The Impact of Marketing on Sales in the Retail Industry in Australia

This research proposal focuses on analyzing the impact of marketing on sales in the retail industry in Australia, specifically using Woolworths as a case study. It examines the role of marketing, key characteristics that affect sales, and provides recommendations for formulating a marketing plan for sales growth in the Australian retail business.

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Name of the Student:
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................3
1.1 Background of the company..................................................................................................3
1.2 Problem Statement.................................................................................................................3
1.3 Aim........................................................................................................................................4
1.4 Objectives..............................................................................................................................4
1.5 Research Questions................................................................................................................4
1.5 Research Project Justification................................................................................................4
1.6 Potential Outputs...................................................................................................................5
Chapter 2: The Conceptual Framework...........................................................................................6
2.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................6
2.2 Focusing on target accounts...................................................................................................6
2.3. Consumer sensitivity............................................................................................................7
2.4 Gather sales intelligence........................................................................................................7
2.5 Value proposition...................................................................................................................8
2.6 Market entry strategies..........................................................................................................8
2.7 Corporate decision making....................................................................................................9
2.8 Conceptual framework.........................................................................................................10
2.9 Hypothesis...........................................................................................................................10
Chapter 3: Methodology................................................................................................................11
3.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................11
3.2 Research philosophy............................................................................................................11
3.3 Research approach...............................................................................................................11
3.4 Research design...................................................................................................................12
3.5 Data collection process........................................................................................................13
3.6 Data analysis plan................................................................................................................13
Chapter 4: Research Project Organisation, Budget and Schedule.................................................15
4.1 Budget of the research.........................................................................................................15
4.2 Schedule of the research......................................................................................................16
4.3 Organisation of the study.................................................................................................16
5.0 Reference.................................................................................................................................18

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Research topic: The impact of marketing on sales in retail industry in Australia- A case study
of Woolworths
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Background of the company
Woolworths is basically an Austalian owned Retail Company with more than 10,000
stores across the globe. The company has its outlets in approximately 20 countries.
Therefore, the estimated revenue that the organisation has earned is worth of more than €50
billion. Established in the 1946, Woolworths had its presence in the Australian retail sector
since 1913. It was the year 1967, Woolworths initiated its international expansion and
entered into the international market in a much later phase in 2001. Like in other stores
across the world, in Australia also Woolworths tried to establish its discount supermarket
business. Woolworths opened its first store in Sydney and witnessed a rapid growth with
12.6% market share in the yearly phase of 2016. In Australia, this retail giant has more than
500 stores that operates successfully and effectively. Various kinds of products are offered by
Woolworths such as food, beverages, toilet papers, sanitary articles and so on. Therefore, the
product diversities make the company one of the successful retail companies across the
world. In this regard, it is important to understand the marketing principles and strategies that
Woolworths follows in order to bring success and achievement in its business. The research
tries to put emphasis on that prospect.
1.2 Problem Statement
Due to huge competitiveness in the Australian retail market, it becomes a pertinent factor
for the retailers to envisioned extensive and effective marketing strategies. It requires further
research into the Australian market. The fluctuating nature of the customer behaviour in

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Australian retail market and their inclination towards buying products with a low price make
it vulnerable and competitive for the retail companies in Australia to deal with the process
effectively. As a result of that the intensity of marketing research and strategy seems highly
pertinent for the retail organisations like Woolworths to survive profitably in the Australian
market and focusing towards maximise the profit as far as possible.
1.3 Aim
The aim of this research is to analyse the impact of marketing on sales in the retail
industry in Australia.
1.4 Objectives
 To identify the role of marketing on sales in Australian retail industry.
 To analyse the key characteristics of marketing that affect sales.
 To recommend a proper action that can help to formulate a marketing plan for sales
growth in Australian retail business.
1.5 Research Questions
i. What is the role of marketing on sales in Australian retail industry?
ii. What are the key characteristics that affecting sales?
iii. What is the recommendation for making a good sales plan by weighting on marketing in
Australian retail business?
1.5 Research Project Justification
The Australia retail sector is one of the fast growing industry in recent times. One of the
major factor for this growth is considered to be the high business exposure and
competitiveness in the market. Retail giants like Coles and Woolworths are dominated the

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market extensively. As a result of that it becomes important for other retailers to use unique
strategies for establishing effective market capitalisation within the Australian retail sector.
Therefore, an in-depth marketing analysis with planning better and unique marketing strategy
will help the other retail companies like Woolworths to survive in the Australian market.
Moreover, huge domination of the giant retail companies like Wesfarmers and Woolworths
compels other business organisations like Woolworths to look out for exclusive marketing
practices that will help to increase the sales of the company. Therefore, it is importance for
this research to highlight the impact of marketing analysis and strategy on the sales of
Woolworths that will bring the company success in Australia.
1.6 Potential Outputs
i. Positive impact of marketing on sales in Woolworths supermarket.
ii. Key features of marketing positively affect the expansion of Woolworths supermarket.
iii. Effective action plan that increase the sales growth in Woolworths.

