Factors Affecting Average Spending Power Marketing Essay

Krajewski & Ritzman (1987) Operation management is the systematic direction and control of the process that transforms inputs into finished goods and services. Operations management involves the responsibility to ensure that business operations are efficient in terms of resource use as little as a necessary and effective in terms of customer requirements. At this current age, hospitality has grown up much bigger than even it was expected in last couple of decades. It is one of the most leading business sectors in the business world but in many different forms where efficient service is being offered to the clients using as little resources as possible to gain the client satisfaction.

Throughout this report we will be finding how the hospitality operations management performs in the practical business market and necessary theoretical evident discussion will be done to emphasis the aspects of the topic.

The average spending power is a compromise or could be called as a joint decision between equal partners in the pricing process such as between the hotel or restaurant and the customers.

In the context of hospitality, the customers are usually offered with a wide range of food and beverage items of different price labels which actually brings about average spending power. Generally the average spending power is very much depended on the customer or guests’ whims or impulse.

The spending power could be affected by the following factors -

Size of income

Status

Socio/cultural influences

Economic situation

There are number of stages in product and service development process, the key stages are follows -

Market research,

Market segmentation,

Idea evaluation,

Concept development

Product development

Advertising objectives

Create

Desire

Create awareness

Sell

Increase market share

Develop brand loyalty

Customer awareness

(http://churchill.ac/moodle/file.php/52/Stages_of_Product_Development.ppt)

are follows –

The market research is a systematic way to meet, to store and to analyze of data in markets, competition, future tendencies and other factors affect the business operational process. It is done generally to be to more clients oriented and in other way to advance the efficiency and the effectiveness of the whole operational process.

Market Segmentation could be defined as the identification of a subset of consumers, so that a combination of the marketing thinks up to satisfy specifically its demand.

Advertising are generally a paid way of non-personal form of presentation and promoting the idea or ideas, goods or services by a particular company or sponsor intended to reach their desired set of customers. It is the leading marketing weapon in the market place. This process requires objectives like other marketing elements.

The advertising objective varies for individual organisation depending on the time of advertising. Using this process advertiser expect short or long time benefits. Competition, consumer behaviour, revenue and profits will all influence the advertising objectives from time to time.

The following issues are affecting the product and service development -

Availability of resources; human, financial, and physical resources

standardisation,

style of service,

space utilisation

The opportunities are -

Persuade customers to patronise the hotel or restaurant often.

Create desire for product/service in the winds of potential customers

Emphasise benefits and advantages of the products/ services (http://churchill.ac/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=665)

Create an awareness of the product

Increase the market share

Improve revenue

Influence the attitude of the public towards the product

Improve brand loyalty

Confirm in the minds of customers that they have made the correct choice

Enhance the desired image of the hotel or restaurant

(http://churchill.ac/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=665)

Cost-oriented pricing involves the determination of all fixed and variable costs associated with a product or service. After the total costs attributable to the product or service have been determined, managers add a desired profit margin to each unit.

Cost-oriented pricing method could be summarized as –

Cost + Fixed profit percentage = Selling price

Market-oriented pricing determines Pricing at the same level as the competition. The organization has to assess how its product relates to a competitive product and set its price at a comparable level to stay competitive in the market place. 

Service Charge,

Cover Charge,

Minimum Charge

A system.

(http://churchill.ac/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=744)

The following factors affect Revenue Generation and Profitability in Hospitality Operations –

Sales mix

It is a way of mixing the relative set of products together and setting up a comparatively lower price than the sum of individual products together as promotion to raise the organizational total sale, but it is actually less than the total amount it could be if it was sold as individual, therefore it affect the revenue generation at the end.

Customer turnover

Revenue generation depend on customer turnover, if the customer are not attracted by the product or satisfied with the service, they would not come back to organization again and therefore sales will be very badly affected and revenue generation at the same time.

