The USA is the most expensive country overall for market research, closely followed by Japan, according to the ESOMAR 2003 Research Prices Study on worldwide research prices. For example, on average, a typical survey will cost more than a third extra to conduct in the USA or Japan than it does in the UK, France and Germany.
The USA is the most expensive country overall for market research, closely followed by Japan, according to the ESOMAR 2003 Research Prices Study on worldwide research prices. For example, on average, a typical survey will cost more than a third extra to conduct in the USA or Japan than it does in the UK, France and Germany.
ESOMAR, the World Association of Research Professionals, invited research companies around the world to provide quotations for the costs of supplying six different types of projects in a study on the relative pricing of different types of research projects. The study shows an average price for each type of study in the countries which participated.
An overall index for each country across all six projects shows a wide variation in the costs of research from the most expensive to least expensive country.
For instance, the six project index ranges from 242 for the USA and 230 for Japan as the most expensive countries to 37 for India and 29 in Bulgaria as the countries where research is cheapest.
For each project, research companies were asked to say if they conducted that particular type of study frequently, occasionally or hardly ever. The study shows that there is a strong correlation between prices quoted and familiarity with the type of project concerned and in many cases, a research supplier's level of experience with a given type of project can have a dramatic impact on the price that is quoted. So, for a particular type of study, a research supplier who conducts studies of that kind only rarely is likely to quote a price 62% above the quote from a supplier who carries out work of that kind frequently.
Contrary to expectations that the range between the upper and lowest quotations would be proportionately less in the markets where research is much better established, this is in practice not found to be so. Even in mature markets such as the USA and Germany, there is a wide variation in prices quoted by different research agencies.
It seems likely that these patterns are just another reflection of the way in which quotations vary according to suppliers' familiarity with the type of project in question. This further emphasises the need for research buyers to make sure that any supplier they plan to use for a particular type of research is experienced in carrying out projects of that type.
The six projects for which quotations were invited were:
The study also shows the average costs that research companies would normally charge a client for a day's work by a junior researcher with up to two year's experience; a senior researcher with five years' experience; a senior data analyst and for one hour's use of a call centre including the costs of one interviewer and national telephone charges.
The fieldwork was conducted between January and February 2003 and a total of 407 research companies, which are all listed in the ESOMAR Directory, participated in the study.
The 2003 ESOMAR Research Prices Study is available free to all ESOMAR members and can otherwise be purchased from ESOMAR: email@esomar.org.
ESOMAR's mission is to promote the use of Opinion and Market Research for improving decision making in business and society worldwide. Founded in 1948, ESOMAR unites 4000 members in 100 countries. The Society facilitates the exchange of experiences between suppliers and users of research in order to optimise the integration of research results into the decision making process.
For more information contact:
ESOMAR
Vondelstraat 172
1054 GV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 664.2141
Fax: +31 20 664.2922
Ms. Rocío Corrales (Email: )
