondelivery rates for paper surveys. Although electronic nondelivery rates have decreased in recent years (McDonald & Adam, 2003), the number of e-mails that fail to reach their intended recipients but that are not returned to their senders (e.g., ones that are rerouted by spam filters) cannot easily be ascertained.…”

“…Over 250 survey research studies have been completed using the Internet (Reips & Lengler, 2005). Web surveys have several advantages over traditional paper surveys: greater convenience, lower cost, faster transmission, more rapid response, and fewer data entry errors (Cobanoglu, Warde, & Moreo, 2001;Dillman, 2000;McDonald & Adam, 2003;Sheehan & McMillan, 1999). The ease of transmission of Internet surveys allows researchers to gather information from geographically and demographically diverse samples, facilitating access to a wider range of individuals (Reips, 2002).…”

Using email questionnaires for research: Good practice in tackling non-response

“…3 There is general agreement about the wide-ranging benefits of email surveys, which include low transmission and collection costs, immediate transmission and response and ease of use. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Despite these advantages, email surveys have several drawbacks. According to Ranchhod and Zhou, 11 a major concern is the low response rates associated with the method.…”

Supportive Legislation, Unsupportive Employers and Collective Bargaining in New Zealand

“…The reasons for the low online response rate could be attributable to the disadvantages associated with conducting such surveys, which include participants' time (Wright, 2005), concerns about participants' representation (McDonald and Adams, 2003) and the possible threat of internet viruses (Fricker and Schonlau, 2002). Overall, there were 892 responses out of the total sample of 6800 private sector organizations, resulting in an overall response rate of 13.1%, acceptable by comparative studies.…”