Research In Business For Online Marketing Activities: Impact Of Online Portals On The Sales Of Sportswear Products

Problem Statement

Describe about the Research in Business for Online Marketing Activities.

Online marketing activities and practices helps in enhancing the visibility of the brand and assists in achieving greater brand awareness about the brand for which such activities are carried out. In this context, it can be said that by expanding the marketing functions in online space assists the brand to achieve wider reach and helps the brand to connect every segment of the society. Therefore, online marketing portals effectively address the issue of accessibility of the brand. In addition, it also helps the organization to increase profit margins and hence, greater inflow of sales revenue to the organization. However, ineffective and inefficient online marketing strategies can significantly damage the reputation of the brand in the market as well as adversely affects the financial situation of the brand (Bargiela et al., 2013). The sportswear industry is one of the fast growing industries that targets young customer segments. In this regard, the success of such industry is heavily dependent on the online marketing activities as their target customers are mostly young people that are tech savvy and spends their leisure time on online platforms. Sportswear companies frequently employ online advertising and promotional campaigns as a means to create awareness about the brand and to attract customers. Moreover, the business models of sportswear companies are closely knit around the concepts of online business models. For instance, the sportswear companies such as Nike and Adidas display their products through customized online portals and allow the customers to order and make payment as per their convenience; thereby enhancing the accessibility of the brand. This strategy also assists the company o reduce their operational costs and strengthens their financial position (Boons & Lüdeke, 2013). Moreover, high online traffic is key indicator of customer awareness and sustainability of a sportswear brand.

Online traffic is one of the essential marketing tools that help the business to achieve sustainability and success in a highly dynamic and competitive business environment. With the impressive advancement in the technology, the traditional way of shopping that requires customers to be physically present in a retail store to make purchase decision is gradually becoming obsolete or less preferable among the customers. Therefore, to enhance customers’ convenience and their overall experience with the brand, companies are exploring and developing online tools and techniques such as social media amazement to attract customers towards the brand (Elzinga et al., 2012). Apart from being a more effective means of engaging customers, it is also less expensive that the traditional advertising and promotional methods and tools and provider greater brand visibility and awareness among the customers. However, when compared to the traditional modes of promotion techniques, online marketing help to achieve greater sales revenue and market share for the brand in consideration. Therefore, it is important to analyze the online shopping in context of the existing market situation. Moreover, online shopping has its own problems for the business; for instance, the issue of negative reviews from customers that negatively affects the brand and dilutes its brand equity (Elzinga et al., 2012).

Research Objectives/Questions

The objective of research is to evaluate the impact of online portals on the sales of sportswear products. In addition, the study also seeks to access the current trends in the online promotion of sportswear products. Therefore, in accordance with the research objectives, the research questions for the study has been presented as –

• What are the major factors that affect customer behaviour in online shopping?
• How effective the existing online shopping portals are to achieve greater sales revenue?
• What measures (if any) are to be taken to address the issues pertaining online shopping of sportswear products?

The research aims to compare the virtues of   online shopping against the traditional way of shopping. In the recent years, online shopping has gained more popularity, particularly among the young customers. The study also aims to evaluate the benefits as well as issues of online sales on the financial position of the company. In addition, the study also assesses consumer behaviour and perceptions towards online selling platforms in context of           a sportswear business entity. Hence, it can be said that the amount of traffic generated by a business portal indicates consumers’ interest and loyalty towards the brand (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2015).

The expected research outcomes lies in meeting the objectives of the research study; therefore, the expected research outcomes pertains to the effectiveness of online shopping as compared to the traditional methods of shopping that correlates to shopping by being physically present at the point of sales (e.g. a retail store). In addition, the study would also evaluate the some of the issues in the online shopping such as privacy and security of the customers in online platforms, and the presence of malicious software and programs that can significantly influences the online shopping behaviour of the customers. These issues have been adequately addressed in the research study and in the research process apart from the bundle of merits that are offered in the online shopping platforms (Farahbod et al., 2012). The research study would also provide considerable insight to the advantages of online shopping of goods for the customers and business organizations. Thus, the research study would help to understand the advantages of online shopping in context of sportswear companies and its impact on achieving greater growth. In addition, the study also aims to ascertain current trends in the sportswear segment being in practice in major sportswear companies like Nike and Adidas to enhance its sales revenue, have greater market share and brand reach (Foss & Knudsen, 2013).

