This method involves publication on the Internet of the questionnaire with an open or special access that can be filled online by the target group from the PC in any comfortable place.
More often respondents, whose characteristics fit to the customer’s requirements, can be informed beforehand by phone about the progress of the poll and get a link to the questionnaire (offline surveys). It allows to satisfy the basic claim to the polls of this type, such as data reliability, as far as classic online surveys (Internet polls), introducing, in fact, a huge snowball, and does not guarantee the representativeness of the data. That is why this type of data collection is not suitable for several thousand of general totality.
The main advantage of online polls is a relatively low cost and fast information processing. The customer can get a tabular report immediately after the last respondent enters this personal data.
At the same time another relevant drawback of this method is the problem of the unpredictability of data collection terms, as the respondent can fill in a virtual checklist in any convenient time.