Jerome’s customers are in the middle and upper middle income bracket and the store bases its reputation on having good, serviceable and not-too-fashionable clothing. The store also sells popular lines of cosmetics. Like all good department stores, the firm has a variety of departments ranging from china and jewellery to soft furnishings. At one time the firm also sold major electrical appliances but competition became too cut-throat and the firm decided to withdraw from that market. In the last 12 months the store has experienced a slowing down of sales of clothes. Management felt that perhaps this was because it was not really very fashion conscious in what it had to offer. As a result a decision was taken to have a market research study conducted to ascertain whether the store should stock more designer clothing in the men’s, women’s and children’s departments. It was intended that the survey interviews were going to be conducted in the consumers’ homes and would last more than one hour and a half. Jerome planned to show respondents a number of potential lines that could be added, including examples of clothing and information about the clothes designers. The cost of the proposed survey was of some concern to management. As a result, management was particularly concerned about the number of interviews that should be taken since this would obviously influence the total cost of the exercise. Question: Specifically, what approach should Jerome’s take to sampling?

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