Preference Goods - Dissertation Example

?Chapter Introduction a. Rationale or background of the study The European Union conducts different researches on many different topics especiallyon issues that influence Europe in particular. It is clear that internet is one of the most important aspects in European economy and it continues to influence Europe in general. In today’s market, consumers buy increasingly more products on the internet and retailers are developing online activities to aim at consumers. For instance, customers can buy online at ebay and other online shopping centers on the web. This increases the possibility for retailers to influence buying behaviors of consumers. In line with this, it is important to understand further the buying behaviors of consumers and their experiences in online shopping and their views and satisfaction level on it. In order to understand this further, there is significantly a need to conduct research. Customer satisfaction is very important in the market environment. Many believed that satisfied customers are most likely to repeat purchase and are most likely to give out a good word of mouth on the product. On the other hand, customer satisfaction is a very complex issue since it may contain different meaning among individuals. For some, customer satisfaction may be defined as something that would only make both ends meet. For others, customer satisfaction may be defined as something very satisfying to the extent that one may never ask for more. Thus, because of these different ideas about customer satisfaction, it is always been a common thought that customer satisfaction is a measure of product or service quality. Customer satisfaction is a very important aspect that needs to be always monitored by marketers. It is in this reason that customer satisfaction remains as one of the most important indicators used in order to describe the quality of output given by the marketers. b. Purpose of the study The findings of the study would be beneficial to the following: This would serve as basis for formulation of marketing strategies plan and further reference for assessing the existing marketing practices. Information derived from this study may be used as a guide and awareness on their marketing position in their industry as well as creating and enhancing products for their existing market and potential ones. This would be a tool for each marketer to quantify their effectiveness in marketing with respect to the existing online marketing. c. Aims or objectives of the study This paper tries to investigate the customers’ experience in online shopping, and their views and satisfaction level on it. In general, this research tries "to gauge the customers’ experience in online shopping and their views and satisfaction level on it. Specifically, the study is able: To know about the level of customer satisfaction that each of the 30 chosen respondents has with their experience in online shopping. To gauge the level of customer experience level in online shopping. To gauge the views and satisfaction level of the customers with their online shopping experience d. Problem statement and key questions Prior to performing the study, the proponent has in mind the following problem statements which gave way to the actual implementation of the research plan. Are the customers having high experience level in online shopping Do customers have high views and satisfaction level in online shopping e. Research design and methodology Hypothesis testing In order to test the above mentioned hypotheses, the proponent primarily employed mean and percentages. Testing of the hypotheses in this case was based on evaluative process employed in the research. Thus, the proponent discusses the nature of information as presented on the trend of data as generalised by the values obtained from mean and percentages. The scale of measurement used was ratio, which is the highest type of scale having absolute zero value (Broto, 2007). This was used considering that the values obtained in the data involved zero. To be able to test the above hypotheses, the bottom line is to compare the responses of respondents on factors affecting their satisfaction. These factors are: frequency of online shopping, frequency of shopping at stores or malls, the use of credit cards, disposal of unwanted goods, return of unwanted goods, perceived best aspects in online shopping, disclosure of personal information, the use of chat or blog, satisfaction of delivery schedules, and satisfaction of product quality. , These are factors which are important in choosing online shopping are analysed in detail. Thus, the following are formulated null hypothesis (Ho) and alternative hypothesis (Ha) using t-Test and f-Test. Ho: There is no difference of response of respondents on factors they believe important in choosing online shopping. Ha: There is a difference of response of respondents on factors they believe important in choosing online shopping. Level of significance: ? = 0.05 or 95% level of confidence. Decision Rule: If the P-value is less than or equal to ? = 0.05, then the null hypothesis have to be rejected and accept the alternative hypothesis otherwise. Type I and II errors: Accepting or rejecting hypothesis as opposed to what should have been made is considered an error in the decision making process. Sampling Plan The proponent considered 15 males and 15 females who have considerable experience in online shopping. Thus, there were 30 respondents overall. The respondents were all of legal ages ranging from 21 to 40 years old with multi cultural diverse background. The target respondents are those who are into online shopping at least twice or more in a month. These respondents are students in a certain class. They comprised the total population of the study. However, not all of these respondents could possibly join in the survey process thus, it was important to consider taking representatives from their whole population. The proponent therefore employed representative sampling in the study. The good thing about representative sampling according to Petersen et al. (2005) is that it will never compromise the correctness of obtained information. Even though respondents were considered representative of the whole population, they were all randomly chosen. The good thing about this random yet representative sampling is to ensure impartiality on the part of the proponent. This type of sampling corresponds to the correct definition of sampling which is taking specific subset of a certain population to represent the characteristics or nature of the entire population in a more accurate way (Lo, 2009). The sample size is more than 10% of the entire population. This provides a good estimate and precision of representativeness of sample from the entire population (Rosen, 1997). There are many available sampling techniques but not all of them can give desirable output at a specific design of study. One of these sampling techniques which is commonly used is the cluster sampling technique. In this study it was practical to use cluster sampling technique in order to capture another specific responses from specific classification of respondents in a practical and useful way (Chaudhuri and Pal, 2003). After all, as mentioned earlier, there were 15 males and 15 females chosen as the sample size of respondents. Research designs and data collection This study employed descriptive research since its nature would be more into conclusive research. This alone separates descriptive research from exploratory research. According to Boyd et al. (1977), exploratory research involves searching of secondary data, survey of knowledgeable person and even case study. This eventually is far from conclusive research