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Chapter 2: The Conceptual Framework
2.1 Introduction
The focus of this conceptual framework is to deal with the practice of developing a
concept about the role of marketing. It is important for the business organisation to facilitate a
great deal of emphasis on its marketing approaches and strategies that will bring effective means
of sales growth and high profitability for the organisation. The volatility and dynamics of the
international business in the era of globalisation increase the significance of marketing for
creating a better and strategic positioning of the respective companies. Therefore, the key
characteristics of marketing are relevant and requires further analysis in order to influence the
sales of the business enterprises.
2.2 Focusing on target accounts
Target accounts are comprised of the target customers and the market opportunity for the
business enterprise to gain more strategic advantage in the market. According to Sleep, Lam and
Hulland (2016) the target accounts are important facets for the business organisations because it
generates a clear perception of the existing condition of the market so that the entire marketing
strategy and decision making of the organisation will be developed on the basis of the target
accounts. In this regard, Rodriguez, Peterson and Ajjan (2015) opined that the target customers
are identified as the people to whom the company will promote its products to buy. As it is
important for the business organisations to treat the customers as the most important element for
its development. Therefore, it will be beneficial to focus on the target accounts more firmly and
extensively. It is essential for the business organisations to evaluate the existing market and the

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behaviour of the customers that will formulate an effective marketing plan for the company and
in return helps to increase the sales growth effectively.
2.3. Consumer sensitivity
Consumer sensitivity is resembled with the features of consumer behaviours that will
guide the company to offer products on the basis of the consumer demand. From the theoretical
perspective of Kumar, Choi and Greene (2017) it can be argued that market demand pushed the
company to deliver services or items and the volume or intensity of the services. Producing
surplus items or less popular services are never considered to be effective for the enterprises
because those efforts do not procure profitability. Sales growth of a company ushers the
profitability and in case of no popularity of buying a specific product or service proves the
inability of the product to establish good market capitalisation (Srinivasan, Rutz & Pauwels,
2016). In this regard, marketing is played a crucial part to understand the demand and
preferences of customers through extensive marketing research.
2.4 Gather sales intelligence
The details of the customer preferences and opportunity in the market to enter and expand
can be evaluated through the internal and external analysis of the organisation. In this context,
the internal analysis is associated with the inner ability of the organisation to establish healthy
and sustainable market encapsulation (Oakey, Cooper & Biggar, 2018). On the other hand, the
external factors are referred as the political, social, economic and environmental factors that are
responsible to shape the business orientation of an organisation. The sales intelligence is also
associated with the practice of putting great deal of emphasis on the scope of profitability for the
business organisation. It is one of the basic characteristic for the private companies in run
business successfully (Krush, Sohi & Saini, 2015). Those are identified as the sales intelligence

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that an organisation can get by the marketing analysis. Therefore, it can be argued that the
marketing has a close link with the sales growth in business organisations.
2.5 Value proposition
Value proposition is associated with the paradigm of image of that organisation that
brings acceptability among the customers. In other words, d’Astous and Landreville (2015)
articulated that the role of the value proposition of an organisation helps it to get more
acceptance and appreciation from the customers and it will help to influence the sales
performance positively. Moreover, the research of Bahadir, Bharadwaj and Srivastava (2015)
mentioned that the role of the business organisations was to facilitate a good and sustainable
image but it did not know the criteria and process of development of good image that the
customers’ possessed. Therefore, the marketing analysis and plan are playing important role to
reconstruct a good image on the basis of the marketing trend. It will initiate a way to maximise
the customers and develop the sales growth extensively.
2.6 Market entry strategies
The market entry strategy is a relevant concept for the multinational business
organisations in order to penetrate into a new overseas market. Therefore, some determinant
factors are required in order to encourage the business organisation to enter into the new market
and capitalise effectively. In addition to this, the existing condition of the overseas market is also
important for the company to choose it strategically. In this regard, Mohammed et al. (2016) the
marketing analysis and plan can help the multinational company to set its business in a new
overseas market. The purpose of such establishment is mainly driven by the maximisation of
sales and profit (Hutchinson et al., 2015). Henceforth. Marketing plays a crucial part in order to
set the marketing strategies and planning the market establishment process.

