Short Note on Consumer Panel

Consumer Panel is a group of selected consumers who serve over a period of time as a sample group for marketing research studies. They have agreed to act as members and are selected on the basis of age, income, sex, area and other factors. The members are selected with the help of random sampling or by stratified random sampling. Sufficient care is taken to ensure that the size of the sample, selected is representative and reflects the behavioral qualities of the population.

Consumer panels use ‘Home Audit’ and ‘Diary Method’ for collecting data on consumer behaviour. In home audit method, the researcher personally goes to every panel members home and conducts interview. Sometimes he physically verifies the stock of products surveyed under the panel, or the members are advised to retain wrappers of used packaging for verification purpose.

In Diary Method, the members are asked to record their daily purchase in detail everyday. The researchers at regular intervals visit the homes and collect diaries for study purpose.

Consumer panel is very useful for collecting continuous information of consumer behaviour. It is used to evaluate product, brand awareness, frequency of purchase, repeat buying, advertising effectiveness, brand loyalty and so on. It can also be used to study consumer attitude, market trend, consumer response to price change and many more marketing related topics.