Assignment A : Research of the product and competitors The sampling method for this assignment will be non-probability sampling. This means that the probability of each case being selected from the total population is not known and it is impossible to answer research questions or to address objectives that may still require us to make statistical inferences about the characteristics of the population. The non-probability sampling includes quota, purposive and snowball. We choose purposive sampling, because quota sampling is normally used for interview surveys and snowball sampling is commonly used when it is difficult to identify members of the desired population. So these two are not useful for our sampling method so that’s why we choose purposive sampling, because it enables us to use our judgment to select cases that will best enable us to answer our research questions and to meet our objectives. The sample size is 384, because the table on page 212 of the research methods for business students edition 4 says that when you have a population of 10 million or more the sampling size has to be 384 and the Netherlands has over 16 million people. If the sample size increases you will have more errors so that’s why we choose this size. You can say that the data is reliable and valid, because other observers will be able to find consistent data about the competitors so that means that it is reliable, but they will not be able to measure our product the same way so that is validity.