Dymocks’ Physical vs. Online Store Essay Example

align="justify">6. 3. Questionnaires is one of the selected tools in this report.

It is an appropriate tool to understand customers' backgrounds, preferences and satisfaction. By using this tool, the researchers can collect data from a large number of people quickly and effectively to obtain more information related to the problem. Meanwhile, it costs lower than other ways such as focus groups and interviews, which means company could spend less to gather more information.

Furthermore, questionnaires can be designed with systematic questions to expect all participants to answer completely to all questions given. It helps to produce more reliable data. However, one of the major drawbacks of questionnaires is that the questioned person cannot ask the exact meaning of the questions, hence he/she might not understand it correctly.

Thereby, false answer can occur in such cases. Thus, there are no ideal results for all research methods, only using a mixture of them can give appropriate results.

7. LITERATURE REVIEW

Qualitative research can be performed in many dimensions using many techniques available.

It is pivotal to select appropriate tools in the research project in order to achieve the research objectives. From what has been stated above, the analysis involves elements of a combination of primary and secondary data.

Primary data are collected from interviews, questionnaires. Each approach has been briefly explained and Justified why these particular methods are used in the context of our analysis. Before adhering to qualitative research methodologies, it is crucial to understand the distinctiveness that plays out in the process of research. Certain method is applicable to a certain problem and others are not as it differs from case to case.

In other words, it is necessary to

design the methodology to fit our research problems in order to achieve the objectives.

In this section, the advantages and disadvantages of the selected methods are scribed to support our analysis and also the related perspectives by others are written below.

7. 7. 1 .Secondary

Data Secondary data usually are historical and assembled. Research projects often begin with secondary data by involving the study and analysis of related data available in the market. It produces preliminary information which has important impacts on the research objectives before acquiring the primary data.

The main advantage is the availability and instantaneous which makes it quicker and inexpensive than collecting primary data. In addition, the use of secondary data alps to eliminate some activities associated to the collection of primary data such as sampling and data processing. The inherent shortcoming of secondary data is outdated or inadequate as the data provided not specifically pertinent to the needs of researchers.

Consequently, the data do not satisfy the needs of the particular research project. Thus, the sources and accuracy of all secondary data to be used have to be identified and verified.

The sources of secondary data can be categorized as either internal or external. Most organizations consistently record, generate and store their internal data for future use and analysis. This is defined as internal data (Sigmund et al, 2010). The external data is defined as data generated or recorded by entities other than the organization such as government, newspaper, Journals, trade associations that produces information.

The external data are usually published and available to be accessed by public for free or can be purchased. In the digital era, the accessible of external data become much

easier than in past decades.

Although secondary data play an increasing role in business research, some people argue the effectiveness, quality and consistency of secondary data in the research projects. Nonetheless, it is necessary to derive preliminary information from secondary data analysis which provides the insights in the research project which ultimately will support the primary data collection.

7. 2.Interview

In our analysis, the interview is defined as a personal interview which is a form of two-way conversation between interviewer and interviewee face-to-face. By using this context of the research project.

The interview is useful when a particular issue needs to be explored in depth. Sigmund et al. (2010, up.209-212) describe some advantages and disadvantages in using personal interviews. Many unique advantages are the opportunity of feedback and clarification can be immediately done when confusion arises, ability to probe unclear answer or too brief, flexibility to adjust the length of interview, the completeness of response to all questions asked by interviewers, high participation because of no reading or writing and all they have to do is talk, the usage of props and visual aids such as electronic devices for reading various e-books format.

Meanwhile, some disadvantages are more costly when compare to other types of tools, time-consuming, interviewer influence (for instance tone of voice, appearance, bias, anticipation of interviewee's answers), lack of confidentiality/anonymity of interviewee. On the other hand, according to Qua and Dummy (2011) in their paper, they adopted Aliveness's perspective (nepotistic, romanticist and localism) as a framework to reflect on three broad categories of the interview method, from structured, semi-structured and unstructured interviews.

The structured interview means the interviewer asked the pre-established questions

(having a script to be read with little deviation). This means all interviewees are asked the same questions in the same order to elicit brief answers. Therefore, the structured interview is rigid. The unstructured interview is informal and open-ended interviewing. It is not to put things in someone's mind but to access the perspective of the person being interviewed. Hence, the interviewer must develop, adapt and generate follow-up questions to achieve the research objective.

However, some people are skeptical about the data collected by unstructured interviews. The semi-structured interview involves prepared questioning to help direct the interview toward research objectives using a funnel approach to elicit responses from the interviewees. It also emphasizes on listening and responds sensitively by interviewers to follow the direction of the understanding of the interviewees. According to Qua and Dummy (201 1), this type is the popular interview method because of its flexibility, accessibility, intelligibility.

In essence, the interview method is the art of questioning and interpreting the answers according to Qua and Dummy (2011). After performing interviews, the information collected can be used as a guideline to design the questionnaires.

