Research Methodology

Assignment- 2 Subject: Research Methodology

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Question-1:

1.0 Size of e-commerce market in India:

Online shopping in India is still not so big & the numbers are increasing every year.

According to a report e-commerce market size in India was about 75000 Crore in 2013.

This size is expected to rise 5 times by 2020. It has been estimated that there will be

around 243 million internet users in 2014. This has been estimated to increase to 500

million users by 2018.

2.0 Advantages of online shopping:

It is very convenient, faster & many times also cheaper. It actually reduces overheads

on the company. For example, instead of standing in a long queue and waiting for your

turn to purchase a ticket, people find it much simpler to log on to a website and

purchase the desired product. Some times, you may have to pay some premium for an

online purchase but it is still preferred because of the convenience factor which is much

higher. Like movie ticket booking, convenience charges are added over the actual price

of the ticket while online booking of the tickets. Online shopping is preferred when

someone wants to send some gift to a friend or someone who is staying in some other

country or city. Also, for online selling, the sellers need not to necessarily maintain any

show room. They need not to maintain sells executives who will explain about the

product features to various potential consumers.

3.0 Offline & Online Market in India:

Offline promotions for every product are working for last many years, and are proven.

Before online marketing, there were only offline promotions, stores & brand building.

After the revolution in smart devices & internet, online marketing & online retailing

came into picture. More & more consumers are shifting towards online purchasing day

by day. Before any purchase, every consumer does some research at ground level

about the options available for the product that he/ she wants to buy. In the research,


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the consumers verifies range of the products available for his/ her need. Features of

various poducts, range of brands available, quality of various brands, services available

from each of the manufacturer, life of the products, costing of the products, etc. is

reviewed by the consumers before choosing any particular brand & making a purchase

decision. This review of features of various brands can be done online through various

websites as well as by visiting the shops where various products & models are available

on display for consumers. In such physical shops, consumers can physically touch the

product, can operate it, can have actual feeling of the product & compare among

various brands. All consumers those who are much conversant with the smart devises &

internet technology also always go to physical shops to verify any product &

purchasing. Also, in rural areas where there is no much coverage of internet, internet

users are very much limited. Those who use internet are mostly from youngsters age

group. In most of the villages, high speed internet like broadband & 3G data

connections are not available. As such, there are many potential consumers who wish

to buy the product but do not prefer online buying. All such consumers generally visit

nearby shops available for the product or to the shops in nearby cities, where they can

see a wide range of variety of many brands. This is true for electronic products, jewelry,

clothes, books, stationary items, furniture, toys, home appliances, vehicle accessories,

sports items, food items, foot ware, etc.

Most marketing executives in large companies have to defend, with lots of data , the

decision to move marketing investment away from proven and true methods those

bring positive return on investment (ROI).

Various Brands are actively experimenting with online marketing and many other new

marketing ideas to see how effective they are, but you can not expect massive shifts of

brand dollars to happen completely or quickly. Most of the marketers are very careful in

managing their marketing related investments.

Day-by-day, there will be more budgets shifts to online promotions but; at the same


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time, offline promotions also will be present unless they consistently underperform. But

this shift will be a very long process.

Offline Book retail shops have been one of the first victims of the ecommerce space.

With a standardized product and ease of shipping, ecommerce players have reduced

their book prices to take away a large chunk of the book market. Similarly, electronics

like mobiles and small gadget sales are significantly increasing online. Apart from only

sales, online research by consumers before the purchase plays a decisive role. As per

one recent survey, it showed over 80% of urban consumers are now looking up for

online research before buying any mobile phone handset. Many customers prefer

window shopping at physical stores, observe the prices there & compare it with online

prices & then going online to buy has prompted many large players in the United States

to shut down many physical shop. Though presently, there is no much similar impact in

India, but this shift from offline to online is unavoidable. This is going to happen in

India also. However, the original equipment manufacturers needs to maintain physical

shops or show rooms with display of products where the customers can visit & have a

feel of product & verify the product as desired before making any buying decision.

Physical shop near the consumers with service facility plays an important role for many

of the consumers giving them some kind of confidence that they will get prompt &

assured service if there is any fault in the electronic gadget that they are going to

purchase. In India, many consumers prefer to survey about the available service

network & the quality of services being provided by the companies before they

purchase any product.

In addition, following are additional key drivers in India for online shopping.

