Electronic Commerce - Research Proposal Example

Research Proposal Introduction During recent years, experts (Schneider, pp. 23-25) have noticed a rapid advancement in the field of information technology that has influenced almost every public, as well as private aspect of human lives in a significant manner. Besides, business has remained a major component of human societies since centuries; however, in the past, people continued to manage and run their business domestically, whereas, international business processes took months and even years to travel from one place to another. Even today, a huge number of businesspersons are unable to travel from one place to another due to huge travelling expenses. However, introduction of information technology and especially, internet has resulted in eradication of all such issues (Raisinghani, pp. 11-12). In addition, nowadays, it is an observation that businesses are creating and running their e-businesses on the internet that has altered the fundamental perspective of business in a drastic but constructive manner. While computers and internet have become necessity of every home, companies are now focusing on the tool of internet for sales and marketing of their products and services (Becker, pp. 41-44). Due to such importance of internet, business organizations are now putting efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of internet in terms of marketing and sales, and thus, experts are carrying out studies to evaluate the performance of internet sales of various products and services. In particular, the proposed research will be a part of abovementioned efforts. Research Statement In this regard, the proposed research will focus on the following purpose statement: “To analyze and evaluate the performance of sales for various products and services on the internet internationally.” Aims and Objectives It is expectation that findings of the proposed research will provide a comprehensive and critical understanding of the role of internet in sales of products and services of wide-ranging companies on global level. In addition, the researcher will endeavor to identify a graph of internet sales that will enable the study to come to a conclusion in terms of effectiveness of internet for sales. Moreover, the proposed study will attempt to identify different sociological, psychological, and technological factors (Carlton & Chevalier, pp. 441-61) that increase or reduce the sales on the internet. Literature Review Brief analysis of the literature (Becker, pp. 49-52) has indicated that due to rapid advancement of technology, and availability of internet facility in every home, office, and even cell phones, business organizations are now creating their websites to offer and sell their products and services on the internet that has become second major platform for sales in the world. In the United States, although internet has only one percent of share in the total sales, however, experts believe that with every year, the percent is increasing rapidly, as more and more businesses are accepting notion of e-market and opening their websites (Pinterits, pp. 75-79). Studies (D’innocenzio, 2008) have shown that internet sales for the year 2008 showed an increment of almost seventeen percent from the year 2007 that is a huge achievement. In the year 2007, the total internet sales on international level was 174.5 billion dollars that indicates the potential of this billion-dollar market, whereas, internet sales of various products and services reached 204 billion dollars globally (Nashville Business Journal, 2008). Ebay is one of the most popular websites that enable suppliers, as well as buyers to sell and buy huge range of products within few clicks, and launch of PayPal has played a significant role in increasing the growth rate of internet sales in a drastic manner (Elliot, pp. 63-64). During the month of March 2009, the Office of National Statistics indicated growth rate of fourteen percent. On the other hand, Asos, fashion retailer, reported radical growth rate of 104% in its internet sales that is a remarkable performance of internet sales (News Desk, 2009). Besides Ebay, Amazon is one of the other retail websites on the internet that offers wide-range products that declared increase of eighteen percent in its sales during the first three months of 2009 (News Desk, 2009). Due to such benefits of internet, huge number of businesses is opening their websites annually that will increase the internet sales impressively during the year 2010 despite of global economic crisis (Pinterits, pp. 11-12). In addition, few studies (Holmes, 2006) have indicated that besides developed countries, businesses in the developing countries, especially in the manufacturing (Joaquin, pp. 342-49) and medical sector (Bryant, pp. 226-27) anticipate