Typically, the questionnaires attempt to identify what is happening or to obtain what targeted groups of people think within the context of the research objectives. The advantages of questionnaires are quick, inexpensive, efficient, and accurate means of assessing information (Sigmund et al. 2010). Nonetheless, it has to be conducted properly to produce reliable and valuable outcomes.

Questionnaires can easily attain higher response rate when compared to other methods because of the possibility of doing it online and offline.

Having a high response rate is a necessary first step to gathering sufficient

information. However, higher response rates do not ensure the validity of the findings due to many potential sources of error to consider. In addition, it is difficult to assess and inevitable when people have a misinterpretation of the questionnaires. Hence, the combination of methods helps to enhance the quality and accuracy of findings.

The questionnaires should be designed and done both inside and outside of the organization.

It includes customers, employees and managers, suppliers, distributors.

8. BUSINESS RESEARCH PLAN

As mentioned in the previous sections of this report, the business research involves interviews, online and offline questionnaires and secondary data analysis, due to their high efficiency and extensive availability. The other reason for selecting these methods is that Dynamos has a great advantage to carry them out in a low cost, particularly their customer database of the Dynamos loyalty card.

The "funnel" approach method will be used for the research, I. E. T would start with general data analysis (secondary data); then personal interviews will be carried out to get a broad picture of the problems; based on the secondary data and interview results, the online and off-line questionnaires will be developed accordingly and more precisely. The project would be carried out in a three-month period nationally in all the major Australian cities.

The research project has to start with a kick-off meeting with all major participants in the project: Dynamos' CEO, FCC, CACAO (Chief Analytics Officer), and appointed project leader. In this meeting, the aim of the project has to be clearly stated, the project budget, the timeline/milestones, and the responsibilities need to be decided. As the interviews, online, off-line questionnaires and the secondary data analysis

quire different approaches and methodologies. The following sections will introduce brief guidelines about each and every of them.

8. 1 . Secondary Data Analysis

The first step in doing a research study is utilizing secondary data analysis and it should be done by Dynamos' data analysts. In order to save cost, free data analysis provided in the market has to be searched on the internet and those online data analysis services have to be used where Dynamos already have subscriptions. However, free data of researches usually contain general data about the book market research, the missing and more specific studies have to be bought from major search companies.

The secondary data analysis has to be done internally, by the CACAO and his/her team. Interview As Dynamos already has a vast amount of personal and buying behavior data from its customers, it is an important part of the research to directly ask some of them about their opinions and buying/reading habits. For the interviews, the following customers need to be chosen from the actual database of Dynamos: 20-30 persons per city location, proportionate to the business share of that city (more in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, etc and less in Canberra, Darwin, etc). 50% men, 50% omen.

Special focus needs to put on customers, who were heavy buyers in 2011 or 2012 but their purchase decreased to almost O for 2013. 0% of the interviewees should be customers with middle and high-level education. 2 interviewers need to be elected (possibly internally and from the CACAO'S team) and trained by the CACAO and Dynamos' training team. The methodology is based on a "semi-structured interview' style to allow a certain level

of flexibility. These 2 interviewers would travel through Australia to avoid biased or different results with different interviewers.

The main aim of these interviews would help the CACAO team to understand the major factors in the changing reading and buying habit in order to formulate the most suitable online and offline questionnaires.

By doing it, the questionnaires are given focus on the real issues which resulting in more precise answers from numerous people later. 8. 3.

Off-Line Questionnaires The results of the secondary data analysis and the personal interviews are analyzed, and the questionnaire has to be formulated accordingly by the CACAO team. Afterwards, the CACAO team needs to distribute the questionnaires in the Dynamos stores and do online training for the interrogators. In every shop 1, 2 or even 3 employers (based on the size of the store) have to be chosen as interrogators to implement the filling out of the questionnaires by the customers.

In order to improve efficiency and willingness, those who fill them out would need to get a discount coupon of 10-15%. This way helps to get more filled out questionnaires and also increase sales. Have results from every day of the weeks at least for two weekly periods, as different people go to stores on different days (e.

G. Mothers with young children usually come during weekdays, professionals/executives come during weekends, etc). Based on the size of the stores, at least 100 to 1000 questionnaires have to be filled out per store.

In order to avoid bad data, the best method to fill out the questionnaires would be with the help of tablets.

This way, no one has to type the results into

a computer avoiding mistypes and giving a possibility of analyzing data almost immediately after data collection. 8. 4. Online Questionnaires In this research, it is also important to get results from people who are not going to Dynamos or other physical book stores anymore. Thus, online questionnaires have to be implemented as well.

A well-structured and tested online system has to be set up or this reason.

In order to improve efficiency in collecting responses, we can offer a reward/prize-drawing game with tempting prizes (like tablets, e-book readers, coupons). The advertisement of the online questionnaires will have to be put on the Dynamos website and other social networking websites such as the Faceable Ad campaign and Google Ad campaign. The newly collected personal data could also serve Dynamos' database improvement and be useful for a great marketing possibility. After finishing all the researches, at least 2 weeks are needed for the CACAO'S team to analyze the collected information.