1. Increasing speed of internet like broad band & 3G.

2. Rising standard of living.

3. Busy lifestyle resulting into less time available for offline shopping.

4. Traffic problems in cities.


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5. Increased use of online sites, with more & more consumer buying and selling

their used goods

6. Low prices as compared to physical stores.

4.0 Indian Companies Shifting Offline:

4.1 Canon shifts their focus to offline store sales:

Canon Indias head Mr. Kazutada Kobayashi feels that online retailing in India is

unavoidable; however, it cannot rule out the offline retail market. Canon had stopped

selling online a few months ago. They are focusing on increasing sales at the physical

offline stores. According to Mr. Kobayashi, normal retail channel can only help expand

the business of digital cameras or DSLRs as touch, feel and a live demo can be best

experienced by consumers in physical stores. However, he negates the perception that

huge discounts is the reason for the decision against online selling.

Even in the most developed markets like the United States & Europe, etc. online sales

of camera are about only 10 %, whereas 75 % happens through super-specialty stores.

In India, only 20 per cent of the sales come from physical stores. Canon want players

like Croma, eZone & Reliance Digital to increase the sales of cameras at their stores.

The company is also investing heavily in creating a large user base for digital cameras

in India. This, the company is going to achieve with speciality stores called Canon

Image Square. They are planning to increase such outlets to 300 from the present

number of 100 in the country by next year.

4.2 Pepperfry opening offline furniture stores:

Online furniture retailer Pepperfry is going to open 2,500 sq ft physical store in Mumbai.

It is more of a kind of an "experience centre", they are a two-year-old company in

India. According to them, buyers can check out many varieties of sofas and dining sets.

Buyers can obtain interior-designing related tips.

4.3 Fabfurnish furninure offline business:


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They already has four physical stores & are planing to increase it by another five,

across four cities, in the next one year time.

4.4 Urbanladder furniture:

For past few months, has have started sending three single-seater sofa samples to

homes of interested buyers. This is so that they can feel first-hand aspects like make,

foam, inners and spring. They say that they cannot address furniture completely online.

It's a pain point as per Mr. Rajiv Srivastava, COO and co-founder of Urbanladder.

4.5 Lenskart Eyeware Company:

As per them, physical store is a good way to develop brand & relationship with

consumers.

4.6 HDFC Bank:

Banks also prefer to have physical appearance because many customers from rural area

want their banks physical appearance instead of online banking.

Thus, many market players in niche product categories like furniture, jewellery and child

products are preferring this offline drive.

4.7 Online Sellers having offline stores in India:

As per survey by Forrester, the e-commerce market in India is expected to grow the

fastest within Asia Pacific Region at a CAGR of more than 57 % between 2012 to 2016.

There is evolution of online marketplace models in India with websites like Flipkart,

Snapdeal, Amazon, Alibaba, Ebay, Pepperfry, Jabong, Home Shop 18, Yebhi, Myntra,

OLX, etc. These are the companies providing various online trading options. OLX is one

of the website options of buying & selling used products.


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Following are the brands being offered for online trading in India. These are being

offered by retailers like WS Retailers.

Mobile Phones: Micromax, Samsung, Nokia, Sony, LG, Karbon, Chinese companies- Xiaomi & Gionee, etc.

Television sets: Sony, LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Philipps, Onida, Toshiba, Videocon, Micromax, etc.

Laptops- HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo, etc.

Cameras- Sony, Canon, Nokia, Olympus, Kodak, Fujifilm, etc.

There are many brands for Home & Kitchen appliances, shaving & hair styling, audio & video, etc.

5.0 Conclusion:

Thus, for an electronics business, only online market is not sufficient. To promote &

develop their brand, physical appearance is also equally important. The offline physical

stores shall be opened at selected city areas. These offline stores can have service

center facilities also. This will add value to customer & will be building customer

confidence about good service. Thus we predict their sale of 20 % through offline

stores & remaining 80 % through online. Appearance of offline stores will increase

online sale also. Hence, it should be kept in mind that offline stores also add into their

online sale.


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Question-2:

Design a research plan for toy4all outlining strategies for novel packaging, rebranding and colour schemes. Include project objectives, research method, questionnaire or interview questions, sampling technique, sample size, target audience, how data will be collected and stored, list of data analysis that will performed, and how the results will be disseminated to the clients.

Contents:

1. Introduction 2. Business Need 3. Project Objectives 4. Market Research

4.1 Sampling method 4.2 Data Analysis

5. Conclusion of the Research 6. Informing Conclusion to the Client

1.0 Introduction: In childhood every child definitely wishes to own at least one toy. Toys contribute to the brain development of a child, as well as make them happy. Toys play an important role in mental, emotional, social, physical or psychological development of children. Keeping this in mind, every parent want to give their child some innovative type of toys. Thus the toy market is growing at a faster pace. Main objective of the project is to increase market share & maintain a very good growth in coming years.

