In general, the survey is conducted to investigate your preferences when buying convenience goods.
The survey may take some time becuase it requires some thinking and typing at times, but I deeply hope you will like to participate and help me :
Last question of this questionnaire:
"What should companies do to make convenience goods more attractive to you?"
This is really quite the opposite of decreasing consumption, isn't it?
And by the way, your definition of 'convenience goods' is peculiar. At one point you include food, then 'impulse' convenience goods are defined as non-essentials.
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Rachel
Take nobody's word for it, especially not mine! If I offer you an ID of something based on a photo, please treat it as a guess, and a starting point for further investigations.
I reckon this is spam or email harvesting. A new member of the forum with no previous posts to their name pops up and posts a questionaire about your shopping habits. Doesn't sound very likely to me.
Malc
High in the sky, what do you see ?
Come down to Earth, a cup of tea
Flying saucer, flying teacup
From outer space, Flying Teapot
My first thought was 'spam' too, but then I saw student project and thought it could well be genuine. I think it might actually be a student project (no email requested) but it's in Marketing.
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Rachel
Take nobody's word for it, especially not mine! If I offer you an ID of something based on a photo, please treat it as a guess, and a starting point for further investigations.
No this is not spam :) I am in fact a student within the field of marketing. My thesis revolves around what is defined as "anti-consumers" which is a growing segment. People have various reasons for believing in anti-consumption, so I try to investigate this consumer beahviour from a Marketing perspective to understand if, and how, it affects the general attitude towards convenience goods. I apologise any misunderstandings regarding the definition of convenience goods (however, whether you understand the distinction between staple and impulse goods is not very important, as long as you know what defines convenience goods).
Perhaps if you'd made that clear you may have had more constructive responses.
You've probably come to the right place to find your 'anti-consumer',but as such the wording of your original post was strange,why would an 'anti-consumer' bother with 'convenience'goods ? (or at least admit doing it!).There is a strong vein of 'self-reliance' running through this site,and with that goes an inclination question the value of things like convenience foods,and to be honest,Marketing itself.
Anyhow, best wishes in your chosen field,I hope it works well for you,didn't work badly for Cameron did it?
Here's some information for your thesis (and anyone who thinks these sweeping generalizations are wide of the mark, please contradict me ):
Anti-consumers don't like:-
Convenience goods
Impulse shopping
Marketing
Being identified as a market segment
People trying to sell us stuff.
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Rachel
Take nobody's word for it, especially not mine! If I offer you an ID of something based on a photo, please treat it as a guess, and a starting point for further investigations.
I didn't think the survey was particularly well thought-out. I didn't see any questions that would have identified whether or not my beliefs were anti-consumerist, nor any that would have illuminated my reasons for being so.
The emphasis seemed to me to be "how can we get you (even if you are anti-consumerist) to consume more stuff?" Which, of course is the whole point of marketing, and the reason anti-consumerists don't like marketing. Anti-consumers are the enemy of marketers, and the purpose of marketing surveys is to subvert us.
I started to fill it in until I got to the convenience food bit then decided not to go any further.
I don't want to criticise your survey because I know how much time and emotion can be involved devising these things but I'm just not clear what information you're trying to get from it. As others have said it seems like you're asking the folks who try to consume less to tell you what would persuade them to consume more.
As I see you had similar problems on Reddit, maybe you should look at either your target audience, or your survey.
Maggie
Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin
The other problem is how you introduced the survey. To use your very first post on a forum to ask people to fill in a questionaire is not a terribly good idea. I would have introduced myself, asked if I could post a link to a questionaire and explained about the questionaire first.
Malc
High in the sky, what do you see ?
Come down to Earth, a cup of tea
Flying saucer, flying teacup
From outer space, Flying Teapot
Agree with Keith, I never take these market research surveys because I am not yer normal shopper nor ever likely to be, I don't have a loyalty card with any of these supermarkets because it is another way of harvesting your information and of course, most people on this forum have already decreased their consumption of consumer goods and ready meals etc, most of these surveys are done in the street where you get a wider range of people and their habits.
I also agree with most of the above comments and also gave up half-way through because I simply couldn't answer the questions. I haven't bought a convenience meal in decades, except the odd take away, which I suppose counts but isn't quite what you mean here. I also got the sensation that the survey was trying to work out what marketing strategy could be used to appeal to those with anti-consumerist sentiments.
Additionally, I wouldn't really call myself 'anti-consumption'. For a start, we all consume in one way or another, because apart from that tiny group of people who can declare themselves 100% self-sufficient, we all have to consume to one degree or another. Also, I'm not really 'anti', I just choose not to be swayed (or at least I try not to be) by marketing, public opinion, adverts, and so on. I don't buy sweet red wine either, cos I don't particularly like it, but I wouldn't call myself 'anti-sweet red wine' as that kind of implies taking action against it.
Thinking about it more, I suppose we all buy convenience foods. I was just thinking about pasta. I always make my own pasta, but I buy the flour. That, I guess, is convenient as it saves me having to buy in the grain and milling it myself. Then again, the grain I suppose could be classed as a convenience food, as if I buy grain, it saves me the hassle of growing it.
):