Average spending power (ASP)

Average spending power is completely depend on the customers will; customers are free to decide whether to spend extra or not. If the average spending power of the customer or guests lower down, the sales will go down as well therefore the revenue will be affected as where there is no sales there is no revenue.

Labour intensity

To produce goods or to delivered service large amounts of human effort is required specially the industry like hospitality where they are very much people oriented. The larger the human effort against the product or service the larger the amount would be paid and would lower the profitability.

Shelf-life

Self-life determines the length of time a product may be stored or preserved without deterioration; the length of time it remains usable. If the product or service is not suitable to use it will be left as waste and therefore it will affect the profitability very badly.

Elasticity of demand

If the availability against demand is not met properly the profitability will go down as sales will go down.

Building trust and rapport

Objectivity

Balancing praise and criticism

Getting buy-in

Making them motivational

Career plans

(http://churchill.ac/moodle/file.php/52/Appraisal_and_improved_performance.ppt)

The organizations take decisions time to time to carry on developing their products or to improve the service they usually offer. This sort of decision should be taken based on their management and development strategy set by the organisation earlier. The set of decisions has to be structured or arranged in a sorted manner so that they can be used in the future to keep their standards of the product or services.

In order to produce or offer a quality service the organisation must set the objectives targeting the goal which they are intended to achieve. The objectives could couple in numbers depending on the organisation and the label of their product and services. After setting up the objectives the organisation will follow the production or operation strategy to achieve the objectives for that particular stage.

To identify areas for improvement on operations.

Identify areas where products and services are thriving as well as areas of failure.

To improve on performances

To identify constraints and capitalise on opportunities (http://churchill.ac/moodle/file.php/52/Appraisal_and_improved_performance.ppt)

Method adopted by a firm to set its selling price. It usually depends on the firm's average costs, and on the customer's perceived value of the product in comparison to his or her perceived value of the competing products. Different pricing methods place varying degree of emphasis on selection, estimation, and evaluation of costs, comparative analysis, and market situation. See also pricing strategy. (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/pricing.html)

In other word, Pricing is a fundamental aspect of financial modelling, and is one of the four Ps of the marketing mix. The other three aspects are product, promotion, and place. Price is the only revenue generating element amongst the four Ps. Pricing is the manual or automatic process of applying prices to purchase and sales orders. (http://churchill.ac/moodle/file.php/52/price_and_profitability.ppt)

To develop the price for a new product the following strategy would be followed -

Developing marketing strategy – perform marketing analysis, segmentation, targeting and positioning.

Make marketing mix decision – define the product, distribution, and promotional tactics.

Estimate the demand curve – understand how quantity demanded varies with price.

Calculate Cost – include fixed and variable costs associated with the products.

Understand environmental factors – evaluate likely competition actions, understanding legal constraints etc.

Set Pricing Objective – for example, profit maximization, revenue maximization, or price stabilization.

Determine Pricing – Using information collected in the above steps, select a pricing method, develop the pricing structure and define discounts (http://churchill.ac/moodle/file.php/52/price_and_profitability.ppt)

In this part of the report, I will be discussing the relevant practical issues required by the project and presenting some evidential information found throughout my individual research on TESCO PLC, Hancock Road, Broomly –By – Bow, London E3 3DA.

Tesco plc is a British international grocery and general merchandising retail chain founded by Jack Cohen in 1919. The brand first appeared after Cohen bought a shipment of tea from T.E. Stockwell and he used those initials and added the first two letters of his own surname. The first Tesco store was opened in 1929 in Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex. During the 1950s and the 1960s Tesco grew organically, and also through acquisitions, until it owned more than 800 stores. Originally specialising in food and drink, it has diversified into areas such as clothing, electronics, financial services, telecoms, home, health, car and dental insurance, retailing and renting DVDs, CDs, music downloads, Internet services and software. It is the largest British retailer by both global sales and domestic market share, with profits exceeding £3 billion, and the third largest global retailer based on revenue, after Wal-Mart and Carrefour and second largest in profit behind Wal-Mart. (http://www.thefree4all.com)

Figure and information extracted from (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesco)

Figure: The Current information about TESCO PLC

Tesco Broomly-By-Bow offers Food, Beverage, and quality services. They also offers non-food items including holiday accessories, travel insurance etc. The food range comprised with frozen, chilled, regular item. Fresh produce (Fruit, Vegetable) items are even offered there.

