Project 3 Instructions Based upon the research conducted for Projects 1 and 2, select the method that you believe would be most appropriate. Next, explain why that method is the most appropriate for y
Kathy A. Greggs
Liberty University
05/23/2020
Keeping Up E-Commerce Growth
Amazon is arguably the largest E-commerce company in the world, and in recent times the company has seen enormous growth, e-commerce growth. Meaning that the market is expanding and if the company will not adapt to the expansion, it might fail. What does this mean, it needs to adapt to the environment. Therefore, the general problem to be addressed is keeping up with e-commerce growth. On the other hand, the specific problem to be addressed is how to keep up the operating segment (online stores) which makes up more than half of Amazon's Revenue. There are a few points that need to be focused upon, the shifting business mix of the company, whereby a significant and relevant growth indicator and the general health of business has been illustrated by the pace of the gross profit growth. According to Anthony Diclemnte (2017), "gross profit model buoys his 12-month price target on the e-commerce giant to $1,965 from $1,800.” But another important and intricate aspect to understand is the growth challenge that international rather than domestic, mainly because the company has been handling the domestic market efficiently holding almost half of the retail market.
Based on the Financial Reports of the retail Giant, the Fluctuations of the foreign exchange played an important role. This is because it cost the company almost $1.3 billion to hit the “international revenues.” Ignoring the impact of the movement of the foreign exchange, amazon would have continued to grow more slowly. This pattern of growth has been the norm of the day for some time, and it is what will affect the company if it is not taken care of, but it is a challenge that affects the company, a sit invests in the business and captures margins at cost of growth while losing money at the same time. The company has positive operating margins in every quarter, and the reverse is similar for the international segment of the company. Meaning that the international growth segment comes at a cost that might affect the other markets of the company. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that the business is small internationally and in addition to that it has a slow growth curve, combining these two aspects; lower profits and slower growth create a concern.
One of the key strategies of the company has been getting closer and closer to the customer, it creates more competitive features. Currently, the business has differentiated its services based on different geographical areas, many new features, and exclusive services are only in specific geographical areas, and even within the home market in the United States. Some of these services depend on coming up with accompanying infrastructure, specifically in the fulfillment and distribution centers of the company. Whereby the main purpose of such initiatives is mainly accomplished by partners (who contribute over half of its revenue) like the retailers (Amazon Locker and/or the Postal Service that help to accomplish same-day deliveries or delivery on Sundays. Whereby these services cannot be established outside the country easily, and specifically in new countries whereby they may lack such structures and the partners might completely not be there, whereby it puts the fulfillment of the company on a tight spot.
In the United States, there are more than sixty distribution and fulfillment centers that have approximately 50 million square feet of space, which is way bigger than any centers in foreign countries with Amazon operations. In the sense that Germany and China have less than 10 million square feet respectively. This creates an imbalance as the e-commerce market in the three countries is almost on the same magnitude. Which becomes a problem, because before the company mainly focused differentiation that was solely created by low prices and its massive online selection, but the differentiation at the moment focuses on customer personal fulfillment, and it can only be feasible in the local market, which enables the kind of innovation that has been discussed before. On the other hand, the company cannot just decide to invest in the international market, which has been established costs the company instead of making profits meaning that additional investments will make losses for the company. This is because the company lacks market shares and lack scale in the foreign countries, which creates a vicious circle that prevents Amazon form being able to create the same services that are in the local market and extend the services to the international market.
Therefore, what does this mean, the revenue of the company comes majorly from a few countries. The country details are not provided but the North American Region that consists of the United States, Canada, the U.K., Japan, German, and Mexico, but dominated by the U.S. Market, make up almost 95% of the revenue that the company receives annually (Dawson, 2015). Therefore, it is possible that these countries that company is looking forward to achieving the scale and density that it has achieved in the U.S. market in the other markets. This can only be fulfilled by focusing on building the density and scale rather than spreading thinly all over the international market. Looking at the company currently, the investment is mainly and particularly focused on the Chinese market and to some extent in the Indian market (Wu & Park, 2019). Whereby these regions are a challenge because of the presence of the local competitors in these regions and the tough regulations put in place in these markets. This makes it almost impossible to succeed in these markets. The investments being made in these regions are essential all the cash and profits established in these regions and in addition to the current expansion plans, which showing any signs of paying off. Therefore, the company thinly spreads itself, meaning that the more it continues with this technique of thinly spreading it is the likelihood that it will not succeed in any market of the international countries outside the U.S. making its current strategy counterproductive.
