Covid-19 Impact on E-commerce Industry: A Study on Amazon UK

This research proposal aims to analyze the impact of Covid-19 on the E-commerce industry globally, with a study on Amazon UK. It includes research methodology, research philosophy, research approach, research strategy, sampling, data collection and data analysis, ethical issues, timescale, and resources.

Research Proposal on
Covid-19 and its impact on
e-commerce industry
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Table of Contents
Background of Research Topic .......................................................................................................3
Background to Research Organisation ............................................................................................3
Research Rationale...........................................................................................................................4
Research Question(s).......................................................................................................................4
Research Aims and Objectives........................................................................................................4
Research Methodology ...................................................................................................................5
Research Philosophy..............................................................................................................5
Research Approach.................................................................................................................5
Research Strategy...................................................................................................................5
Sampling.................................................................................................................................6
Data collection and data analysis...........................................................................................6
Ethical issues..........................................................................................................................6
Timescale ........................................................................................................................................7
Resources ........................................................................................................................................8
References .......................................................................................................................................9
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Background of Research Topic
E-commerce businesses take place in market when the buyer and seller conduct the
business transactions through the use of internet. Most of the e-commerce businesses include
Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Business to Government (B2G) and
Consumer to Consumer (C2C) business transactions. E-commerce become one of the essential
part in day to day activities for the consumers or for different business. Due to Covid-19, e-
commerce industry faced the major impact such as high losses and even shut down of
companies. E-commerce companies gained some effective benefits like large customer base,
more sales and etc. but, at the same time faced issues during the period of pandemic. The
emergence of the Covid-19 has significantly change the behaviour pattern of the consumer's
buying style form the luxury to basic needs (Saji, 2021). These aspects make a strong impact on
e-commerce industry as most of the consumers are shifted from traditional shopping to online
shopping. Most of the retail companies across the world are being affected due to this pandemic.
This become an unexpected reason for retail industries for shifting towards the e-commerce
market to achieve the changing behaviour of the customers (Parvin, Asimiran and Ayub, 2021).
This research proposal includes the brief background of the research topic, detailed information
of the chosen organisation. Furthermore, reason for choosing the topic and the methods used to
conduct the study is elaborated in the report.
Background to Research Organisation
The chosen organisation for this research is Amazon UK. That provide e-commerce
solutions that include the retail books, jewellery, accessories and many more services at online.
The company was founded in 1994 and its headquartered in Seattle, US. Amazon is one of the
significant e-commerce company that provide large varieties of products. Furthermore, it create
the well-established market through the use of different technologies and innovation.
Furthermore, Amazon provide different functions and services to their customer such as Amazon
prime video, Amazon Music, Audible and Amazon Kindle (About Amazon, 2021). These aspects
shows an effective growth of the company in the market and achieve innovation within the near
future. On the other hand, amazon has been criticized for the different practices and
technological overreach, make hyper competition and demanding work culture. Amazon try to
provide a fulfilment of their services, provide a good and apprentice work for their employees. In
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addition to this, innovation of the company helps them to gain market share. In addition to this,
company helps the other small business and empower them for the growth in economy
(Johnston, 2021).
Research Rationale
The main reason for choosing e-commerce industry topic is that it makes an impact on
the financial factors and evolution period of market. In context to professional growth, e-
commerce industry promote for the higher wages, greater requirements of living, structuring and
organizing the market. Furthermore, e-commerce is significantly increase the exchange rate
between the countries. It can be said that after the outbreak of Covid-19, many of the businesses
shifted their traditional nature of doing business. This will show that overall sale of e-commerce
industry increased because of the pandemic situation. At the time of COVID-19, most of the
consumer prefer not go outside, preserving social distancing and all of these factors become the
main reason for increasing e-commerce businesses (Saji, 2021). In context to personal
development, it helps in improving skills, time management, communication and research skills
in different ways. Moreover, it helps researcher to development of professional sounds to assist
to make personal development to deal with problems.
Research Question(s)
 What is the concepts of e-commerce industry in global level?
 What is the impact of Covid-19 on e-commerce industry at global level?
 What are the strategies used by Amazon to enhance their E-commerce market?
Research Aims and Objectives
Aim: The aim of the study is to analyse the impact of Covid-19 on E-commerce industry
globally. A study on Amazon (UK).
Research Objectives:
 To understand the concepts of E-commerce industry within global level.
 To evaluate the impact of Covid-19 on e-commerce industry at global level.
 To determine the strategies used by Amazon to enhance their E-commerce market.
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Research Methodology
Research methodology is a procedure of investigating the researcher for collecting
information in proper manner. Research onion framework is used to explain different research
methods that are used within the study. It consist the various layers that are given below:
Research Philosophy
This is the procedure that will be adopted to collect and evaluate the information about
the chosen topic. The two philosophies are interpretivism and positivism. Both philosophies are
appropriate for conducting research but as per the chosen topic, positivism philosophy as it is
effective and valuable. The main reason for choosing this philosophy by researcher is it take less
time and gather the resources for attaining valid and positive results in more effective manner
(Di Carlo, Ojong Diba and Good, 2021). Another reason is, it is based on the subjective
approaches which will be helpful for researcher to gather an appropriate information.
Research Approach
This is the second step in research methodology that assist researcher to achieve the
objective and evaluate information regarding the particular topic. There are mainly two type of
approaches that include deductive and inductive approach. In order to conduct this study,
investigator choose the deductive approach as it will help in collecting quantitative data in less
cost and time. In addition to this, it will also be helpful for the investigator use the numeric
information in an appropriate manner (Dopazo, Pelayo and Fuster, 2021). This approach is
effective for taking decision in future and help to investigate in effective manner.
