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【嗯。。。】 是的,这就是传说中的英国大学研究生论文

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1楼2011-05-01 03:30回复
    坐等du熊吐贴╮(╯▽╰)╭


    2楼2011-05-01 03:33
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      此论文已经录入全英学术联合反抄袭系统,看的懂的也请表抄袭哦,会后悔的涅~~(话说英国人对于抄袭这件事看的比杀人还重啊╮(╯▽╰)╭)
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      Marketing Research Project – Fresh Asia in Birmingham University
      Content
           Introduction - company background information and report outline
           Section A   Problem Identification
           Research problems
           How to increase customer traffic?
           What kinds of grocery products do target customers prefer the most?
           Research questions
           Research objectives
           Section B   Research Design
           Data sources and data types
           Research design
           Research method & instrument
           Sampling technique & sample size
           Section C   Pilot Fieldwork
           Description of how the pilot fieldwork was conducted
           Participant feedbacks and relative improvements on questionnaire and research design
           Conclusion
           Appendix A – Envelope, Cover Letter and Questionnaire
           Appendix B – Budget
           Appendix C – Time Schedule
           Bibliography
      Introduction
      This marketing research project focuses on Fresh Asia, a grocery store specializing in Asian foods and drinks. It is located on the underground floor in the Guild of Student Building, Birmingham University. Jinny Park and Jae Gyn, a Korean couple, own and run the store. It was opened on 18th October 2010. The international students of Birmingham University are major target customers and the target population of this research. Its overall price level is lower than its rivals in Birmingham, such as Korea Foods Supermarket on Bristol Road. Up until November 2010, Fresh Asia has promoted itself via a billboard inside the Guild Building, a small advertisement on the University Newspaper, a single page on the Guild Website, and leaflets delivered on field.
      This research proposal first identifies two marketing-related problems that are crucial for the store’s current and future growth. Sequentially, a more detailed list of research questions will be developed. Next, we will suggest corresponding research design, method, instrument and sampling techniques that intend to provide the store owners with sufficient management decision-making information. Finally, a pilot fieldwork is conducted and analyzed to improve research details.
      Section A    Problem Identification
           Research problems
      After discussions with the owners of Fresh Asia and related background research about the company’s market and business context, two research problems are identified as follow:
      


      3楼2011-05-01 05:12
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             How to increase customer traffic?
        According to Jinny Park, the daily customer traffic has been 70 to 80 since the store was opened.   Compared with the calculated ideal daily customer number, 300, current floor traffic is too low to secure either short- or long-term profitability. For such a small grocery retailer like Fresh Asia, continuous low customer traffic may even threaten its survival.
        Several potential reasons may cause the insufficient customer awareness and traffic. First, the unfavourable location of Fresh Asia in the far corner of the basement in the Guild Building results in visual difficulty to notice it. Second, the Korean supermarket which is located just outside the campus compete consumer attention away. Moreover, the store owners had no systematic promotional strategies to increase consumer awareness and floor traffic.
        Jinny and Jae urgently want to know the fundamental reasons for the lack of customer traffic and practical methods to solve this problem. A systematic marketing research is essential to fulfil those decision-making information requirements in an accurate and reliable way.
             What kinds of grocery products do target customers prefer the most?
        The current product mix provided by Fresh Asia does not precisely match the preference of international students. According to sales report of the first month, majority of Japanese and Korean products (30% of total product mix) and half of Malaysian and Thailand products were moving particularly slowly. Those low-demanded products have strong adverse impacts on profitability and operations.
        Two major causes for this problem include competition from the Korean supermarket in Selly Oak and lack of knowledge of customer preference. International students living in the Selly Oak area may prefer to purchase grocery products from the Korean supermarkets, which opened two weeks prior to Fresh Asia. Nevertheless, the most significant reason for the slow selling of various products is the lack of the knowledge about customers’ preference. Fresh Asia has not conducted any research about target students’ preference. The owners just assumed what the students need numbers of Japanese and Korean products, whereas in fact they do not.
        What makes the situation more serious and the marketing research more necessary is the long supply chain of Fresh Asia. The response time of the whole supply chain from local manufacturers in Asia to shop shelves in the UK university is so long that overstocked products greatly affect cash flow and everyday operations. Therefore, it is especially crucial for Jinny and Jae to learn about customers’ true preference to arrange a well-functioning value chain.  
             Research questions
             Research questions transferred from the first research problem (How to increase customer traffic?)
             How many international students are aware of the existence of this store?
        