Clothes, World Foods, Asian, Halal, Afro Caribbean, Greek, Polish

There are number of influences affecting the patterns of demand

External Factor

Several National customers – Several different expectation

Religious aspects on foods – Halal Food

Competitive price offered by the competitor

Range of product

Current financial crisis etc.

Internal Factor

Product Packaging

Competitive Price offered by Tesco

Multi buy product mix offered

Product design

Value product to attract the customer with low spending budget

Tesco’s backlog Policy

The profile of the client could be defined as description of client that includes demographic, geographical, and characteristics of psychographic, buying guideline, the reliability, and the history of purchase.

A complete survey been done to the TESCO Broom-By-Bow branch among the customer and the details are bellow -

Research Method

Primary research (Field research, fresh data)

Questionnaire survey (Close ended)

Sampling (Selecting set of customer from a larger number of customers)

Location: Broomly-By-Bow

Secondary research (Existing data)

Internet

After surveying 100 customer of different age group the following result is been found -

Figure: Top chart describes the likings on different age group; Bottom Chart shows the overall product expectation to the TESCO Broomly-By-Bow.

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Influence Human Being That Affecting The Shoppers Behaviour Marketing Essay

Marketing » Influence Human Being That Affecting The Shoppers Behaviour Marketing Essay

Hence, the expanding application of scent as a component of store atmosphere that led to increase the awareness in consumer marketing. To adopt scent marketing strategy into service process to increase shopper’s cognitive and behavioural responses by retail settings. Since retail atmospherics mediate the duration and frequency of the shopping trip, which has direct affection to spending, average sales transactions, even a lift of the sales significantly (PEOPO, 2008).

Therefore, to investigate the trend which use of scent as atmospheric cue as marketing strategy by retail stores in Hong Kong, researches will be conducted in relation to Hong Kong market because the market is still in infancy stage but high potential to grow (BRANDCFE, 2007).

By concluding the observation that scent marketing has been well established and widely use to improve service experience. "Our body needs us to breathe, so that scent marking prevails hard selling", which is reveal the effectiveness of scent marketing is fruitful because people may ignore the message that the posters conveys or they may neglect the salesmen’s persuading words (BOSS, 2010). As scent will be directly channeled to Limbic System. That can process the human's emotion and memorizing the effectiveness of the sub-conscience and consuming behavior which is passively affected by scent (NEWSTATE, 2010).

The purposes for this study are to provide information of human behaviour toward scent marketing in retail industry of Hong Kong. This study provides timely and meaningful to this industry. On the other hand, the aspect of this research towards retail industry as academic research which is to furnish a clearer picture how scent marketing can carry out in Hong Kong.

After determine the purpose of this study, the summarized research aim is as follow: “To study Consumer Perception as Mediators of the Ambient Scent on Purchasing Behavior in Retail Store (Duty-Free). The factors affecting the intention to actual purchase are effect of scent, perceptions of merchandise quality and global environment, as well as the amount of spending in a retail store with the mediating role of evaluating the shoppers’ purchasing behaviour and attitudes toward the moderating role of gender which applies to retail store.

As previously stated, this study is to examine the effect of ambient scent on consumer perceptions and purchasing behaviour in Hong Kong retail store. In order to undertake this research, Theoretical framework is necessary for analyzing the influences. The following section will explore the various theories and the available of literature findings which is relevant fields of interest that service environment, scent as environmental cues, effects on perceptions and behaviour, as well as those have potentially apropos of moderating variables of gender.

