BUSINESS
Irish on-line research service launched
06-10-2000
by Paul Drury
An on-line market research service has been launched by portal site Online.ie and research company Amarach Consulting.
Clients can ask Online.ie users between five and 15 questions through the portal site, including their opinions, attitudes or commercial preferences. Each survey will run for three weeks and will take a random sample of 500 Online.ie users.
The survey results will then be weighted by social class, gender and region to ensure that respondents are representative of the Irish Internet user base, just as in a normal piece of market research. The weightings will be based on Amarach's own quarterly research.
Once the survey is completed the client will receive an executive summary and analysis of the results with a full set of data tables.
A regular on-line survey of Internet usage is also carried out by the Irish Internet Association and on Wednesday the Information Society Commission published a survey which revealed that 41 percent of Irish people now have access to the Internet. But this is the first bespoke service to be offered to business clients.
Thirty-four percent of respondents to a pilot survey carried out by Amarach and Online.ie during the summer said they would prefer to buy from an Irish Web site even if it meant having to pay 10 percent more for the same goods. The survey also found that 73 percent of Irish Internet users access the Web from home and 63 percent from the office.
Fifty-seven percent of e-commerce Internet users said that they would buy on-line rather than in a shop because it was more convenient. Fifty-one percent of respondents believed that Irish sites were on a par with Web sites in the US and the UK; 11 percent believed Irish Web sites to be better while 37 percent believed them to be worse than their US and UK counterparts.
An electronic copy of the pilot survey can be found at http://www.amarach.com or http://www.online.ie
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