        4楼2011-05-01 05:12
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               Why would some international students who are aware of the store choose to not come to the store of Fresh Asia for shopping?
               How did exiting customers know about Fresh Asia?
               What are the main factors affecting customer traffic?
               What are the main factors affecting customer traffic identified in marketing literature?
               What stimuli may be the trigger factors that induct target customers to walk into Fresh Asia the first time?
               Among those influential factors and stimuli, which of them can be changed or improved in the short term?
               How do customers evaluate the existing promotional methods employed by the company?
               What are the other promotional methods available/feasible to increase customer awareness of the store?
               What promotional methods are most appealing to the international students on campus?
               Have the existing customers recommended Fresh Asia to others, and if not, why not?
               Will the existing customers recommend Fresh Asia to others, and if not, why not?
               Research questions transferred from the second research problem (What kinds of grocery products and brands do target customers prefer the most?)
               What types of products do students consume most frequently?
               What types of products do customers want the most?
               How do customers evaluate the current product mix?
               How to modify the product mix to better fit customer preference?
               Research objectives
               To identify the number and proportion of international students who have been to Fresh Asia in the past;
               To determine the channels through which current customers knew about Fresh Asia;
               To identify the amount and percentage of international students who are aware the existence of Fresh Asia;
               To reveal the reasons why some international students knew Fresh Asia but chose to not visit it;
               To explore the main factors that affect customer traffic with the help of marketing literature;
               To examine the evaluations of existing customers on the store’s past and current promotional methods (billboard, webpage, newspaper ad, and leaflets);
               To identify the stimuli that are most effective to induce consumers to walk into the store;
               To discover how to improve these influential factors and stimuli to appeal to more consumers in the near future;
               To develop the promotion methods that are most appealing to the target population and affordable for Fresh Asia (on-field promotional tools, mailed catalogues and leaflets);
          


          5楼2011-05-01 05:12
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                 To identify whether the existing customers have recommended Fresh Asia to others, and the possible reasons for not recommending it;
                 To confirm whether the existing customers will recommend Fresh Asia to others, and the possible reasons for not recommending it;
                 To identify consumption frequency of specific grocery products of target population;
                 To reveal grocery product preference of target customers;
                 To examine customers’ evaluation on current product mix;
                 To explore the alternatives to modify the current product mix in order to customers’ needs and wants more effectively and profitably.
            Section B    Research Design
                 Data sources and data types
            To address the first research question, we need to collect secondary data about the main factors affecting floor traffic in a retail environment and major promotional tools available. Secondary data sources such as e-library will be exploited. Other state-of-mind data (e.g. customer evaluation of current product mix), state-of-behaviour data (e.g. shopped in the store before), state-of-intention data (e.g. recommend it to friends in the future) and state-of-being data (e.g. student nationality) will be collected through primary research.
                 Research design
            In this case, exploratory design is not necessary before pilot fieldwork, because researchers have clear knowledge about business context of Fresh Asia and possible reasons causing the two management problems. Meanwhile, research questions and information requirements are developed without too much difficulty. Exploratory research which focuses on establishing preliminary ideas about research problems or hypotheses will not be used prior to pilot fieldwork. Nonetheless, if unexpected concepts or unclear perspectives are raised during pilot fieldwork or formal data collection, we may use exploratory design to find further information. Additionally, it can be seen from the research questions that majority of information required in this research is not about specific causal relationships, which implies that formal causal research design will not be employed, neither.
            Both research problems will be addressed with descriptive research design. In terms of customer traffic problem, we need a thorough description and identification about factors affecting floor traffic, consumer awareness among target population and effective promotional tools to address this problem. For the second research problem, ascertaining and understanding target customers’ preference about grocery products is the key to enhance business performance. All those points towards a descriptive nature of information needed.
            More specifically, a single cross-sectional approach will be used for the project. The first research problem is short-term oriented with the aim to increase current customer traffic at this moment of time. One relatively large sample drawn from the target population can provide enough data and information to design marketing strategies to attract more consumers. The second research problem involves both customers’ current preferences and future preference changes as time passes by. Thus, a longitudinal research design seems to be more proper for the second problem. However, considering time and budget constraints, the firm cannot afford to employ professional researchers for a long period of time. Maybe in the future, the firm can use the questionnaire we designed for it to measure the preference system of a fixed sample of international students periodically (e.g., once every month) in order to detect changes in customer needs (such as different wants in different seasons).
            