which involves descriptive research such as case study and statistical study and finally experimentation. Considering that the data obtained in the study were coming from survey through the distributed questionnaire, the data gathering technique employed was the descriptive research as simplified further by statistical tools. Statistical tools employed were all parts of descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics deals with the collection and presentation of data, as well as describing the characteristics of individual objects or groups of individuals under study (Broto, 2007). Data processing and results The data and information collected from the respondents were processed by means of average and percentage technique. For their presentation, graphs and tables were employed. Averages and percentages were necessary and relevant information included in the study to draw conclusion and evaluate the results of the research. Questionnaire Design A cover letter for the questionnaire is a good approach as far as ethical consideration of a survey is concerned. Not only that, the cover letter informs the respondents of what they have to do with the questionnaire and how to use it. As pointed out by Arnetz et al. (2008) a questionnaire is one of the most important tools that can be used to evaluate perception and behaviour of the respondents. Thus, it is important to take into consideration that the design of the questionnaire must be able to gauge or evaluate respondents’ perception and behaviour. Many scales have been used in the formation of the questionnaire. First and foremost, the famous scale has been used, which is the summated ratings method. Moreover, the numerical scale has been used, which uses numbers to identify the strength of the response. For the population that is educated, and the sample selected in this research is an educated one, the numerical scale works very well. In addition to that, the constant sum scale has been used, which allows the organization to see the amount of numbers which have been allocated to each characteristic. This scale also works great for those respondents which have a high education level. (Zikmund, 2002) The category scales have also been used, which indicate the category to which the respondent would like to assign the question. The category scales used have 3 options, which make the question a sensitive judge of the attitude of the respondents. Analysis of Results In order to analyse the results, the following specific objectives are discussed accordingly. To know about the level of customer satisfaction that each of the 30 chosen respondents has with their experience in online shopping. To gauge the level of customer experience level in online shopping. To gauge the views and satisfaction level of the customers with their online shopping experience To discuss these objectives, this section is subdivided in two parts. The first part is the inferential statistics using t-test and f-test and the second part is the deeper understanding on the level of satisfaction of employees through descriptive statistics. Chapter 2. Review of related literature What is Marketing? Marketing is one of the most important activities in a business because it has a direct effect on profitability and sales. Most businesses have dedicated personnel handling this aspect of the company. It is important to make the management realize the important role of marketing as it is significantly connected with the other major departments of the company such as operations and finance. According to Bowman (2007), marketing encompasses all the activities that seek to identify what consumers want; and how to promote, deliver those goods and services. It is more than what many people know about marketing. Some businesses take this aspect as a tertiary priority which is a common mistake of companies. This view gives the company a higher probability to actually fall in the league of the failed businesses. Planning of marketing strategy for a company may not be as easy as it seems. Management usually assigns a creative and dedicated staff to do marketing research for the company to have solid grounds (marketing information) as basis of its business decisions. Marketing research is defined to be a systematic and objective search and analysis of information relevant to the identification and solution of any problem in the field of marketing. Marketing is about people (marketers and customers) and the ways marketers try to create a perfect fit between themselves and to the customers according to Solomon (1997). One of the marketing strategy is attending a consumer meeting/forum discussing on their need sand preference related to the product to come up with creative ideas for promotions that will speak on product. According to Solomon (1985), marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. While Dalrymple and Parsons (1986) described it as management philosophy that seeks to determine and satisfy customer needs using integrated marketing programs to achieve organizational goals. The idea of focusing more on serving customer needs would gain widespread acceptance of the product. The concept has been used successfully to reorient production personnel and to revitalize marketing programs in thousand of firms. The three (3) important dimension of the marketing concept that must be understood are a customer orientation, integrated company effort and goal directed behavior. Kotler (1984) described marketing as a customer centered approach. That it plays an important role in launching a renewed era of economic activity and rising living standard. It is defined as the creation and delivery of a standard of living Marketing decisions generally fall into the following four controllable categories namely: product, price, place (distribution), and promotion. In the recent years, Borden’s marketing mix (marketing practices)included product planning, pricing, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, and fact finding and analysis. E. Jerome McCarthy later grouped these ingredients into the four categories that today are known as the 4 P's of marketing. According to Solomon and Stuart (1997), marketing has the power to create value and that all aspects of marketing (4ps) are vital to the long-term success of a product. With this generalization, the four (4) P's, also known as Marketing Mix, are considered to be the controllable parameters subject to the internal and external constraints of the marketing environment. Many companies focus on these parameters to make sound decisions. According to Simbajon (2007), the underlying goal of all marketing strategies is to create a sustainable competitive advantage for the enterprise. It is therefore important to enhance and develop the strong points of the current marketing strategies of the company. CompUSA, a US company, is a successful computer retailer in which the marketing strategy was anchored on the four P’s. The company came up with the concept of chain spacious (superstores) which offer repair services and spare parts available within the supermarket making it possible to do one-stop computer shopping. To create a demand (promotion) , the company holds classes that teaches the customers how to buy a computer, the importance of computer in daily activities, use different kinds of software, and kids are welcome to the stores during weekend to try new computer games and play karaoke machines. The company pleases customers most, since CompUSA promise to match or beat competitors prices for every product it sells. CompUSA carefully blends different elements of the marketing mix to create an effective strategy as discussed by Burnett (1998). 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