Ambient Scent and Marketing

Atmospherics are subset of widespread research streams on physical environment in service industry (Baker, 1989; Bitner, 1986; Booms and Bitner, 1982). Based on some extensive literature review that indicated the retail environment is undoubtedly influence shoppers’ behaviour (Turley and Milliman, 2000) and increase sales (Stanley and Sewall, 1976). In addition, retail atmosphere can mediate merchandise evaluation (Wheatly and Chiu, 1977; Rappoport, 1982; Bitner, 1986) and customer satisfaction (Bitner, 1990). Moreover, customer attitudes toward retail store environment as well as products (Darden and Erdem, 1983).

Atmospherics and Service Environment

The atmospherics concept defined the effort to create desirable environment of buying process is needed to induce consumer emotional responses and increase the probability of purchase ultimately. Hence, atmosphere form an undeniable competitive advantage (Kotler, 1973; Mehrabian and Russell, 1974; Baker, 1986; Bitner, 1992; Baker, Grewal and Parasuraman, 1994).

The Theoretical Models of Consumer Response to Atmosphere is based on the framework of Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) paradigm (Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Spangenberg, Crowly and Henderson, 1996) as follow:

The pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) Model (1974)

Mehrabian and Russell proffered theoretical model in which emotional states are elicited by environment stimuli and act as mediators to acquired affective responses rather than approach-avoidance behaviour. Environmental cues coming out from the physical circumfluent can excite voluntary or involuntary emotional reactions.

Servicescape Model (1992)

As clientele and employees both perceived the objective environmental cues, Bitner designed the integrated framework about the effect of physical surrounding on consumers and service personnel interactions. In turn, the approach or avoidance reactions can be qualified toward surroundings (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974).

Perceptions toward environmental cues led to certain emotions, beliefs and physiological sensations that influence behaviors (Bitner, 1992). Service setting is notion of non-verbal communication that affected shoppers’ beliefs of organization, employees and merchandise by cognitive responses. Therefore, that can affect the shoppers with unrelated beliefs and emotions toward service setting (Bitner, 1992).

Model of Influence of Ambient Scent on Consumer Responses (1995)

Gulas and Bloch based illustration the effects of ambient scent toward emotions and behaviours. The ambient scent is objectively assumed that is dependent on different individuals and the seal acuity of individuals under the physical environment (Gulas and Bloch, 1995).

Scent awareness and emotions as potential moderators that comprise other atmospheric factors and congruity of scent can evaluate the products offering and assessments of the overall service setting (Gulas and Bloch, 1995).

Then, environmental psychology models are beneficial in determining the pertinent methods and measures required to examine and analyze the impact of atmospheric cues on consumer responses to retail setting (Spangenberg, Crowley and Henderson, 1996).

The following conceptual foundations proposed the current study is based and from which the research hypotheses were drawn. It presents comprehended and potential influences of the ambient scent as atmospheric cue on various consumer responses, which previously outlined in prior sections. Detailed methodology of information which to be collected for the research will be provided next section.

Conceptual Background and Model

The present research such as Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) paradigm (1974), as well as Bitner’s Servicescape conceptualization (1992) takes the foundation in environmental psychology. The proposed model is in addition consistent with Gulas and Bloch’s Model of Olfaction Effects (1995). Also, it is affiliated with Lazarus’s “cognition-emotion” theory (1991), which sustained the preeminence of cognitions with the effects of ambient stimuli on evaluation toward the retail setting and affective responses.

This study designed differs from those atmospheric studies as that will not assumed shoppers’ emotions will play a role in hypothesized relationships. It examines the paths of link from environmental cue to consumer perceptions and purchasing behaviour. The approach is in concurrence with the Elaboration Likelihood Model, which provided support the belief of attitudes can be differentiated from affect (Cacioppo and Petty, 1989). The conceptualization evidence has revealed that affective responses are not developed by ambient scent all the time (Yalch and Spangenberg, 1993; Spangenberg, Clowley and Henderson, 1996; Bone and Ellen, 1999).