Research Questions.
How has technology impacted e-commerce?
What percentage of company performance has been affected by e-commerce?
To what extent has e-commerce affected job security?
How has e-commerce affected the expenditure of organizations?
Problem Statement.
E-commerce came to its existence due to technology. Before that, most of the companies relied on traditional ways of conducting commerce and businesses. However, after the evolution of technology, there has been continued innovation of new advancements in technology. Therefore, these new advancements of technology are being invented today. Therefore, this has continued to impact the whole idea of e-commerce. The new technologies however affect e-commerce positively. Therefore, it has promoted the efficiency of the business. This is because companies can do their work faster and in an easier way.
Before the evolution of e-commerce, companies and businesses performed poorly due to low productivity. E-commerce involves conducting business electronically. Therefore, this has improved how companies conduct business. Therefore, it has improved its productivity and hence overall performance is improved. This is because e-commerce is because of technology which makes work easier and faster. Moreover, the work is accurate hence improving the quality of productivity in a company. Nevertheless, ever the evolution of e-commerce has negatively impacted the job security of many employees. This is because most of the organizations prefer doing their operations electronically. As a result, the need for labor force has been decreasing from time to time. Therefore, most of the employees have lost their jobs. However, companies nowadays have a few numbers of employees. However, these employees are required to had skills in the field of technologies. They should be computer literate for them to qualify for the job position. Therefore, employees who are computer illiterate lose their jobs.
Since the companies are conducting their business operations electronically with few employees, this has been cost-effective so far. This is because it has helped companies utilizing e-commerce to reduce the cost of paying salaries to a large number of employees. As a result, the money has been reallocated to various departments. Some of these departments include the marketing department. This has increased the marketing strategies within the organization's marketing department to increase its customers. With an increased customer base, companies have been in a position to increase their sales and revenues. Consequently, the company has been able to maximize its profits. The marketing department can as well market its products through social media platforms. This has saved the company the cost of paying salesmen to conduct marketing strategies.
Quantitative Study.
A quantitative study can be defined as a research design that involves measuring variables using numerical models, analyzing the measurements using statistical procedures, and then evaluating the relationship that exists between the involved variables. Therefore, a quantitative study has data collection methods that will be explained in detail below. This study method also has ways of analyzing data collected including a target population.
Data Collection.
Data collection can, therefore, be defined as the procedure of gathering the info and data as well as gauging it based on involved variables of interest. Data collection is usually done through systematic and well-known methods and procedures that allow researchers to get answers to their research questions. Nevertheless, data collection allows researchers to do a hypothesis. After the hypothesis has been done, researchers will then be able to evaluate the outcomes of the entire research study. Moreover, data collection is important to researchers because it helps them acquire some form of quality evidence that leads to the analysis and interpretation of rich data. Through this, researchers will be able to come up with reliable and viable conclusions of the entire research answers to the research questions (Flick, 2017). Therefore, the systematic process of data collection starts with outlining the type of data required for the research. The researcher will then be expected to select a sample from the target population through a process known as sampling. Once that is done, the researcher will then utilize various data collection instruments that apply to the entire process (Paradis et al. 2016).
A quantitative study can be divided into four categories. They include descriptive, experimental, correlation, and quasi-experimental research designs. However, the research will use a descriptive research design. This is because descriptive research involves data collection that leads to testing the hypothesis. It also collects data that help answer research designs outlined above. It will also cover most of the areas of study. This helps improve the reliability and validity of the data collected. Nevertheless, a descriptive research design allows researchers to conduct problem-structuring models. These models will then help the research team have a clear understanding. Most of the researchers use this category of quantitative study because it reports on things as they are, without any addition or subtraction. This is uncommon to the other research design categories. The research team will employ a descriptive research design that will be useful in outlining the features of the involved variables such as technology, job security, overall performance, and the cost involved and its relationship with e-commerce. The design is suitable for obtaining data about the current trends of the occurrence, which is e-commerce (Dewaele, 2018). The following section will outline the data collection techniques employed in the research.
Data Collection Methods.
There are various ways of collecting data. The common methods of collecting data in the quantitative study include questionnaires, interviews, tracking, experiments, observations, and surveys. However, the research will use questionnaires and observations to collect data. The reason behind this selection is that it is easier and cost-effective unlike the other methods of data collection. However, these methods have various challenges especially from the participation side of the respondents. This is because most people perceive it as a waste of time since it is one-on-one. However, for the researchers, this is considered reliable information.