Conceptual framework          

 

(Source: As created by author)

With the help of online web portals, business enterprises have been able to gather more holistic and exclusive information regarding the customer preference and buying decisions. Thus, online portals have assisted the business entities to gather relevant data about the market and disseminate the data thus collected to the concerned departments or authority. Moreover, with the effective use of online portals, sportswear businesses have been able to develop interpersonal relationships with the customers, thereby developing greater brand loyalty. This has also helped the sportswear enterprises to address the issues of brand accessibility that hampers the long term sustainability of the business (Hair et al., 2015).

Research Justifications

The customers have also positively benefitted by the online business portals, as they are now able to buy their choice of sportswear products from any part of the world without being physically present in the retail store. Thus, it can be said that online platforms have helped in eliminating the geographic boundaries that has affected the sales revenue prospect of the sportswear companies and also the helped the customers by enhancing the reach of a particular brand. In this regard, it can be inferred that online shopping platforms have helped in developing positive perception of the brand in the mind of the customers and enhanced brand loyalty; thereby leading to increased sales volume for the business organization (Khan et al., 2012).

In order to satisfactorily complete the research study by meeting research objectives and the problem statement developed, following research hypothesis have been developed –

H_o: Online selling platforms provide distinct advantage to both the buyers and sellers as compared to conventional method of shopping; thereby, ensuring greater customer satisfaction and grater sales revenue for the business organization.

H₁: Online shopping portals have no considerable impact on the sales revenue of the business organization.

Research methodology provides a blueprint of the research process and provides direction to the research study. This chapter provides details regarding the research paradigms applied for this research study. The choice of research paradigm has been developed in accordance with the objectives of the research study. Moreover, in selection of research methodology is made by considering the data collection method used for the study. Therefore, this chapter discusses research design, research philosophy, and the research approach. In addition, the chapter also discuses data collection methodology adopted for the study as well as the selection of sample size (Rafols et al., 2012).

In accordance with the goals and objectives of the study, positivism theory of research philosophy has been selected. The purpose of adopting positivism research philosophy is that it helps to gather detailed information about the influence of online selling platform on the financial prowess of the business enterprise. In addition, positivism approach would also help to better understand various concepts pertaining to the research study and would enable the business entities to make relevant conclusions regarding the research procedures (Robson & McCartan 2016).

Research design helps to integrate various components of the research study and helps them to present in a coherent and logical manner, thereby enabling the researcher to effectively address the research issues and develop relevant research findings to meet the research objectives. For various research study, there are three different types of research designs are employed depending on the nature and requirement of the research study, that includes – descriptive, explanatory and explorative.  For this research study, descriptive research design has been selected (Bryman. & Bell, 2015).

Expected Research Outcomes

For the successful completion of the business, it is important to gather detailed information regarding the research problem in order to analyze the influence of online sales portals on the business sustainability of sportswear business entities. The descriptive research design would help to better understand the issues related to the online selling portals. Apart, from it would also help the have clear understanding of the customers’ perception regarding the sale of sportswear products through online platforms. Thus, a descriptive  design helps to collect the data in a detail led fashion, thereby enabling the researcher to successfully undertake the research study and make firm conclusions to meet the research objective (Bukhari, & Qudous, 2012).

A research approach can be categorized in two types – inductive and deductive. For the purpose of this research study, deductive research approach has been selected to assist that helps to undertake the study in detailed manner. Deductive research deals with developing some relevant theories or hypothesis (used for the study), after the study has been developed, the next step is collect relevant data and its analysis. Lastly, the hypothesis so developed is accessed in the light of findings of the data analysis to determine whether hypothesis holds true or not (Collis & Hussey 2013).  

For this study, deductive research approach would help to evaluate both primary and secondary data to draw relevant conclusions. The customers’ reviews or feedbacks and secondary data collected for the research study would be utilized to make firm conclusions pertaining to the research objectives (Saunders et al., 2012).