2.0 Business Need: The business of Toyz needs to improve sales and grow market share in the existing challenging competitive market. The business need is to make profit out of a market with all types of customers. 3.0 Project Objectives:

To keep a child entertained

The development of a child mental, emotional, social, physical & psychological.

Improve sales & profit


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Improve market share

Maintain steady growth

4.0 Market Research:

Market research is required for taking any decision regarding the business like investment to be done, location of the business, market segment to be targeted, group of consumers to be targeted, etc. Market research is actually continuous exercise to collect & analyze environmental, consumer, competitor & industry information to make the project decisions less risky. The main purpose of the market research is surveying the potential customers, children & parents, to understand what are their wants & some other information. With the survey, we know taste of the customers & the trend of that market. Questioner can be designed to collect all such information needed. Simple & short questions like follows can be asked in the questioner to collect required information. This questionnaire can be given to various persons present in shopping malls, through online survey, interviewing children in some schools, etc. We will also interview some dealers & small shopkeepers of toys to collect required information as those are the persons who know more about various brands & competitions. They know various customers choices well.

Question: What kind of toy do you like the most?

1) Robot 2) Remote Controlled Cars 3) Dolls 4) Physical activity trlated 5) Others (specify) :

Question: What kind of characteristics do you prefer for your toys?

1) Look nice 2) Usefulness 3) Smartness 4) Others (specify):

Question: How do you rate colour of toys made by Toyz? Rete on the sale of 1 to 5; 1 being poor & 5 being excellent.

Select appropriate option: 1 2 3 4 5

Question: How do you rate packing of toys made by Toyz? Rete on the sale of 1 to 5; 1 being poor & 5 being excellent.



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Question: How many days normally do you play with a toy before you feel about changing the toy?

1) 6 months 2) 12 months 3) 2 years 4) Others (specify):

Question: How do you rate toys from Toyz on the sale of 1 to 5; 1 being poor & 5 being excellent? Select appropriate option.


Question: Which colour do you like more for the toys.

1) Red 2) Orange 3) Blue 4) Green 5) Others (specify):

Question: Do you have any suggestion to Toyz for improving customer satisfaction.

Specify:

After collecting all information from the customers, we will continue to next task, which is to analyze survey, to know the taste of the customers.

4.1 Sampling method:

To collect above information, we will adopt Stratified Random Sampling Method from Probabilistic Sampling.

In this Stratified Random Sampling method, sampling is done in proportion from each sub-population. This method is used for a large group or population, which is divided further in sub-groups. Then samples are selected on random basis taking into account the size of the sub-groups. For collecting samples, group will be formed based on following: Income group: Based on the income, we will form three groups to understand their requirement. High income, medium income & low income. Primarily, we will focus Indian market. We will select 10 cities from each side of India i.e. East, West, North & South side of India.


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4.2 Data Analysis:

All the data collected in soft form as well as hard copies will be converted in required soft format & will be stored at one place for further processing. We will use some software for storing & analyzing the data. Many software are available in market for data analysis. This data will be analysed for various strategies to be adopted. We will take help of some data analysis experts to get more accurate conclusion. We will use Delphi technique in guidance with some experts in this field.

5.0 Conclusion of the Research: Based on the information & conclusion which has been arrived with above data, we will decide the design method for new packing type. Packing will be made more attractive. All safety standards being followed & the certifications like CE marking also will be printed on the packing. Some cute photographs & some themes will be printed on the packing. For bright & attractive colours, we will suggest option of using some good branded colour preparation automated machines, which will maintain distinct colouring schemes for the toys. Also, new colouring themes will be recommended after every one year. Based on the information, we will project the percentage increase in the sale & profit for next six months & one year. Recommendations will be made to maintain the steady growth in sales & profit over next five years.

6.0 Informing Conclusion to the Client:

Complete research project report will be prepared to inform the information collected along with the analysis reports & the conclusions made. We will arrange the past performance data of sales & profit in appropriate format so that it can be reviewed easily. Further we will arrange the recommendations made in the stage wise form for taking necessary actions. Strategies will be listed in stage wise form. All the resources required for completing the project will be listed.


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Required investment will be mentioned, which will be required to meet the recommendations & strategies suggested. Projected growth in sales & profit will be highlighted so that the client can take decision after comparing the investment & the rate of return on the investment. Thus complete report made in the form of booklet will be handed over to client for their decision.

Research Methodology

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