Surveys.
The surveys primarily embrace the use of questionnaires. These methods of data collection save a lot of time since the research team will gather information directly from the participants concerning the subject matter, e-commerce. That is in the case of surveys and interviews. Most of the surveys utilize questionnaires to collect data (Brannen, 2017). The questionnaires will be, therefore, used during surveys. The questions in the questionnaires are mostly close-ended. Hence respondents will not have to waste their time explaining themselves. The survey questionnaires can either be web-based or paper-based. The web-based will involve surveying a target area of study that is far from reach. Therefore, respondents will be given questionnaires to fill them out online. As for the paper-based, the survey will be conducted manually where the research team issues out questionnaires to the target population in person.
Experiments.
This is where the researchers conduct experiments that involve variables of the research. The experiments aim to evaluate the relationship that could exist between the variables of interest (Kazdin, 2016). For example, the research team could do an experiment on the technology variable and manipulate it with the job security variable and then see if there is any change. This method of data collection is very important in the qualitative study as it helps in understanding the relationship between the involved variables. Therefore, they are reliable and give valid findings. However, they are quite expensive but worth it.
Interviews.
This is the most common method used by researchers trying to tell what society thinks about their research topic, such as e-commerce. The research team conducts interviews that are often structured to avoid wastage of time. Therefore, structured interviews encompass a group of questions formulated by the research team. These questions had already been done and a pilot test carried out on them. Therefore, the questions meet the needs of the research, that is it focuses on answering the research questions. Structured interviews are the opposite of open-ended interviews whereby the participants are expected to elaborate their answers in detail (Dikko, 2016). Therefore, when coming up with open-ended interview questions, researchers do not subject the questions to pilot tests. Therefore, with open-ended interviews, the research team pick up on some few ideas and risk leaving out the most important ideas related to their study. Therefore, structured interviews are appropriate in any case since all the information will be gathered because the responses are precise and on point. The research team will therefor use structured interviews will involve asking questions face to face to the respondents.
Literature Sources.
The literature resources could involve gathering information from textbooks, magazines, and newspapers. The literature resources will be very useful to the team since the resources help clarify any doubts. Therefore, literature sources are usually perceived as secondary data collection method (Walliman, 2017). The literature resources are also most common in most researches since they are less expensive and less time-consuming. Overall, the questions asked in all the data collection methods will involve the research questions.
Hypothesis.
In any quantitative research, there must be a corresponding hypothesis relating to the research questions. However, there are two main types of hypotheses in a quantitative study. The main purpose of the hypothesis in research is to bring clarity. Therefore, there is a null and alternate hypothesis. The null hypothesis establishes the fact that there is no relationship between the involved variables. The alternate hypothesis, on the other hand, clarifies that there is a relationship between the variables. The research, therefore, had alternate hypotheses alone. One is that technology has a positive impact on e-commerce. The second hypothesis is that e-commerce has risked the job security of many employees and will continue risking is as long as it exists. E-commerce has helped companies cut down on their expenditure. Lastly, e-commerce has improved the overall performance of a company. Therefore, e-commerce is a good thing since the positive side outweighs the negative side.
Works Cited
AMAZON.COM, INC Report by Anthony DiClemente & Lee Horowitz, December 5, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/36436755/Initiating_Coverage_Initiate_on_AMZN_with_Outperform_Rating_and_1_350_Target_Price_Fearing_the_Mammoth_Disruptor
Amazon's International Growth Challenge by Jan Dawson, May 11, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/11562518/amazons-international-growth-challenge
Brannen, J. (Ed.). (2017). Mixing methods: Qualitative and quantitative research. Routledge.
Dikko, M. (2016). Establishing Construct Validity and Reliability: Pilot Testing of a Qualitative Interview for Research in Takaful (Islamic Insurance). Qualitative Report, 21(3).
Flick, U. (Ed.). (2017). The Sage handbook of qualitative data collection. Sage.
Kazdin, A. E. (2016). Single-case experimental research designs.
Paradis, E., O'Brien, B., Nimmon, L., Bandiera, G., & Martimianakis, M. A. T. (2016). Design: the selection of data collection methods. Journal of graduate medical education, 8(2), 263.
Walliman, N. (2017). Research methods: The basics. Routledge.
Wu, J., & Park, S. H. (2019). The role of international institutional complexity on emerging market multinational companies’ innovation. Global Strategy Journal, 9(2), 333-353.
