Cycling in the UK - A Research Plan for the National Cycle Board

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 62 = 1,7 (A-), Oxford Brookes University (-), language: English, abstract: Although Ayton et al. (2001) show that UK's bicycle market recovered in 2001 after lost turnover due to poor weather in 1999 and the ban of cycling in countryside to avoid spreading of foot-and-moth disease, bicycles cannot be counted to the most favourite goods for both, leisure and transport in the UK. Considering that in other European countries the relative market size is twice as big as the market for the bicycles in the UK (Fahrrad-online, 2002) it has been proofed that there is still a lot of potential in the UK's bicycle-market. To gain a higher level of usage, a reasonable marketing of bicycles has to be carried out. However, and referring to Gater et al. (1965) the essence of marketing is not to be understood as to increase the sale of goods produced by proper marketing-tools, but to produce the goods wanted by the customer. Hence, a reasonable market-research on the question 'when people cycle and if they do so, why they do so' might help the NCSB (National Cycle Strategy Board) to gain a better understanding of the bicycle market in the UK. To avoid wrong interpreting of the data collected and to focus on the relevant target group, Proctor (2000) suggests a systematic approach on the problem-definition. Therefore, this report looks at the following research problem based on a goal orientated approach (Appendix A): 'Explore possible reasons what inhibits people to cycle and vice versa explore motives what encourages people to use bicycles more frequently. Furthermore a detailed consideration of complex market-, product-, and segment-structures is required for this research'.