            6楼2011-05-01 05:12
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              The pilot fieldwork also revealed some defects in the secondary research conducted before the research design. We provided three options of future promotional methods and ask respondents to select the one they regard as most attractive. However, some respondents commented that none of them will attract their attention. This indicates the secondary research about other promotional methods available for Fresh Asia to increase its consumer awareness is insufficient. Thus, we conducted further information search and add more options. In addition, it is commented by some respondents that specific brands should be considered in modifying product mix. Nonetheless, this point has limited influence on overall research results and the additional time and costs to include hundreds of brand options may exceed the benefits to do so. Therefore, we decide to neglect this point but suggest future researches to consider it.
              Conclusion
              Designing and planning for a marketing research project is a process that full of reasoning and making choices. Since no signal alternative is perfect, the detailed decisions for research problem identification and research design elicit various theoretical and practical limitations. For example, non-response bias could be a serious obstacle to the crucial requirement of generalizability because we chose self-administered survey approach with questionable response rate. Nonetheless, pilot fieldwork indicates the overall research problem identification is largely consistent with consumer perception and data collection method is practical. Although this research project can never guarantee the success of sequential marketing strategies designed by Fresh Asia, it will greatly increase the odds of making correct management decisions.
              Appendix A – Envelope, Cover Letter and Questionnaire
              The following picture will be printed on the envelope for the questionnaire. The main purpose to design an eye-catching envelope is to catch respondents’ attention, stimulate their interests and increase response rate.
              The next two documents are the cover letter and the questionnaire respectively.
              Appendix B – Budget
              Material cost
              Envelopes                           〖1096〗^1@〖£0.5〗^2
                                                                 £548
              Cover letters                         〖1096〗^1@〖£0.04〗^3
                                                                 £43.84
              


              9楼2011-05-01 05:12
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                Questionnaires                       〖5480〗^1@〖£0.04〗^3
                                                                   £219.20
                Total material cost                                            £811.04
                Labour Cost                                    〖37hours〗^4@〖£5.93〗^5    
                £219.41
                Total Cost                                                                      £1030.45
                Notes:     
                1. 1096 is the initial sample size; 5480=1096×5, since each questionnaire consists of 5 pages of paper.
                2. Printing and making each envelope cost   £0.5.
                3. Printing one page of questionnaire or cover letter costs £0.04.
                4. Delivering each envelope needs about 2 minutes and 37 hours is needed for all the 1096 envelopes to be delivered.
                5. Hourly labour cost for part time delivery is estimated to be £5.93 (the national minimum wage rate in the UK).            
                Appendix C – Time Schedule
                     Research problem identification               
                Clarify background information needs                                     14th-15th October  
                Discussions with the shop owners              16th, 18th and 25th October; 8th and 22nd November                                                               
                


                10楼2011-05-01 05:12
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                  Identify research problems                                            25th – 26th October
                  Specify research questions                                              27th-28st October
                  Transferred to research objectives                                            29th October
                       Research design
                  Determination of research design                               30th October – 3rd November
                  Research method and instrument design                                  4th – 8th November
                  Sampling techniques and procedure design                              9th – 10th November
                       Pilot fieldwork
                  Conduct questionnaires and interview respondents                        11th - 15th November
                  Participant feedback consolidation and analysis                          16th - 18th November
                  Improvements on research design                                     18th – 19th November
                       Questionnaire delivery & data collection                   20th November – 20th December
                       Data preparation                                       21st December – 26th December
                       Data analysis and interpretation                             27th December – 3rd January
                       Create research report and prepare presentation                   4th January – 16th January
                       Communicate research result to Fresh Asia                                 17th January
                  Bibliography
                  Kotler, P. (2002) Marketing Management, 11th International Edition, Prentice Hall.
                  Malhotra, N.K. and Birks, D.F. (2006) Marketing Research: An Applied Approach, 3rd European Edition, Financial Times Prentice Hall.
                  Shiu, E., Hair, J., Bush, R. and Ortinau, D. (2009) Marketing Research, McGraw-Hill.
                  


                  11楼2011-05-01 05:12
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                    啊嘞,吐出来了啊,格式啊你还我标准论文格式,度受你好讨厌=。=


                    12楼2011-05-01 06:07
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                      总之写这篇论文的时候心情还是很愉快的——才怪啊!写了我整整两周啊,各种鸭梨恨。。。
                      嘛,不过最后分数还不错就是了。。。
                      


                      13楼2011-05-01 06:08
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                        姐姐辛苦了…仰视一下。按姐姐那边的时间已经好晚了,乖乖睡觉比较好哦~


                        来自掌上百度14楼2011-05-01 07:05
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                          传说中啊…(默),夭夭大概能看懂四分之一到三分之一这样的…等待英语达人


                          来自掌上百度15楼2011-05-01 07:08
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                            难怪我上图书馆会被研究生们拉着各种做问卷。。。话说你们做问卷雇佣发卷子的是谁啊,a part-time worker 居然赚200多磅,钱什么的肿么这么好赚


                            IP属地:江苏16楼2011-05-01 07:09
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                              爷只想说 虽然我看的懂 但是棒子夫妇开的店赚不赚钱 ぜんぜん関系ない~
                              でも 桑儿你写英文H的话 我一定收藏= =


                              17楼2011-05-01 08:26
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