Consequently, the proposed flow (Figure. 1) limited the research to study the effects of environmental stimuli, ambient scent. It not only assesses the impact of internal evaluations, perceptions of merchandise quality and global environment, but also assess on an approach-related measure, purchasing behaviour. Hence, the model predict that perceptions will have mediating affect to the spending related to the retail service setting and the gender will moderate the relationship among the ambient cue and consumers; evaluation and behavior reactions.

Fig.1 The proposed flow for hypotheses testing

Accordingly, based on conceptual model of the above, research objectives are as follows:

Provide comprehensive understanding of ambient scent as an environmental cue impact on shoppers’ perceptions regarding retail store in Hong Kong.

Justify the factors leading to the phenomenon in order to design the desire service environment of retail store to shoppers that affects the purchasing behaviour of actual expenditure.

Determine the assessment of whether male or female (gender) that affected by retail store atmospherics.

Evaluate the scent marketing strategy as differentiating tools for retail store can be improved.

Research Hypotheses

The existence and valid studies between retail settings, shoppers’ perceptions and intended behavioural responses and reactions have been established by numerous researchers (Bitner, 1990; Baker, Levy and Grewal, 1992). Hence, the research hypotheses on the impact of ambient scent are primarily in the following, which based on the literature related to the main stream, individual shopper interactive influenced by environmental stimuli on empirical evidence.

The conclusive findings about the influence of atmospheric stimuli on merchandise evaluations in the relevant studies (Gardner and Siomkos, 1986). The following hypotheses are derived through cognitive approach and processing to atmospheric cue (Shostack, 1977; Lazarus, 1991). That is concordance with the study that discovered the existence of pleasant ambient scent positively affect shoppers’ perceptions toward product quality and the retail setting (Spangenberg, Crowley and Henderson, 1996). Also, the assessment of global environment and retail density could be affected by similar fragrance that influences shoppers’ cognitive responses (Michon, Chebat and Turley, 2005). Moreover, many journal founded that merchandise and retail setting are inference concern with environmental cues (Gardner and Siomkos, 1986). Since atmosphere contains multidimensional concept, which assumed that impact of associated environmental factors will be greater than the sum of its parts (Gulas and Bloch, 1995). It is therefore hypothesized that:

The direct and positive relationship among the existence of pleasant ambient scents and intentions of purchase, with consumer spending of transaction have established in studies (Hirsch and Gay, 1991; Hirsch, 1995; Spangenberg, Crowley and Henderson, 1996). Nonetheless, presence of scent demonstrated may certainly affect shoppers’ shopping time and frequency, even chances of return to store to acquire the products (Bone and Ellen, 1999). Thus, it is hypothesized that:

As mentioned before, theory of “cognition-emotion” supported that emotional responses can be engendered without cognition occur (Lazarus, 1991), which presented as a base for subsequent behaviours (Cacioppo and Petty, 1989). The premise about emotions do not perform as mediators relationship among environmental stimuli, consumer appraisals and behavioral responses that supported by the empirical evidence (Chebat and Michon, 2003).

Various researches have observed that the comprehensive perceptions of physical retail environment and of product quality are affect the consumer behaviour, thus, revealed the shoppers’ evaluations is independently affect both approach-avoidance behaviors as well as the actual spending (Zeithaml, 1988; Baker, Levy and Grewal, 1992; Donovan et ai.,1994). The influence of shoppers’ perceptions on behaviour still has rooms to research, as to find out the importance of perceptions in service environment. In consequence, it is supposed that:

The findings showed that there is possible to hypothesize the perceptions may follow a path than inferences on merchandise quality (Baker, Grewal and Parasuraman, 1994). Therefore, the assessment of product quality served as antecedents toward the evaluations of service setting and performing as mediator of the relationship among environmental stimuli with shoppers’ perceptions of retail environment. Hence, it is hypothesized that:

To review the olfaction research found that women tend to enjoy shopping in a scented atmosphere (Robert and Kerry, 2007). In addition, female perceive superior emotional responses with affective and evaluative reactions than the counterpart of male (Bone and Ellen, 1999). The appearance of variance is the possible result of hormonal factors, together with women’s higher sense in acuity and verbal skills. That sensitivity have enhanced by olfactory cues and thus familiarity with smells (Levine and McBurney, 1986; Richardson and Zucco, 1989; Ellen and Bone, 1998; Bone and Ellen, 1999). Hence, it is assumed that:

To analysis the effects of scent on consumer perceptions and purchasing behaviour towards retail environment, both primary data and secondary data should be collected.