For the research study both primary and secondary data has been collected. The primary data has been collected through interviewing various marketing practitioners in the sportswear companies and the customers of different sportswear products and brands. Moreover, for the collection of secondary data relevant materials have been sourced from the works of prominent authors in the field of marketing. This would enable the develop better understanding regarding the consensus of the online shopping and its merit for the customers as well for the organization. The secondary data has been gathered from the past works by researchers and academic scholars. This would help to understand current trends in area of study and the relevant theories and concepts developed by the past scholars.  For this purpose, previous research papers and journal articles have been collected and analyzed (Spieth et al., 2013).

For the study, a total of 50 customers and 6 managers employed well-known sportswear organizations have been selected for the interview to gain insight of the research problem and make conclusions based on the responses gathered. The authentic responses provided by the customers are a valuable source of information that would greatly benefit the research study (Zarif, 2012).

Section 2

To meet the objectives of the study, simple random sampling would be more appropriate. Selecting the respondents randomly would eliminate the possible biases in the data collection method and would provide more credibility to the research study (Zikmund et al., 2012).

Both of the primary as well as secondary sources have been used for the collection of the data. In this context, it is often observed that the data collection procedure can consume a great deal of time, which can be highly critical for the research project (Zott & Amit, 2013). The primary data would be collected through a set of questionnaire. It would be sent to the client in order to attain their feedback. The research study will use excel charts for evaluating the data I an efficient fashion. According to Aral et al. (2013), the use of excel sheet would effectively enable the organization in terms of collecting data related to the impact of online sales on the sportswear business performance. The consumers as well as the employees would be involved in the data collection process. Therefore, it would eventually produce a different set of opinion from the different societal fractions.

As stated by Wilson (2014), relevant websites, magazines as well as journals would be used for the collection of secondary data. The data collection procedure would be also assisted in terms of acquiring accurate data from the marketing books of alleged authors. Therefore, it can be easily assumed that the research procedure would be highly enriched by this kind of valuable data range.

The researcher is highly responsible to conduct the research with adequate transparency as well as honesty throughout the research project Boons and Ludeke-Freund (2013). Therefore, it is necessary for the researcher to develop an environment where the participants would be encouraged and allowed to act with their own consent. The research procedure must not use any kind of undue pressure as well as coercion to the participants for their desired contribution. Moreover, the research work must maintain the privacy of the company information so that any kind of sensitive data cannot be breached. The research project need to solely focus on unbiased opinions of the participants regarding the sportswear industry’s online sales activities.

Organization Study

The study would be organized in the following structure

Chapter 1: It would contain the prepared assignment regarding the research proposal

Chapter 2: It would contain the case study regarding the impact of online sales of sportswear business organization on the business performance

Conceptual Framework

Chapter 3: It would contain the discussion of necessary methods for conducting the research project. These methods mostly include data collection process, data interpretation techniques as well as sample size analysis that would support the research projects.

Chapter 4: It will include an appropriate analysis as well as the findings of research procedure. The research will use primary and secondary data for pertaining the analysis and research findings.

Chapter 5: It would include most appropriate conclusion as well as effective recommendation. This chapter is highly significant for the research study.

Activities of Research	Week No 1.	Week No 2.	Week No 3.	Week No 4.	Week No 5.	Week No 6.	Week No 7.
Topic selection
Data collection based on secondary data
Layout development
Review of the literature
Research plan establishment
Adequate research method selection
Primary data collection
Interpreting and analysing collected data
Accurate findings
Conclusion
Draft establishment
Final work Submission

(Source: As created by author)

In order to conduct the research procedure within given time period $880 would be used for project budget establishment. The major reasons are highly critical for framing the operational policies of business enterprise through a budget.

a) In order to prepare the literature review the research project would need a considerable amount of fund, as it will entail with attaining quality journal articles, online sources as well as textbooks. Therefore, the background of the study will require a highly significant amount of finding.

b) The research project is using survey for data collection. Therefore, the questionnaire need to be printed and the surveyor must travel in different locations. In addition to that, the interview cost and mailing would also cost in a significant fashion. Moreover, the researcher will be required to allocate certain amount of budget for developing tables and charts. The summary of the total cost has been given below

Assumed total cost
Review of literature	$250
Collection of Data	$100
Analysis of Data	$300
Total expenses	$650

(Source: As created by author)

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