The Elementary Study Of New Qualitative Research Approach In Consumer Research

In 21^st century, the enterprise transforms its marketing focus on consumers from products. More and more enterprises attach importance to collect and analyze consumer information in according to which the marketing decisions are made. Whether the enterprise can make strategies by the need of consumers or not will be a key factor for the enterprise's success.In the first charter, the thesis narrates the backgrounds and proposes of the research. In China, the dominant methodology in consumer research is quantitative research. However, there are gaps between the results of the quantitative research and the truth for some reasons, such as the complexity of market information and area diversity in China. It will lead to wrong marketing decision. As an alternative paradigm, qualitative research can do consumer insight and explore the need and motivation of consumers better than quantitative research. At present, the main qualitative research approaches applied in consumer research in China are focus groups and in-depth interview. But, they are not enough completely, so the thesis is aim to develop a new qualitative research approach for consumer research.The second charter sums up the characters and category of qualitative research and the differences between the qualitative research and quantitative research on the basis of the key foreign literature. In the third charter, the thesis analyzes and discusses the philosophy and method of existential-phenomenology. Existential-phenomenological consumer research is that the researcher conduct phenomenological interviews with the participants and the focus of dialogue on the consumption experience, based on which the researchers understand and explain the meaning of consumption experience consumer bracketing the presumption and judgment. The forth charter makes a compare between existential-phenomenology method and focus groups & in-depth interview method in theory and operation level. The last part summarizes the existential-phenomenology.There are two innovations in the thesis. First, the subject is very novel. There is few methodological study on qualitative research of consumer research, so the subjectexploring the new qualitative research on consumer research is fresh and meaningful. Second, it is the exclusive study that developing the method of existential-phenomenology on consumer research and the thesis offers the detail and request of the method. There are many citations on the key and newly foreign literature of qualitative research, which provide a precious reference for the domestic researchers.As a new method of qualitative research of consumer research, existential-phenomenology needs to develop further through the case study, which is the direction and goal of the following study.