To start with secondary data, the data collected for purpose other than the problem at hand (Malhotra & Birks 2007). It includes internal and external data (Malhotra & Birks 2007). Internal data is information generated in –analysis of earlier studies such as customer files, like past customer transactions (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007). Company report like The Body Shop, Starbucks and Mrs. Fields will collected as internal data. This gives the examples and past information of the new trend of scent marketing.

Apart from internal data, external data is collected by an outside organization. Federal government is the main source which publishes information collected by scores of government agencies about the economy, business and virtually all demographics of the population (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007). For this dissertation, text book is used to learn about theory development and establish research approaches, as well as methods of data collection. Besides, academic journals and articles. will also collected as external data to provide up-to-date and rigorous reports on research of the study, which gives different ideas that to be summarized with respect to the study. Moreover, the industrial reports and news of retail operation and scent marketing strategy are collected to establish the background of this research and provide useful figure and picture to describe the trend of rising attention with emotional bonding towards retail environment. Nevertheless, the census data from Hong Kong Government and experimental research company to provide accurate figure toward the retail industry.

To mention about primary data, it is originated by the researcher specifically to address the research problem (Malhotra & Birks 2007). Primary data is original and unique element of this research. It can be divided into qualitative and quantitative information.

For this dissertation, focus group is used to collect qualitative information. This provides views of consumer behaviour on ambient scent. The increased understanding provided is a key to reduce negative aspects of consumer behaviour and scent marketing which so-called ‘dark side’. Research focused on understanding consumer experiences is called interpretivism (schiffman & Kanuk 2007). However, if there is any idea uncovered, quantitative studies should be tested. Therefore, quantitative information is collected. For this study, observation research is used to determine the research sample and face-to-face questionnaire survey with representative sample from the wider population are conducted in order to measure the behaviour, emotions and purchasing decision in terms of actual spending of potential consumers in Hong Kong. Result are used for making strategic marketing decision whether to implement scent marketing in Hong Kong retail industry ( Schiffman & Kanuk 2007).

Based on the information to be collected, the research designed for the study is as the follow:

First of all, secondary data is collected from online databases, which are ABI/INFORM of City University. Moreover, text books like “Marketing”, “Service Marketing”, “Scents” and “Consumer Behavior” are used to provide basic information to study. Besides, some of the academic journals and articles are searched through we'd searching engines such as Google, etc. Finally, Hong Kong Government website provides the census data and industrial reports.

To achieve triangulation between quantitative and qualitative information, the overall research design will be as follows:

The quantitative research is conducted to quantify data and apply forms of statistical analysis (Malhotra N. & Birks D. 2007). It is descriptive in nature and used to understand the effects of various promotional inputs on the consumer, thus enabling marketers to “predict” consumer behaviour (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007). For this study, observation and face-to-face questionnaire survey will be used.

Observational research is the recording and counting of behavioural patterns of people to obtain information about the phenomenon of interest (Malhotra N. & Birks D. 2007). And also, it is an important method of consumer research because marketers recognize that the best way to gain an in-depth understanding of the relationship among people towards products and environment is by watching through the process of customers get into the store and whether purchase the merchandise or not (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007). Therefore, it is the first step of conducting marketing research as the researcher observe and record the numbers of customer who have intention to visit the shop and make actual purchase. This is used to determine the appropriate time of the face-to-face questionnaire survey to be conducted. The structure observation will be conducted as the researcher clearly defines the behaviours to be observed and the techniques by which that will be measured.

