Analyzing International Students' Supermarket Preferences: Woolworths?

This research proposal investigates the factors influencing international students' preference for Woolworths over Coles and Aldi in the Australian retail market. The study aims to identify the reasons behind this preference, focusing on aspects like student discount cards, store locations, product ranges, and promotional strategies. The methodology includes both qualitative and quantitative approaches, utilizing surveys with international students and secondary data analysis. The proposal outlines the research design, data collection methods, data analysis techniques, ethical considerations, and a proposed timeline and budget. The research seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of Woolworths' success in attracting international students and the competitive landscape of the Australian retail industry. The research will use both primary and secondary data. The data will be analyzed in the form of charts and tables.

Running head: MANAGING RESEARCH
Research proposal on why International Students Prefer Woolworths rather than Coles and Aldi
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction and Background..........................................................................................................4
Research Objective..........................................................................................................................4
Management Problem......................................................................................................................4
Literature Review............................................................................................................................5
Methodology....................................................................................................................................7
Research Design..........................................................................................................................7
Overall research design and justification.....................................................................................7
Sources of Data for the research including secondary data.........................................................8
Data Collection/Generation Methods..........................................................................................9
Data Analysis.............................................................................................................................10
Ethical Issues and Limitations.......................................................................................................10
Proposed Time Frame and Budget................................................................................................11
Table No 1- Time Scheduling....................................................................................................11
Figure 1- Gantt chart..................................................................................................................12
Research Budget........................................................................................................................13
Table 2: Research Budget..........................................................................................................13
Reference List................................................................................................................................14
Appendix........................................................................................................................................16

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Questionnaires...........................................................................................................................16

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Introduction and Background
The following research will be aimed to find out the reasons and the factors that lead to
International students having a preference for Woolworths rather than Coles Supermarket stores.
The Australian retail market has been long dominated by the two giants of the industry and there
has been a long fight for supremacy amongst the mentioned two to prove their supremacy. The
proposal prepared here will give a brief but compact idea of the actual research that is to be
undertaken by the researcher.
The research will be discussing all the factors that are responsible for the preference of
Woolworths over Coles by the international students. The research will also give a brief idea
about the retail industry of Australia which and its characteristics. The research will also take the
help of a survey that will be conducted amongst a selected group of international students. The
proposal will highlight the methods as well as the different types of research instruments that
will be used to construct the final research.
Research Objective
The main objective of the research will be mainly the determination of the different
factors and reasons behind the preference of Woolworths by the international students rather than
Coles and Aldi. The objectives of the following research will be attained by means of a proper
identification of the aims and then the analysis of the following using the appropriate methods.
Management Problem
The main area that will be focused on by the formulator of the research will be the main
factors that are responsible for the success of Woolworths to the international students rather

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than Coles and Aldi. In other words, the main research will be focusing on the superiority of
Woolworths in comparison to Coles and Aldi. The problems that lies within the supermarkets
likes Coles to attract students will be identified and discussed.
Literature Review
According to, Addis (2016) woolworths, Coles, and Aldi are three of the most prominent
retail organizations in Australia and each of the companies have been making steady growth in
Australia as well as the overseas market. There has been a debate as to who achieves the most
votes when it comes to the satisfaction of the customers. All the three retail organizations claim
about each of their individual success but survey results have altogether a different saying. It
will be seen that in attracting the local customers all the three organizations performs more or
less the same however there is a striking difference in one particular category, which is the
International Students choice. In the study of, Berning (2014) it is seen that Woolworths is the
most preferred amongst the international students who come to study in Australia. There may be
a varied number of reasons that may be the cause of such a choice. The surveys carried out
earlier have identified more than 25 different categories where the management of Woolworths
was able to perform its nearest rivals. This includes the likes of the in-store execution, pricing
strategies, morale and different promotional effectiveness. Both Coles and Aldi posted lowest
scores in each of the categories that Woolworths turned out to be superior. This allows the
increasing popularity of Woolworths in the market which has made the international students
prefer them more than that of the other retailers in the Australian Market.
On the other hand, Mugera Burton and Downsborough (2017) have verified that the success
of Woolworths in the international market is mainly due to a number of competitive strategies

