Project Objective
In the field of business, goods and services are exchanged to gain financial benefits with focusing on the primary objective of making profits. Business is not just a process of exchange, but it also involves market research, managerial operations, customer satisfaction, and corporate social activities. In the context of rapid technological advancement and the development of various types of businesses and models that have similar offerings in a much more convenient way, market research plays a vital role. According to AlGhamdi and Drew (2012), market research provide detailed information regarding the consumers and the trend in their buying behaviour and preferences, which help in targeting market through segmentation, creating targeted advertisements, determine customer satisfaction, and analysing market and industry competition. This insight information make the organisations gain competitive advantage to bloom in terms of financial performance, corporate social responsibilities, and customer satisfaction (West, Ford and Ibrahim 2015).
Therefore, today’s organisations need to do thorough market research to understand the recent trends in the market and consumer behaviour patterns, so that they can succeed in satisfying the requirements of the consumers and keep the profit level high. The purpose of this research is to help Bunnings Group Australia construct strategies to develop organisational profit and financial performance.
The primary objective of this research is to establish the importance of online retailing for customer satisfaction and organisational benefits in the context of the Bunnings Group Australia, which is a warehouse business that offers products and supplies for homeware improvement and building.
The need that has been observed in the online retail shops in order to satisfy the customers and the corporate financial performance of the Bunnings Group Australia provide justification for undertaking this research. This research covers the advantages that the online retailing offers to meet the non-monetary needs and satisfaction of the customers, and further looks into how the organisations gain benefits through online retailing in terms of market competition and profits.
Bunnings Group is a chain of warehouse retail stores that operate globally offering home improvement products and hardware and building supplies. The company has been dominating the Australian hardware market with an approximation of 16% market share, and as observed by Campbell (2017), it has the scope of growth. This is supported by the IBISworld, as it indicates that the hardware industry has the expectancy of growing by almost 2.7% in next 5 years.
Customer satisfaction is the indicator of the potentiality of the goods and services of the organisations to satisfy both non-monetary and monetary needs of the customers (Deng et al. 2010). In terms of market research, the determination and calculation of customer satisfaction is based on the success rate of the offered products and services meeting the customers’ perceived value of those. Customer satisfaction, according to Farris et al. (2010), is an essential element in determining the competitive advantage of the organisations and their ability to dominate the market. Hence, it can be concluded that customer satisfaction indicates the future growth of an organisation.
Project Scope
As profitability is the primary goal of business, it is crucial to retain and increase customers. In this context, customer satisfaction is the key to retain existing customers and increase the customer base. Thus, it is evident that every organisation should do thorough market research to understand the needs of the customers and figure out ways to satisfy those (Greenland, Combe and Farrell 2016). Online shopping is becoming the current trend in the consumer buying behaviour. The major reason for this is that it is a convenient way of shopping, specifically in current century when people are busy most of the times. The growing use of the internet and smartphones indicate that this trend would increase further in the future. The measurements for customer satisfaction in online shopping are accurate product information, reliability, cost and user interface (Heinemann and Schwarzl 2010). Lack in any of these elements can create a negative perception about online shopping in the customers (Clemons et al. 2016). On the other hand, providing all the relevant information, properly designed user interface, and convenient cost can create a loyal customer base (Clemes, Gan and Ren 2011).
The above discussion indicates a literature gap on the usefulness of the online retailing to increase the organisational benefit. Therefore, a research needs to be conducted for the Bunnings Group in Australia to understand their customers’ satisfaction level and recommend ways for the organisation to benefit from online retailing.
H0: The online retailing makes the shopping experience of the customers easier and increases their loyalty.
H1: The online retailing does not make the shopping experience of the customers better and increase their loyalty.
H2: The hardware and homeware business can benefit from the online retailing.
H3: The hardware and homeware business cannot benefit from the online retailing.
This study will follow a mixed methodology through a multiphase process to confirm the validation of the conducted research. As a method collecting primary data for the qualitative research, in-depth interviews will be conducted with a sample size of five executives of the Bunnings Australia. The sampling technique will be purposeful sampling to ensure the reliability of the data (Robinson 2014). The instruments that will be required are open-ended questions related to the research topic for the interviews. Preparation of these questions is a significant step as the relevance of the data depends on it (Robinson 2014). The data will be analysed through thematic analysis method as it will develop themes and patterns from the data that would help the company understand the current trends.