Research Strategy
This stage introduce the main concepts of research as the focus research area, research
perspective and methods. It includes strategies such as action research, case study, survey,
experiment, literature review and many more. In the present study, researcher opted survey
method as it will be helpful for conducting research in useful and appropriate ways. Survey is
chosen on data collection basis and build an appropriate investigation. This further helps in
addressing the purpose of the study and achieve the objectives (Fox and Alldred, 2021). This
strategy will be helpful for gathering the information in reliable and valid outcomes.
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Sampling
The survey will be piloted after the development of questions and to ensure that the
format were consistently understood by the respondents. It is basically including two ways that is
probability and non-probability sampling method. In this present investigation, probability
sampling is taken because it is helpful for collecting large sample in less time period. For the
present study, 40 respondents are chosen who are the employees of Amazon (Fuchs and et.al.,
2021). The reason behind choosing employees is they have idea about culture and policies of the
company.
Data collection and data analysis
This consists of different techniques and procedure which are used by the researcher for
completing the investigating process. It is used for make a clear explanation of the research ways
that are used to collect data which further help in fulfilling the purpose of research. In order to
complete this research, both primary and secondary data collection method is used. In order to
collect the primary data, questionnaire helps in gain reliable data and in-depth knowledge about
the topic of investigation. On the other hand, secondary data will be collected from books,
journals, articles, papers and many more (Gonzalez-Padilla and Dahm, 2021). Both of the
methods are helpful for analysing information but primary data is collected to gain the data with
relatability, unbiased and accurate information. Whereas, use of secondary data is helpful for
gain in-depth knowledge on the research topic from different reliable sources.
Ethical issues
As the investigation involve primary and secondary methods, so research ethics were
applied to ensure the result in robust and relevant manner. Research ethics are some basic
principles that were utilised on the basis of informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality of
the data of the study (Shkoda, 2021). In order to worked with informed consent, providing
relevant information and using primary research to achieve research objectives is important.
Furthermore, anonymity is used for collecting detailed information of participants that should not
be related to any kind of primary investigation that are conducted in past (Martín-Cuadrado and
et.al., 2021). In last, confidentiality result only shared with those who have authorities and a part
of investigation in specific capacity.
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Timescale
Time is one of the significant source for completing an investigation as a researcher is not
able to complete the study without considering time appropriately. The two main approaches of
time horizon are longitudinal and cross-sectional. Here, researcher opted cross-sectional time
scale for achieving the work in best manner within the decided timescales (Mochalina and et.al.,
2021). This method is helpful for completing activities of study in adequate time frame and make
systematic progress and allocation of resources without any issues. For this, investigator use the
Gantt chart technique as it will be helpful for completing research activities on time. The Gantt
char of present investigation is given below:
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Resources
Research resources are usually includes primary and secondary sources that helps in
completing study with accuracy and on time. At the time of primary data collection, stationery
items, human resource are the main resources for the researcher. In addition to this, major
secondary resources for research are Print media, books, brochures, magazines and books. In
addition to this, computers, internet are the sources that helps in collecting information on time
(NEMATOVNA and et.al., 2021).
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References
Books & Journals
Di Carlo, P., Ojong Diba, R.A. and Good, J., 2021. Towards a coherent methodology for the
documentation of small-scale multilingualism: Dealing with speech data. International
Journal of Bilingualism, p.13670069211023144.
Dopazo, D.A., Pelayo, V.M. and Fuster, G.G., 2021. An automatic methodology for the quality
enhancement of requirements using genetic algorithms. Information and Software
Technology, 140, p.106696.
Fox, N.J. and Alldred, P., 2021. Doing new materialist data analysis: a Spinozo-Deleuzian
ethological toolkit. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, pp.1-14.
Fuchs, J., Müller, G., Sazgetdinov, K., Wipfler, E. and Nerlich, I., 2021. A methodology for
alignment of measured rail profiles in turnouts as a basis for reliable vehicle/track
interaction simulations. Vehicle System Dynamics, pp.1-17.
Gonzalez-Padilla, D.A. and Dahm, P., 2021. Evidence-based urology: understanding GRADE
methodology. European Urology Focus.
Johnston, L.A., 2021. World Trade, E-Commerce, and COVID-19. China Review, 21(2), pp.65-
86.
Martín-Cuadrado, A.M., Lavandera-Ponce, S., Mora-Jaureguialde, B., Sánchez-Romero, C. and
Pérez-Sánchez, L., 2021. Working Methodology with Public Universities in Peru during
the Pandemic—Continuity of Virtual/Online Teaching and Learning. Education
Sciences, 11(7), p.351.
Mochalina, E., Ivankova, G., Tatarnikov, O. and Smirnov, S., 2021, June. Mixed Methods
Approach for Teaching Students in Business Studies: Alrosa Case. In European
Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies (pp. 144-
X). Academic Conferences International Limited.
NEMATOVNA, A.S., SAIDBURKHONOVNA, K.N. and BEKMURODOVNA, K.O., 2021.
METHODOLOGY AND SKILLS PROBLEMS. Journal of Contemporary Issues in
Business & Government, 27(5).
Parvin, M., Asimiran, S.B. and Ayub, A.F.B.M., 2021. Impact of introducing e-commerce on
small and medium enterprises–a case on logistics provider. Society and Business
Review.
Saji, J., 2021. A Study on Impact of E-Commerce on Emerging Markets. International Journal
of Research, 8(5), pp.612-617.
Shkoda, T., 2021. Methodology in the Modern Theory of Human Capital and Strategic
Management of Human Capital. Edukacja Ekonomistów i Menedżerów, 59(1).
Online
About Amazon, 2021. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/>.
E-Commerce industry and its effect on the world today, 2021. [Online]. Available through:
https://rspsciencehub.com/article_9450_217664b6e26b94a342e2213e31826d7c.pdf
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