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and the implementation of these strategies by the company workforce. The momentum in
Australian retail market clearly lies in the hand of Woolworths and the company is far ahead of
its nearest competitors in terms of sales, marketing, and promotion. The management has taken
up a number of special steps to reach out more to the international students by a number of
different ways. They are as follows;
1. Student Discount Cards- The management of the company provides student discount
cards to most of the frequent international students (Rucker et al. 2015). The students
who have the tendency to buy different products from the Woolworths stores find it easy
to avail the cards as these cards help them to get additional discounts which are not
available on any other cards (Chao and Jo 2015). On the other hand, the international
students are also provided discounts once they furnish their identity cards in the stores.
This makes Woolworth the best preference for the international students.
2. Stores nearby the colleges- As seen by, Mugera Burton and Downsborough (2017) some
of the stores of Woolworths are located in close proximity to the universities and the
colleges which helps them to attract a large number of different students as they find it
easier and feasible to gather the products of their needs from nearby stores without
traveling long distances and incurring extra expenses (Rucker et al. 2015).
3. Providing additional offers on large-scale purchases- The international students staying
in the island continent of Australia generally prefer to buy all their necessary items in one
go on a particular day. This allows Woolworth to provide different kinds of discounts on
bulk purchases made by the international students (Eckman et al. 2015). The discounts
offered to them in the mentioned company are much better and greater in size than the
ones offered by their counterparts.

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4. Huge Range of useful Products- The most important factor for the success of the
business in the Australian market is the ability of the company to offer the people a wide
and varied range of products (Rucker et al. 2015). The use of the different forms of useful
products helps the organization to attain loyalty from the customers and in turn, provide
them with more advanced services.
5. Promotional Strategies- The promotional strategies of the mentioned organization are
one of the best in the market and it makes use of all the latest technologies to attract the
people towards them (Zielke and Komor 2015). The presence of the company in the
social media is a great source of contemporary promotion as because social media is the
hub of young teenagers and thus advertising in different social media applications helps
in the proper promotion of the business.
6. Online Growth- As said by, Zielke and Komor (2015) the management of the
organization has ensured to mark their presence in different types of the social media
applications to make sure that they stay updated with the latest trends. Their presence in
the social media helps the organization to reach out close to the students.
Methodology
Research Design
Overall research design and justification
The qualitative aspects will help the organization to make a detailed analysis of the
research topic and explain each and every one of the different elements related to the research in
details (Zikmund et al. 2013). The particular research on the choice of Woolworths by the
international students will use the analytic or descriptive research design to complete the

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research. The choice of the particular research design over the other kinds of existing research
designs is mainly due to the ability of the descriptive design of the research to provide a detailed
analysis of the different theories and concepts that are related to the subject of the research. The
following research design will be essential to gain an in-depth understanding of the different
factors that help the services of the organization to be one of the very best in the business. The
following research will thus be the most suitable for completing the following research. The in-
depth analysis of the research will be helpful for the determination of the right set of results
(Mackey and Gass 2015). The use of the descriptive research design will be justified as the
researcher who will be conducting the following research will be able to test the formulated
hypothesis of the research.
Sources of Data for the research including secondary data
The following research will take the help of both the primary as well as the secondary
data analysis methods to determine the exact results of the research. The research will be using
both the primary as well as the secondary sources of research. The research will be using the
survey research strategy to determine the different results of the research and to arrive at a solid
conclusion (Flick 2015). The following kind of research will provide the researcher an
opportunity for the researcher to collect and gather the information from the organizational
perspectives. The main purpose of the selection of the international students will be to gain a
ground-level understanding of the issues and concepts that are related to the following research
topic. The sampling technique of the research has to be selected according to the research
techniques. The completion of the particular sampling will be done by the use of systematic
sampling technique. The selection of the particular sampling technique will be useful for the
better and clear understanding of the topic and will also be useful to avoid bias. The use of the