huge growth in their internet sales. Especially, due to launch of websites such as Alibaba that are providing internet platform to suppliers and buyers from around the world that have been a great contribution towards increasing internet sales globally (Vinoski, pp. 57-60). Methodology In every research, methodology plays an imperative and crucial role, as it is an observation that despite of focused aims and objectives, inefficient methodological approaches result in the misuse of resources, as well as unnecessary findings. In this regard, the proposed research has planned to give significance to methodologies as well. For this purpose, the researcher has identified two particular methods: primary research method and secondary research method. For the proposed research, the researcher will put efforts to benefit from both methodologies. In specific, the primary methodology will include questionnaires that will facilitate in acquiring information regarding internet sales on ground-reality level. If possible, the proposed research will select a business organization as a case study for primary method that will provide effective findings. On the other hand, secondary methodology will be primary approach of the researcher that will involve analysis of books, journals, magazines, websites, etc related to internet sales (Johnson, pp. 11-17) (Williams, pp. 1356-59) and factors associated with it. Secondary method will enable the researcher to acquire information from a wide range of sources, but in an easy and cheap manner, as compared to primary method that will require huge amount of efforts, as well as funding in case of questionnaires. Internet is an efficient platform for secondary methodology that will provide wide-ranging academic journal articles and information of previously carried out studies (Jones, pp. 20-25) (Khosrow-Pour, pp. 29-36) on the same topic that will be very helpful during the proposed study. Conclusion Conclusively, the research proposal has discussed some of the major components of the proposed research that will provide efficient findings after critical and detailed analysis of performance of internet sales for a diverse range of products and services on global level. In brief, the proposed researcher will benefit from both primary, as well as secondary research methodologies to acquire quality information related to the identified research statement. Lastly, it is expectation that the proposed research will be beneficial for students, teachers, and professionals in better understanding of the topic. Works Cited Becker, Annie. Electronic Commerce: concepts, methodologies, tools and applications. Idea Group, 2007. Bryant, J. A. “Online Sales.” Tobacco Control. Volume 11, Issue 3, pp. 226-27. Carlton, Dennis W. & Chevalier, Judith A. “Free Riding and Sales Strategies for the Internet.” The Journal of Industrial Economics. Volume 49, Issue 4, pp. 441-461. D’innocenzio, Anne. “Online Sales expected to rise 17% in 2008.” USA Today. Issue of April 08, 2008. Retrieved on December 22, 2009: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2008-04-08-online-sales-growth_N.htm Elliot, Steve. Electronic Commerce: B2C strategies and models. John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Holmes, Timothy P. “Internet Sale of Wood Products.” Promises, Realities, and Opportunities. May 16-18, 2006. Retrieved on December 22, 2009: http://www.forestprod.org/smallwood06holmes.pdf Joaquin, Catalan. “Internet Medicine Sales and the Need for Homogenous Regulation.” Journal of Medical Marketing. Volume 4, Issue 4, pp. 342-349. Johnson, J. A. Computers. Prentice Hall, 2003. Jones, Marian. Emerging Paradigms in International Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004. Khosrow-Pour, Mehdi. Emerging Trends and Challenges in Information Technology Management. Idea Group, 2006. Nashville Business Journal. “Internet Sales could reach $204B in 2008.” Nashville Business Journal. Issue of April 09, 2008. Retrieved on December 22, 2009: http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2008/04/07/daily23.html News Desk. “Internet Retail Sales Strong in March 2009.” SmallBizPod. Issue of April 24, 2009. Retrieved on December 22, 2009: http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/news/2009/internet-retail-sales-strong-in-march-2009/ Pinterits, Andreas. Coordinating Internet Sales with Other Channels. Gabler Verlag, 2009. Raisinghani, Mahesh S. Electronic Commerce: opportunity and challenges. Idea Group, 2000. Schneider, Gary. Electronic Commerce. Cengage Learning, 2008. Vinoski, Steve. “Integration with Web Services.” Internet Computing. Volume 7, Issue 6, pp. 75-77. Williams, Rebecca S. “Internet Sales of Cigarettes to Minors.” The Journal of the American Medical Association. Volume 290, Issue 10, pp. 1356-59. Read More