The venerable focus group has been a go-to market research solution since first invented by Robert Merton at the Bureau of Applied Social Research. But, times change and innovation marches on. Today, online communities are clearly a much better choice for many important market research projects. In Part 1 of this 2-part blog post, we'll cover five important advantages of online vs traditional focus groups.

The competitive landscape in the grocery industry just keeps getting stiffer. Why? One important factor is that shoppers don’t rely on a single store anymore for all their needs. Instead, they are buying specialty items at one store, and more basic ones at another. (Read this article from the StarTribune that inspired this post.) Additionally, “value” has taken on a new meaning for them. Not only is the price of groceries taken into account, but so is time and gas money.

It’s already a couple months into the New Year, but it’s never too late to discuss emerging or already popular trends in market research.

As part of our ongoing innovation efforts, we are constantly testing new and promising market research technologies, platforms, methods, and tools. We call this testing ground FGI Labs. Our most recent lab topic is mobile market research.  In addition to rigorously testing the potential pitfalls of response bias from mobile respondents vs. personal computer respondents, we are testing consumer preferences for surveys on mobile and Smartphones.