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secondary data from different sources like that of books, journals, news articles is quite relevant
and related to the following topic.
Conceptualization and Measurement
The research will be carried out by qualitative means with a slight use of quantitative
means to verify the statistical measurements. The use of both the research methods will be useful
for a better analysis of the Research and it will also provide both a theoretical as well as a
statistical analysis about the preference of the international students for Woolworths.
Data Collection/Generation Methods
As the research will use the Qualitative surveying method, an interview will be carried
out to determine the different responses of the participants regarding the topic of the research
(Taylor Bogdan and DeVault 2015). The participants will mainly be a group of 50 international
students who will be interviewed via online applications to garner different responses regarding
their preference for Woolworths. The following research will be using a structured format of
qualitative data collection where the researcher will be providing a predetermined and
standardized set of questions for the participants. The questions will be provided to them through
online sheets and the online responses will then be evaluated accordingly. On the other hand, the
secondary data will be collected through different forms of information sources that are already
available in printed or other forms (Lewis 2015).

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Data Analysis
The data will be analyzed in the form of charts and tables for the better understanding of
the different figures and facts. The qualitative data will be evaluated by performing a thematic
analysis of the different responses that will be derived after completion of the survey. The
thematic analysis of the responses will bring out new knowledge about the different forms of the
data.
Ethical Issues and Limitations
The ethical issues are one of the most important considerations that must be taken care of
while undertaking the main research. Ethics forms the pillar of success for the research and thus
ethics should be implemented by the formulator of the research while carrying out the particular
project. At the very beginning, the formulator of the particular research has to be honest and
integrated into his approach. The research must not be copied from any other sources or from the
researchers of other researchers which had been performed earlier. In other words, the content of
the research must be plagiarized free. On considering the analysis part of the research the
researcher who undertakes the research must make sure that the participants are selected in a fair
way. The first and foremost thing while choosing the respondents is to take their prior approval
before proceeding with the said research. After getting the approval of the participants, the
researcher must ensure that no harm or abuse is made upon the participants. The responses of the
participants must also not be manipulated and it is the task of the research formulator to ensure
that their responses are kept secret. The privacy and security of the research participants, as well
as the research responses, is one of the basics that form ethics. Confidentiality forms one of the
most basic components of research. The research participants must also not be harmed in nay
way during the collection of the resposnses.

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Proposed Time Frame and Budget
Task Name Duration Start Finish
Research Proposal
Timeline 82 days Fri 6/1/18 Mon
9/24/18
Selection of the
Research Topic 1 day Fri 6/1/18 Fri 6/1/18
Approval of the
Research Topic 2 days Mon 6/4/18 Tue 6/5/18
Researching and the
Development of the
Aims and Objectives
6 days Wed 6/6/18 Wed
6/13/18
Preliminary
Investigation 10 days Thu 6/14/18 Wed
6/27/18
Assembling all the
Preliminary Data 5 days Thu 6/28/18 Wed 7/4/18
Researching the Data 6 days Thu 7/5/18 Thu 7/12/18
Compiling the Data 10 days Fri 7/13/18 Thu 7/26/18
Submission of the
Draft 1 day Fri 7/27/18 Fri 7/27/18
Continuation of the
Research 20 days Mon 7/30/18 Fri 8/24/18
Assembling New
Informations 10 days Mon 7/30/18 Fri 8/10/18
Identification of the
Sample 1 day Mon 8/13/18 Mon
8/13/18
Selecting The
Number of Sample Size 4 days Tue 8/14/18 Fri 8/17/18
Interviewing The
Sample Population 5 days Mon 8/20/18 Fri 8/24/18
Researching on the
Available Data 21 days Mon 8/27/18 Mon
9/24/18
Compiling the Total
Data 10 days Mon 8/27/18 Fri 9/7/18
Assembling and
Preparing the Final
Report
10 days Mon 9/10/18 Fri 9/21/18
Final Submission 1 day Mon 9/24/18 Mon
9/24/18
Table No 1- Time Scheduling
Source: (As created by the Author)

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Figure 1- Gantt chart
Source: (As created by the Author)