Abstract:

What is usually named motivation research is the application of the methods of psychology and: sociology to commercial problems, and is therefore nothing but a certain type of research in the field of distribution. Its special aim is to understand and to explain the behaviour of the retailer in order to foresee and to influence eventually his future reactions. Another type of research aims essentially to register and to describe directly measurable facts that does not permit to explain those facts and therefore does not foresee the evolution. Both types of research are not contradictive. None of them is superior to the other one they are complementary and the use of one of them depends only on the nature and the extent of the problem one wishes to solve. The object of this very paper is to describe the techniques of the first type of research, the studies in the field of distribution. First of all we call your attention, to the specific problems that have to be solved. Further on we examine some of the techniques used.