Walgreens Research Proposal
Over the past decade there have been drastic shifts in the economy with significant effects in the retail market. Consumers were cutting back on spending to make sure their hard earned dollars were accounted for, although the economy is doing much better today the effects of penny pinching can still be seen. Private labels, brands that are owned by retailers and are not national (Peckenpaugh, 2014), are thriving more than ever in today’s market. A private label offers consumers the same quality for a lower price than premium brands.
Research studies have shown that customers preference have gone up and down in the marketplace over a period of time, with some losing their brand preference completely (Kapferer, 2012). In 2012, Don Schultz and Martin Block presented that brand preference as a measuring tool for brand strength was declining and replaced by ‘No Brand Preference’ with the manufacturer products they had studied during their …show more content…
conference at ICORIA (Schultz, 2012). Schultz and Block conclusion leads me to ask is there a brand preference when it comes to purchasing Over-The-Counter (OTC) drugs?
Nessinger, Barbara T. wrote an article in the Private Label Buyer on the significant performance of OTC drugs performance in the healthcare market. Barbara’s article goes into detail on how consumers have a strong preference for private label in the OTC/Healthcare categories, age and income level did not make a difference if the customer preferred name brand over generic OTC (Nessinger, 2014). With my background findings I propose to do a research study on whether there is a relationship between price and the purchases of name brand Over-The-Counter and generic Over-The-Counter drugs.
Population
The targeted population for this research proposal is the customers of Walgreens in Flint, Michigan.
I chose the company Walgreens because of their reputable name and pharmacy and the saturation they have in the Flint area. Convenient stores are a popular choice when purchasing quick small items such as OTC. I am looking to survey 100 people, 50 men and 50 women between the ages of 18 and 55 years and older at two different Walgreens locations in Flint. The range of age and location will eliminate the possibility of having any bias results.
Sampling Method
The sampling method I would prefer for this research proposal is Quota Sampling. It is a nonrandom sampling method that allows me to aim for 100 people while putting them into categories of sex, male and female. Now that the quota and categories are determined, I would proceed to do a convenience sample for each category. The two locations will sample the first 25 men and 25 women at each location, preferably in the pharmacy section to equal out to 100.
Testing
Method
The testing method I will use for this research is hypotheses the Spearman’s rank test; this test is ideal for ordinal variables because they are ranked and measureable. The surveys I will conduct consist of rankings of importance for independent variables at an ordinal level. Price, current sales, advertisement, doctor’s recommendations and brand use of close family and friends are all variables in the survey. Age and sex are considered a nominal variable, but since I am looking for a targeted age range I grouped them together with a designated number. The dependent variable in this research will be the name brand OTC and generic OTC.
The Spearman’s test is measured on a scale of -1 to 1, the closer the score is to 1, the stronger the association, the closer the score approaches -1 the weaker the association. If the score were to be zero, there is no association (Statistics, 2015).
The Spearman’s rank test is perfect for analyzing market trends and associations.
Survey
Below I have demonstrated a mock version of the survey I will be disturbing, I constructed this survey to measure the data that I am looking for, if I were to conduct this research three or four times I should be able to yield the same results each time.
Research studies have shown that customers preference have gone up and down in the marketplace over a period of time, with some losing their brand preference completely (Kapferer, 2012). In 2012, Don Schultz and Martin Block presented that brand preference as a measuring tool for brand strength was declining and replaced by ‘No Brand Preference’ with the manufacturer products they had studied during their …show more content…
conference at ICORIA (Schultz, 2012). Schultz and Block conclusion leads me to ask is there a brand preference when it comes to purchasing Over-The-Counter (OTC) drugs?
Nessinger, Barbara T. wrote an article in the Private Label Buyer on the significant performance of OTC drugs performance in the healthcare market. Barbara’s article goes into detail on how consumers have a strong preference for private label in the OTC/Healthcare categories, age and income level did not make a difference if the customer preferred name brand over generic OTC (Nessinger, 2014). With my background findings I propose to do a research study on whether there is a relationship between price and the purchases of name brand Over-The-Counter and generic Over-The-Counter drugs.
Population
The targeted population for this research proposal is the customers of Walgreens in Flint, Michigan.
I chose the company Walgreens because of their reputable name and pharmacy and the saturation they have in the Flint area. Convenient stores are a popular choice when purchasing quick small items such as OTC. I am looking to survey 100 people, 50 men and 50 women between the ages of 18 and 55 years and older at two different Walgreens locations in Flint. The range of age and location will eliminate the possibility of having any bias results.
Sampling Method
The sampling method I would prefer for this research proposal is Quota Sampling. It is a nonrandom sampling method that allows me to aim for 100 people while putting them into categories of sex, male and female. Now that the quota and categories are determined, I would proceed to do a convenience sample for each category. The two locations will sample the first 25 men and 25 women at each location, preferably in the pharmacy section to equal out to 100.
Testing
Method
The testing method I will use for this research is hypotheses the Spearman’s rank test; this test is ideal for ordinal variables because they are ranked and measureable. The surveys I will conduct consist of rankings of importance for independent variables at an ordinal level. Price, current sales, advertisement, doctor’s recommendations and brand use of close family and friends are all variables in the survey. Age and sex are considered a nominal variable, but since I am looking for a targeted age range I grouped them together with a designated number. The dependent variable in this research will be the name brand OTC and generic OTC.
The Spearman’s test is measured on a scale of -1 to 1, the closer the score is to 1, the stronger the association, the closer the score approaches -1 the weaker the association. If the score were to be zero, there is no association (Statistics, 2015).
The Spearman’s rank test is perfect for analyzing market trends and associations.
Survey
Below I have demonstrated a mock version of the survey I will be disturbing, I constructed this survey to measure the data that I am looking for, if I were to conduct this research three or four times I should be able to yield the same results each time.