Ruddick Inc

Multiple Choice

Ruddick Inc., a chain of grocery stores in Philadelphia, is considering stocking the company Atlanta's 'Binge Oatmeal Cookies with Vitamin Chips'. The store's marketing team conducts a research on feasibility of sales within specific areas and identification of the target market for this product. However, when the product is introduced in the stores, sales do not reach the targeted number. The marketing team realizes that they had overlooked the more popular organically processed whole grain cookies stocked by the competitor store. What type of problem invalidated the research findings in this example?

A) Test-market products are advertised or promoted beyond a profitable level for the market in general.
B) Sample size and design are incorrectly formulated because of budget constraints.
C) The test-market period is too short to determine whether the product will be repurchased by customers.
D) Pretest measurements of competitive brand sales are not made or are inaccurate, limiting the meaningfulness of market share estimates.