Conducting survey in familiar and non-artificial surroundings, people tend to act more naturally that allows researchers to obtain data on subjects’ actual emotions, perceptions and behaviour. Thus, this study will take place at Nuance-Watson, the leading retail operator in Hong Kong, provides wide range of products including watches and jewellery, fashion and accessories, perfumes and cosmetics, electronic equipment and clothes, etc. The result and findings are consequently more representative to the situation. Additional consideration was given into selection process to ensure that the retail store would be a neutral environment. Hence, the potential for observer bias can be reduced and the reliability of the data can also be enhanced.

Then, before doing face-to-face questionnaire survey, sampling techniques should be carried out. For the quantitative research, large and probability samples which each element of the population has a fixed probabilistic chance of being selected for the sample is used (Malhotra N. & Birks D. 2007). The data collection instruments are valid and reliable, thus the results can be viewed as representative of the universe (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007). There are four probability sampling methods that are simple random, systematic, stratified and cluster sampling (Malhotra & Birks 2007). The cluster sampling technique is adopted this time. It is because the sample size is clustered into 3 groups by geographically, New Territories, Kowloon and Hong Kong Island that with different purchasing behaviour while under a "scented" retail store.

In the study, target group was retail consumers aged 15 or above who regularly purchased in retail store in Hong Kong. The reason for this selection was that during this type of consumers are in their working period that the teenagers may get the part-time jobs and adult normally have earning their own income. Therefore they have sufficient purchasing power to buy product. The sample size of this survey is set at 100, as the resource limitation. The manpower and time give the restriction to carry out larger sample size for the research. However, it is believed to be good enough for studying the potential consumers and for suggesting the recommendations.

After setting the sample size, the face-to-face questionnaire survey of quantitative research will be conducted. Respondents are intercepted while they shopping in the retail store (Malhotra & Birks. 2007). They may be questioned there and asked about their consumption experiences. Therefore, questions with predefined possible responses and open-ended questions that has to be code numerically. Most questionnaires include attitude scales and, the questions are not disguised (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007).

Once the questionnaire was finished off, face and content validity, pilot testing of 30 respondents will be conducted to improve questionnaire by identifying and eliminating potential problems (Malhotra N. & Birks D. 2007). All aspects of the questionnaire should be tested, including question content and instructions, wording, sequence, form and layout, question difficulty. More importantly, it ensures all answer options are provided. The respondents should be similar to those who will be targeted in the actual survey in terms of background characteristics, familiarity with topic, and attitudes and behaviours of interest.

Due to triangulation, besides the quantitative research that qualitative research is needed. It is an unstructured, primarily exploratory design based on small samples and intended to provide insight and understanding (Malhotra & Birks. 2007). However, the findings tend to be somewhat subjective since it is administrated by highly trained interviewer-analysts who also analyze the findings (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007).

For this study, focus group will be carried out which is a discussion conducted by a trained moderator among a small group of participants in an unstructured and natural manner (Malhotra & Birks. 2007). It is generally made up of 8-10 members. Due to group of fewer than 8 are unlikely to generate the momentum and group dynamics necessary for a successful session. Likewise, group of more than 10 may be too crowded and may not be conducive to a cohesive and discussion (Malhotra & Birks. 2007).

Method to organize focus group

The group discussion “focused” on the subject of research interest to gain insights by creating a forum where participants feel sufficiently relaxed to reflect and portray their feelings and behavior, at their pace and using their language and logic (Malhotra & Birks. 2007). However, since sample sizes are necessarily small, findings cannot be generalized to larger populations (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007). Hence, quantitative research is needed. The type of questions should be open-ended, unstructured questions and further probing by the interviewer.

Moreover, the sample size should be small with non-probability sampling methods as the findings are generally not representative of the universe under study (Schiffman & Kanuk 2007). The non-probability sampling techniques are convenience, judgmental, quota and snowball sampling. However, convenience sampling is applied as only the shoppers who have intention to walk around or consumed in the retail store are selected.

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