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2.7 Corporate decision making
As far as the corporate decision making of an organisation is concerned, there are several
facets that are entitled to determine the efficacy of the decision. For instance, Cao and Li (2015)
identified that there are both the internal and external orientation of an organisation that can
influence the organisational decision making. The external practices are moved by the external
conditions like government, technology, society and economy. However, the marketing activities
are highly influenced the internal decision making practice of the corporate farms. The internal
decision making is comprised of the expansion of the business, the market entry strategy, the
future sustainability measures of the organisation and so on (Yao et al., 2019). Basically, those
points are resembled with the sales growth initiatives that is supposed to be a pivotal part of the
companies to survive in the high market competitiveness. Therefore, it can be argued that the
role of marketing is highly relevant in the context of enhancing the profitability of an
organisation. It will foster positive impact on the sales growth of the organisation.

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Marketing analysis and plan
Sales growth and incur profitability
Target accounts
Consumer sensitivity
Sales intelligence
Value proposition
Market entry
Corporate decision making
2.8 Conceptual framework
2.9 Hypothesis
H1: Marketing increases the sales growth in business organisation.
H0: Marketing does not improve the sales growth in business organisation.

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Chapter 3: Methodology
3.1 Introduction
This research methodology is entitled to formulate a clear design and process of the
research findings and get expected outcome of the research. Therefore, this methodology is
associated with the research philosophy, approach, design, data collection process and the data
analysis plan. In this regard, the can be stated that the research methodology does not prepare
any outcome of the research rather putting emphasis on the elaborate process based on which the
research can expect to achieve the goals and objectives of the research. Therefore, the research
methodology is identified as a crucial part of the research.
3.2 Research philosophy
For this research, the researcher will put emphasis on the positivism research philosophy.
There are plenty of reasons to opt positivism as the effective philosophy for this research. For
instance, McCusker and Gunaydin (2015) argued that the positivism research philosophy is
associated with the practice of developing the research on the basis of the observation of the
research elements. It means putting a great deal of emphasis on the collection of data and
information is highly essential for the positivism research philosophy. This research is intended
to provide core concepts of the effective relationship between the marketing and the sales growth
in an organisation. Therefore, it is important to analyse different elements of the marketing
process that are directly and indirectly influences the sales growth.

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3.3 Research approach
As far as the research approach is concerned, it can be stated that this research is going to
opt for the deductive research approach because of its relevancy and pragmatic approach which
is suitable for this research. The key motive to use the deductive approach is because of its focus
on the existing models and theories related to the research of the study. It can be argued that this
research aims to analyse and evaluate the impact of marketing on sales growth of the business
organisation based on the existing theories and concepts. Moreover, the research is solely
focused on the secondary data to get the expected outcome properly. As a result of that it
becomes relevant for the research to follow the deductive approach that will significantly
highlight on the existing knowledge gathered from the empirical evidences. Moreover, Cuervo‐
Cazurra et al. (2017) argued that the deductive reasoning emphasised on the cause and effect
relation within research. In other words, the purpose of the deductive approach is to focus on the
hypothesis of the research. This research also reflects a hypothesis that suits the incorporation of
deductive approach as the best research approach for this research.
3.4 Research design
The research design aims to deal with the opportunity to guide the study towards
achieving specific goals proposed by the research objectives. This research is going to opt for the
explanatory research design that identifies the factors behind the influence of marketing on the
sales growth of the business organisations. The explanatory research design confronts the
deductive approach and with the help of the deductive research highlights the cause and effect
relation of the research topic (Dumay & Cai, 2015). In this regard, this research will explore the
relevant marketing factors that helps Woolworths to increase its sales growth. Moreover, this
research design helps the research to widen enough the understanding and knowledge base. As a

