Basic Marketing Research 7th Edition by Gilbert Churchill,Tom Brown,Tracy Suter

Exercise 4

For many years, Home Decorating Products had been a leading producer of paint and painting-related equipment such as brushes, rollers, turpentine, and so on. The company is now considering adding wallpaper to its line. At least initially, it did not intend to actually manufacture the wallpaper but, rather, to subcontract the manufacturing. Home Decorating Products would assume the distribution and marketing functions.
Before adding wallpaper to its product line, however, Home Decorating secured some secondary data assessing the size of the wallpaper market. One mail survey made by a trade association showed that, on the average, families in the United States wallpapered two rooms in their homes each year. Among these families, 60% did it themselves. Another survey, which had also been done -by mail but by one of the major home magazines, found that 70% of the subscribers answering the questionnaire had wallpapered one complete wall or more during the previous 12 months. Among these families, 80% had done the wallpapering themselves. Home Decorating Products thus has two sets of secondary data on the same problem, but the data are not consistent.
Discuss the data in terms of the criteria one would use to determine which set, if ei-ther, is correct. Assume that you are forced to make the determination on the basis of this information. Which would you choose