Gaeva A.O., Burlakova O.M., Pabat A.A.

Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University, Ukraine

PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES OF ONLINE-RESEARCH IN UKRAINE

Online-research is becoming increasingly popular in the world. According to American experts, half of the marketing researches will be conducted via the Internet soon. The field is relatively new and evolving. With the growth of social medias a new level of complexity and opportunity has been created. Inclusion of social media research can provide unique insights into consumer and societal segments and gaining an "emotional" measure of a population on issues of interest. The Ukrainian marketers are going to conduct them for a long time, and expect that significant progress in the field of marketing researches can be attained via the Internet. But at this stage online-research isn't carried out massively in our country. The cause of it can be found considering the advantages, disadvantages and problems of online-research in Ukraine.

The advantages of online-research in comparison with the so-called traditional offline-research are:

· the low costs of online-research by eliminating the need to pay for the work of interviewers and coders;

· higher rate of it in comparison with traditional research;

· ability to track results of researches online;

· the absence of the "effect of the interviewer." That is no impact on the individual respondent's answers from interviewers, the ability to questionnaires filling yourself;

· time savings for the interview;

· the perception of visual information higher than speech information, so the respondents better penetrate the essence of the issue;

· the Internet also allows avoiding errors arising from the transfer of information from traditional questionnaires into a computer database;

· advanced media opportunities: it becomes possible to send the animation, audio and video files (presentations, commercials, etc.) for interviewee via the Internet;

· increased anonymity of the respondents makes them feel relaxed and be very honest in some research;

· the possibility of a wider spatial coverage of the respondents.

Brands also benefit from online-research by having them on-hand to answer questions, test hypotheses, and observe. Online technology can adapt to almost any research need, be it showing creative stimulus material, gathering ideas for innovation. The continuity built through online networks brings new possibilities for supporting ideation processes.

The disadvantages of online-research in comparison with the so-called traditional offline-research are:

· small number of Internet users are in cities with population less than 100 thousand people and in the countryside;

· many people in Ukraine have low speed of internet connections, and it makes difficult to conduct research online;

· inability to see (touch, smell, use) goods which are being discussed;

· absence of non-verbal reactions, which only the interviewer can notice;

· it’s necessary to have specially trained moderators to work with the online-research.

Perspectives of online-research are sufficiently great. When the level of access to the Internet in Ukraine reaches rates of developed countries (70% and above), much of the traditional surveys will change on on-line surveys. With the growth of the leading players in marketing demand for online survey will be growing (similar to the traditional market) in the audiences, which are widely represented on the Internet (online shoppers, gamers, visitors of forums and chat rooms, members of social networks, etc.).

It’s necessary to understand behavior of consumers on the Internet for making objective decisions in the field of marketing. Also it is important to know what kind of the audience for various Internet-resources and a service is, and to take into account the features of the internet-users psychology in Ukraine along with other details.

In spite of all doubts and difficulties, we have to more actively introduce online-research into practice of Ukrainian marketers than it done now. Success in using online surveys seeking not only to Western experts, but also our neighbors – Russian marketing specialists. Therefore, marketing companies, which do not want to be on the side of the modern trend, have to use unlimited opportunities of the Internet.