There are some other methods of data collection, particularly used by big business houses in modern times. They are described below:
(1) Warranty Cards:
These cards are postal sized cards which are usually used by dealers of consumer durables to collect information regarding their products.
The information sought is given in the form of questions printed on these cards. These warranty cards are placed inside the package along with the product requesting the consumer to fill in the card and post it back to the dealer. On analysis of the merits and demerits of his product one can change the quality, quantum and size of the product.
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(2) Distributor or Store Audits:
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This method of collecting information is used by distributors as well as manufacturers through their salesmen at regular intervals. Distributors get the retail stores audited through their salesmen and use such information to estimate market size seasonal purchasing pattern and so on. The data are collected not by questions but by observation.
For example, in case of a medical store audit, a sample of stores is visited at regular intervals and data are recorded inventories in hand either by observation or by copying from store records. The chief merit of this method is that it offers the most efficient way of evaluating the effect on sales of variations of different techniques of in store problem.
(3) Pantry Audits:
This method is used to estimate consumption of the basket of goods in the final hands of the consumers. Under this audit technique, the investigators collect an inventory of types, quantities and prices of commodities consumed. Thus data rerecorded from the examination of consumer’s pantry. It aims at finding out what types of consumers buy certain products and certain brands, the consumption being that the contents of the pantry accurately portray consumer’s preferences.
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It gives sufficient information regarding the accurate picture of consumer’s preferences. But an important demerit of this method is that it may not be possible to identify consumer’s preferences from the audit data alone, particularly when sales promotion devices are used leading to increase in sales.
(4) Consumer Panels:
When the pantry audit method is extended and undertaken on a regular basis it is known as ‘Consumer Panel’. Under this technique a set of consumers are arranged to come to an understanding to maintain detailed daily records of their consumption and the same records are made available to the investigator or researcher on demand.
Thus a consumer panel is essentially a sample of consumers who are interviewed regularly at intervals over a period of time. Such panels are used in the area of consumer expenditure, public opinion and radio and TV listenership among others. These panels are used through mail.
(5) Use of Mechanical Devices:
These devices are used by way of indirect means to collect information. Most of the modern business houses use eye camera, pupilometric camera, psycho galvanometer, motion picture camera and audiometer for the purposes of collecting the required information.
(6) Projective Techniques:
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This technique of data collection has been developed by psychologists. Projections of respondents for inferring about underlying motives, urges or intentions which are such that the respondent either resists to reveal them or is unable to figure out himself. This sort of technique requires intensive specialized training. Some of the important projective techniques are word association tests, sentence completion tests, story completion tests, verbal projection tests and pictorial techniques.
(7) Depth Interviews:
These interviews are designed to discover underlying motives and desires and are often used in motivational research. These interviews aim at exploring needs, desires and feelings of respondents. This technique requires great skill on the part of the interviewers or researchers and at the same time it requires considerable time. In depth interview presupposes that the researcher has got specialized training.
(8) Content Analysis:
This method of data collection consists of analyzing the contents of documentary materials such as books, magazines, newspapers and contents of other verbal materials which can be used either in the spoken or printed form. Content analysis was used as quantitative analysis of documentary materials concerning certain characteristics that could be identified and counted before 1940.
But since 1950 this analysis has been used to study the qualitative aspects of the characteristics. The difference between these two types of analysis has been stated by Gooe and Scates: “The difference is somewhat like that between a casual interview and depth interviewing.
“The propounder of the second analysis is Bernard Berelson. According to him ‘content analysis is measurement through proportion content analysis measures pervasiveness and that is sometimes an index of the intensity of the force’.