Use of secondary data in research is more economical than primary data. Primary data collection involves preparing of questionnaires for data collection, going to the field for actual collection, editing coding and tabulating of data. This is a very complicated and tire some exercise. Therefore, the prolonged and cumbersome process involved in primary data makes these very costly as compared to secondary data. Secondary data can be collected by the researcher single-handedly in libraries and through other static sources within limited time. On the other hand, collection of primary data may require much longer time. Thus, the money advantage also accompanies the time and effort advantages in the case of secondary data collection vis-à-vis primary data collection.

The secondary data are gathered by certain research agencies of occurrence of various events e.g., census data. These angelicas collect such data for certain purpose of their collections different than the objectives the researcher has in mind while collecting data a particular research problem. The primary data, on the other hand , are collected for meeting a specific objective and there exists a lot of scope for maneuvering these to suit the researcher’s needs. Thus, the bias element is leaser in secondary data as compared to primary data.

Moreover, an individual researcher faces many difficulties while collecting certain primary data (such as data on sales, expenses profits, etc.) form respondents like wholesalers, dealers, retailer competitors, customers, etc. Whereas such data can be gathered by research agencies as their routine affair. The data gathered by research agencies are easily available to the researcher in published form.

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