Literature Review
In order to conduct the quantitative part of the research, the primary data will be collected through a thoroughly conducted survey among the employees of the Bunnings Australia. The sample size will be 50 and the sampling technique will be convenience sampling method. As in this non-probability sampling method the participants are selected based on their accessibility of the related data, the accuracy of the data will be ensured. Research instruments such as close-ended survey questionnaires will be required to conduct this part of the research, and it crucial to make the questions pinpointed to make the data reliable. The primary data will be statistically analysed and transformed into numerical data to create graphs and charts.
After analysing the data from both the studies, they will be integrated to understand the broader perspective (Bryman 2017). Both the interviews and survey will take place in the office premise of Bunnings Australia, and the scheduled time will be informed to the employees to ensure their presence at that day. The research will only be conducted after the company issues the No Objection Certificate and every participants including the executives and the employees sign the permission form. Force will not be applied to any unwilling employee to participate in the research, and the privacy act will be followed to maintain the privacy of the company and the employees.
Mixed methodology has certain limitations of its own. As it is a complex study, it requires careful planning of sampling, timing, and integrating the collected data (Bryman 2017). The process of data integration is a particularly challenging task in this type of researches. This methodology is a combination of two different methods, and thus, requires a group of researchers who will be comfortable with methods that do not fall under their expertise. In addition, this type of research is laborious.
The limitations of this study are –
- It depends on the Bunnings Australia to permit and collaborate with the researchers to conduct the research.
- It is possible that the data gained from the employees and executives may not be unbiased (Brinkmann 2014).
- The responses of the participants could also not lead to the expected outcome of the study.
- The time is another important issue that limits the research work.
The following schedule has been planned for the proposed research –
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Activities |
1st to 3rd Week |
4th to 10th week |
11th to 13th Week |
14th to 17th Week |
18th to 21st Week |
22nd to 23rd Week |
24th Week |
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Reviewing the literature |
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Acquiring the NOC and permission forms |
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Preparing the interview questions |
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Preparing the survey questionnaire |
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Scheduling the interviews and survey |
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Analysis of the collected data |
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Interpretation of the collected data |
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Findings of the study |
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Concluding the study |
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Completing the final writing |
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Submission of the Research |
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Conclusion
Online shopping is a growing phenomenon, and with the rate of technological advancement and the usage o internet, it will be justified to say that online shopping would only increase in the future. With increasing need of novel ways to build a sustainable business, it is crucial to satisfy the customers as the primary stakeholder. Customer satisfaction depends on the value they perceive in the offerings of the organisations. As organisational profit depends of the number of customers, thereafter, the organisations must provide valued service and products to the customers to retain them and increase their number. Hence, in conclusion, it can be said that online retailing must be considered as an effective way to increase organisational profit.
References
AlGhamdi, R. and Drew, S., 2012. Seven key drivers to online retailing growth in KSA. arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.3148.
Brinkmann, S., 2014. Interview. In Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 1008-1010). Springer New York.
Bryman, A., 2017. Quantitative and qualitative research: further reflections on their integration. In Mixing methods: Qualitative and quantitative research (pp. 57-78). Routledge.
Campbell, J. 2017. Insights from the company monitor: Wesfarmers. Equity, 31(8), 16.
Clemes, M.D., Gan, C. and Ren, M., 2011. Synthesizing the effects of service quality, value, and customer satisfaction on behavioral intentions in the motel industry: An empirical analysis. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 35(4), pp.530-568.
Clemons, E.K., Wilson, J., Matt, C., Hess, T., Ren, F., Jin, F. and Koh, N.S., 2016. Global differences in online shopping behavior: Understanding factors leading to trust. Journal of Management Information Systems, 33(4), pp.1117-1148.
Deng, Z., Lu, Y., Wei, K.K. and Zhang, J., 2010. Understanding customer satisfaction and loyalty: An empirical study of mobile instant messages in China. International journal of information management, 30(4), pp.289-300.
Farris, P.W., Bendle, N., Pfeifer, P. and Reibstein, D., 2010. Marketing metrics: The definitive guide to measuring marketing performance. Pearson Education.
Greenland, S.J., Combe, I.A. and Farrell, A.M., 2016. Stakeholder preference and stated vs derived importance satisfaction research. International Journal of Market Research, 58(1), pp.35-55.
Heinemann, G. and Schwarzl, C., 2010. New online retailing: Innovation and transformation. Springer Science & Business Media.
West, D.C., Ford, J. and Ibrahim, E., 2015. Strategic marketing: creating competitive advantage. Oxford University Press, USA.
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