RESEARCH DESIGN

Group- 6

Rajat Gupta
Meghna Singh
Prachi Malhotra
Aakash Parmar
Sweta Hansaria
Jatin Bajwa
 Research Design
Situation:
A new business clothing shop is to open in a few months. The owners are unsure whether the new
shop should be in a shopping mall or at a downtown location. Since they think it would be best to
simply ask shoppers for their preferences as to location, the owner hired you as a consultant to
conduct this study. Develop a research Project to address this problem. Focus on the kind of
research designs you would use, why you would use them, and how you would conduct the
research.

You are required to submit detailed Research Design of the MR Project on 18th January 2019. You are
required to submit following components:

1. Problem Statement of the Research

2. Objectives of the Study

3. Research Design to be followed (Exploratory or Conclusive) based on objectives of the study

4. Measurement and Scaling Techniques

5. Data Collection Methods

6. Data Collection Source

7. Sampling Procedure

8. Tentative Timeline of the Project

9. Limitations of the Study

10. Data Analysis Tools

11. Resource Required

12. Expected Outcome of the Study

Background:
Mr X wants to open a business clothing shop, but he is unsure whether the new shop should be
started in a shopping mall or downtown location. There are many factors that influence the decision
regarding the location of a shop. So, as we would be targeting the professionals so their perception
such as proximity of the store to commercial region of the town will help in targeting that segment.
So, Mr X has hired a consultant for analysis of the situation which will help in decision making.

Factors like parking facility, presence of heterogeneous shops, customer perception of the location,
proximity to his location, etc affects the preference of the shoppers in choosing a store.

Introduction:
Decision regarding the selection of location of store plays an important factor in its success.

In business clothing segment purchases are infrequent as it is required by certain segment of

shopper mainly professionals, so it requires intensive selling effort. The customer does price
comparison and features comparisons and products are sold in franchised outlets. So, in some cases
downtown locations are best for generating traffic but at the same time store in shopping mall has
its own advantages.

Management Decision Problem:

Should the business apparel store be opened in downtown location instead of shopping mall?

Marketing Research Problem:

To determine the consumer preference and intension to purchase depends upon the store location.

To determine consumer preference depending on footfall possibility and location.

To determine consumer choice of location depending on shop assortment.

To determine if the infrastructure and the parking facility affect the consumer behaviour.

To determine the willingness of a consumer depending upon the distance between the location of
the store and his residence.

To determine how much the potential customer from the near-by area is willing to spend.

To determine if consumer has a perception that the store in shopping mall have huge stock with
frequent stock update.

To determine the proximity of competitors near the potential location of store.

To determine the customer preference of one stop location vis a vis downtown.

Objectives of the study:

1. To find if location of a business apparel store affects the customer purchasing behaviour.
2. To find out the current customer perception of down town stores vis a vis shopping mall.
3. To find out the factors which influences their behaviour on basis of store location.
Research design to be followed:
The Research started with literature review to get an understanding of various factors affecting
customer choice of business store location. We’ve reviewed 36 research papers from various
journals that have helped us in defining various factors that affect the customer behaviour and help
them form decision for the choice of a store location.

 We will start with exploratory research to find out the variables and factors affecting store
location.
 Further we will continue with conclusive research to find out the most important factors
affecting the customer decision which will help us in taking decision that should we open the
store in downtown location or a shopping mall.
In conclusive research we will use both descriptive and causal research. In descriptive
research we will be using survey to better define an opinion, attitude, or behaviour of
customer which will give us statistically inferable data for studying the significance of results
on overall population.
To see the cause effect relationship, we will be using casual research. For example, we want
to find the effect of no parking space in choosing a store location.

Measure and Scaling

A Likert-type scale assumes that the strength/intensity of experience is linear, i.e. on a continuum
from strongly agree to strongly disagree and assumes that attitudes can be measured. Respondents
may be offered a choice of five to seven or even nine pre-coded responses with the neutral point
being neither agree nor disagree. The Measurement of attributes we want to quantify based on
exploratory research will be on a 5-point Likert Scale, here 5 ordered response levels will be used.
Likert scales uses a bipolar scaling method, which can measure both- a positive or negative response
to a statement. The response category used by this scale is representative of Interval level of
measurement.

Typically, ranging from “Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree”, to measure the
respondents’ level of agreement on ONLY one statement, at once; but another required form of
Likert scale might also be used during formation of the questionnaire.

The scale has been chosen as reliable and valid for the study based on varied Literature Review of
Research based on similar objectives.
Data Collection Method, Source and Sampling Technique

Exploratory research- Qualitative Data will be collected through Focus

Groups, and In-Depth Interviews.

Focus group will be conducted for 2 groups of 6-10 members each, the
Primary Research members in these groups will be the customers of Business-formals, mainly,
students of Management Colleges in Dwarka.

In Depth Interviews will be conducted for at least 10 individuals by the

researcher, these individuals will be industry/ subject-matter experts chosen
based on purpose.

Descriptive Research- A Structured, Self-administered Questionnaire, having

questions on 5-point Likert Scale will be shared. The respondents will include
visitors at malls and downtown, students of management colleges, and
business professionals based on purposive sampling. It will be shared through
either e-mail, telephone or in person by the researcher.
Primary Research
We will collect responses of approximately 390 respondents which is the
minimum number which will be chosen based on purposive sampling assisted
by network sampling and convenience sampling.

Secondary Research Literature Review of 36 Research papers and

articles relating to the study.

Tentative Timeline

We have used Gantt Chart to show the timeline of our research work:
 DAYS TO
TASK START DATE COMPLETE
LITERATURE REVIEW 01-01-2019 5
FOCUS GROUP 20-01-2019 4
IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW 20-01-2019 4
FINALISING FACTORS 24-01-2019 1
MAKING QUESTIONNAIRE 25-01-2019 2
GETTING FILLED 27-01-2019 7
ANALYSIS 03-02-2019 3
CONCLUSIONS AND LIMITATION 06-02-2019 2

Limitations:
The research study is likely to be small scale because of limited time to take a quick decision within a
month, we will be taking a small sample size and also a homogenous sample which would include
the business clothing using segment of customers in the market. As going for a full-scale nationwide
research will take substantial time and resources and currently company doesn’t have much time or
resources (monetary constraints).

Data Analysis Tool

We will be using SPSS for the purpose of data analysis. In that we will be using chi-square test and
regression on the data we get.

Resources Required
We will be requiring people to collect responses and also a small amount of money to conduct the
research. Apart from that we will require the time as shown by the chart.

Expected Outcome of Study

The expected outcome is the owner will be able to decide which will be the favourable location to
open his business cloth shop on the basis of the research and also customer perceptions which
affects their decision to choose a location.