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result of that this research expects a conclusive answer that will reflect a positive impact on the
data collection and analysis of the collected data effectively. Based on this understanding, it can
be argued that the deductive research design will facilitate an effective impact on the process of
the exploring the influential factors of marketing that will affect the business sales of
Woolworths positively.
3.5 Data collection process
The data collection process of this research is primarily based on the practice of
secondary data. The secondary data collection method is primarily based on the articles, journals
and corporate business reports. Moreover, books and popular new paper journals are also
considered to be important element in the secondary data analysis. Therefore, this report focuses
on the peer review journals and articles that can deliver both the qualitative and quantitative data
for this research. As far as article of Lushey and Munro (2015) it can be stated that the
authentication and reliability of the secondary data is highly recommended in order to get proper
outcome of the research. Therefore, this research will focus on the peer reviewed journals, books
and organisational current annual report. Moreover, for further data collection using the popular
newspaper articles can also be used in this research. For the justification of choosing the
quantitative data it can be argued that the data collection process is rightly research approach of
this research. The research does not want to propound any new theories and models therefore
relying on the empirical evidences has to be one of the imperative measure that this research
must keep an eye.
3.6 Data analysis plan
The data analysis plan of this research is shaped by the correlation and regression
analysis of the given elements. From the research of Caillaud, Rose and Goepp (2016) it can be

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stated that the key characteristic of correlation and regression analysis is to focus on the
hypothesis of the research. In other words, the correlational and regression process depends on
the hypothesis testing. Therefore, if the P value will be less than 0.05 then it will be significant
within positive hypothesis unless it will null. Therefore, it is highly pertinent for the research to
focus on the hypothesis of the research.

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Chapter 4: Research Project Organisation, Budget and Schedule
4.1 Budget of the research
Elements Estimated amount
Literature review $2000
Data collection $500
Data analysis $1500
Total estimated cost $4000

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4.2 Schedule of the research
4.3 Organisation of the study
This research is entitled to divide the entire discussion into distinct chapter. It is
important for the research to elucidate a clear framework that will be effective for understanding
the research clearly. Moreover, it is also easier for the research to discuss the research on the
basis of identifying the purpose of each of the research chapter. In this context, the first chapter
is associated with the discussion of the introduction of the entire research. In this chapter the

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research background, aims and objectives and the rationale of the research will be discussed. The
purpose of this chapter is to create an insights into key aspects and topic of the research so that it
will be easier for the readers and the research to understand entire aspect of the research in a
brief. The next chapter is associated with the conceptual framework. It can be stated that the
conceptual framework is the backbone of this research as it justifies the concept of the entire
research topic and trying to create correlation between marketing and sales growth in
organisation. It is basically a literature review based on the practice of delivering a clear
understanding of the empirical analysis so that the research can get a justified background for
constructing the research further.
After that a methodology part is also important for this research to identify the mode of
research process. In this research, the methodology part is coupled with the research philosophy,
research approach, research design, data collection process and the data analysis plan. It is
essential for the research to bring a clear perception regarding the role of the research topic and
the design that can be achieved through effective research process. In this regard, the research
methodology is highly important in order to bring an effective research practice by highlighting
the major elements of the research methodology. The forth chapter is argued about the financial
expenses that are incurred during the research process with an estimation table that will create
effective measure of the estimated expenses that this research is required for conducting a
successful research. Moreover a clear time frame is also portrayed that can provide an outline of
the existing research practice and its estimated time of completion.

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5.0 Reference
Bahadir, S. C., Bharadwaj, S. G., & Srivastava, R. K. (2015). Marketing mix and brand sales in
global markets: Examining the contingent role of country-market characteristics. Journal
of International Business Studies, 46(5), 596-619.
Caillaud, E., Rose, B., & Goepp, V. (2016). Research methodology for systems engineering:
some recommendations. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 49(12), 1567-1572.
Cao, L., & Li, L. (2015). The impact of cross-channel integration on retailers’ sales
growth. Journal of Retailing, 91(2), 198-216.
Cuervo‐Cazurra, A., Mudambi, R., Pedersen, T., & Piscitello, L. (2017). Research methodology
in global strategy research. Global Strategy Journal, 7(3), 233-240.
d’Astous, A., & Landreville, V. (2015). Timing, congruence, attractiveness and value: The
impact of premium Characteristics on consumers’ perceptions of sales promotions.
In New Meanings for Marketing in a New Millennium (pp. 56-56). Springer, Cham.
Dumay, J., & Cai, L. (2015). Using content analysis as a research methodology for investigating
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Hutchinson, K., Donnell, L. V., Gilmore, A., & Reid, A. (2015). Loyalty card adoption in SME
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Krush, M. T., Sohi, R. S., & Saini, A. (2015). Dispersion of marketing capabilities: impact on
marketing’s influence and business unit outcomes. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
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