BF001 Data Management Research Proposal: PMG Policy Restrictions

This research proposal investigates the negative impact of policy restrictions on consumer's post-purchase reactions to price match guarantees (PMGs) in the retail sector of New Zealand. The study aims to explore how PMGs and their associated restrictive policies influence consumer purchasing behavior. The research will address key questions regarding PMGs offered in New Zealand, their effects on consumer behavior, and the specific policy restrictions. The research plan includes a literature review, a quantitative methodology involving surveys, and the analysis of primary data collected from retail industry customers. The objectives are to evaluate the impact of policy restrictions on post-purchase behavior and to recommend more effective policies. The proposal details the appropriateness of primary data, the survey method for data collection, and justification of independent and dependent variables. The goal is to provide insights that can benefit both retailers and consumers by making PMGs more effective and fair. The findings of the research will be presented to retailers to implement more effective restrictive policies for the PMGs.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Quantitative research proposal for negative impact of policy restrictions on consumer's
post purchase reaction on price matching guarantees
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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1.0 Introduction/Background of the research proposal
Price Match Guarantee (PMG) is one of the key pricing policies practiced by the retail
companies. The history of commerce shows that consumers have always been price sensitive and
selection of vendors is often determined by the prices. As stated by Yankelevich & Vaughan, B.
(2016), price is the first factor that forges customer loyalty and the perception about the brands is
often shaped by prices. The large retail giants have created their massive customer based on the
basis of the prices, that is, Walmart, Amazon, Tesco, Costco etc. have provided the guarantee to
the customers to get the products at lowest price possible. Along with the guarantee of lowest
market price, comes another strategy of price match guarantee. Though this mechanism, the
retailers provide the guarantee to the customers that in a certain time period after the purchase, if
the customer can find a better or lower price for the same product, then the company would
honor that particular price and usually offer a discount or perk to the customer (Peng, Tian &
Wang, 2020).
The post purchase reaction of the customers on the price match guarantee is either
positive or negative based on the fulfilment of the guarantee by the retailers. Price match
guarantee does not always mean the lowest or best possible price, rather it offers the guarantee to
the customers that if they could find a better price in any other store or online store prior to
making the purchase, then they would match that price for that particular product. Hence, this
can be termed as price competition practiced by the rival retailers. It has also been observed that
the price match guarantee is not generally extended beyond the first purchase and it leads to only
the match of price and no more further price discounts by the retailers (Mamadehussene, 2019).
Therefore, when the expectations of the customers do not get fulfilled from the price match, then
they tend to have a negative reaction towards the retailer and that would make the customers

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switch to other retailer to get more value in the future. At the same time, price match guarantee is
often found to be a price competition, as majority of the time, the implication of better price is
the lowest price in the market and to provide this guarantee, the sellers often get involved into a
price war and continuously lower their price to offer the best price to the customers, which
eventually results in loss (Krämer, Jung & Burgartz, 2016). On the other hand, if the PMG does
not satisfy the customer’s expectation post purchase that affects their revenue in future.
However, various policies, like the terms and conditions are imposed by the retailers on
the PMGs to eventually prevent the losses that could incur from the PMGs and these might
negatively influence the post purchase reaction of the consumers, especially in case of future
purchases.
1.1 Identification of the problem
The research problem is to explore the consumer behavior due to imposition of restriction
policies on price match guarantees offered by the retailers and to evaluate the consequence of the
purchasing behavior of the consumers. These are also known as the terms and conditions of the
policies. It is observed that if the terms and conditions of the retail policies, like, return, refund or
exchange, are not flexible, convenient and user-friendly, then that negatively affects the
consumer behavior, especially consumer loyalty significantly (Wang & Qu, 2017). This research
study will explore the negative impact of policy restrictions on consumer's post purchase reaction
on PMGs through quantitative methods. In other words, the post purchase consumer behavior
will be studied using quantitative methods which is influenced by the negative effect of the PMG
policy restrictions imposed by the sellers. The desired outcome of the study aims to address the
issues of the policy restrictions to make the PMG more effective for the customers and also
protect the interest of the sellers at the same time.

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1.2 Research questions
1) What are the price match guarantees (PMGs) offered in the retail sector of New Zealand?
2) How the PMGs affect the purchasing behavior of the consumers?
3) What are the policy restrictions on the PMGs in the retail sector of New Zealand?
4) How the policy restrictions affect the post purchase reaction of the consumers?
5) How the policies can be made valuable to both the sellers and buyers so that interests of both
the sides can be protected?
1.3 Outline of research plan
The research study will consist of few steps, such as, the problem will be identified first
and based on the problem, the research questions, aim and objectives have to be decided.
Secondly, literature review will be conducted to create the context of the study and make the
readers acquainted with the research subject. Thirdly, a suitable research methodology will be
chosen, which will depict the techniques to be applied to conduct the study logically and
systematically. Fourthly, relevant data will be collected, which in this case will be collected
directly from the retail industry customers in New Zealand, and after the data collection,
quantitative methods will be applied on the gathered information to answer the research
questions. Finally, the conclusion and recommendations will be presented on the basis of the
findings to the retailers to implement more effective restrictive policies for the PMGs.
1.4 Research objectives
 To explore the PMGs and the restrictive policies offered in the retail sector of New
Zealand
 To evaluate the negative effect of the restriction policies of the PMGs on the post
purchase behavior of the consumers

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 To suggest more effective policies for PMGs to protect the interests of both the sellers
and buyers in the retail sector of New Zealand
2.0 Literature review
Price Match Guarantee (PMG) is one of the many common pricing strategies seen mainly
in the retail sector. The retailers aim to create a trustworthy and long term relationship with the
consumers by offering them the guarantee that they are the only retailer providing the goods at
the best possible price and that would create a loyal customer base in the long run. However,
similar to any other offer, the PMG also comes with terms and conditions, which are also known
as the restriction policies, and these play a significant role in shaping the post purchase reaction
of the consumers about the PMG. As highlighted by Lin et al. (2020), two characteristics of
PMG, namely, refund length and the refund scope have impact on the utilitarian benefit, that is,
refund depth, and hedonic benefit, that is, playfulness, and perceived value of the customers
regarding price search intentions is influenced by these two benefits.
Nalca, Ray & Boyaci (2020) mentioned in their study that increase in the online selling
options is one of the major reasons for the growth in PMG in the retail sector. The authors
showed that the price convenience is dependent on two conditions, availability and channel, that
is, PMG can be effective when the product is available to another lower priced competitor and
matching of the price is extendable only to rival retailer and not to direct-to-customer business,
and this is known as the channel condition. It has been observed that customers perceive that the
value provided by the retailers depends on the competition among them and that guarantees the
lower and best price. In this context, another study by Mamadehussene (2019) can be mentioned.
The author stated that PMG to the consumers is a direct implication of low prices offered by the

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retailers. The demand for the PMG offering stores is found to be less price sensitive and that
makes the stores to eventually charge higher prices from the consumers. Thus, PMGs effectively
signal low prices only when the heterogeneity of the retailers is adequately large, and thus, if the
restriction policies contradict the perceived beliefs of the consumers then their purchasing
decision from the PMG stores gets affected.
Baglione, Tucci & Talaga (2016) opined that low price guarantee is often combined with
PMG and the consumers’ preferences are often determined by the nature of the guarantees and
the associated terms and conditions. The responses towards these guarantee programs are
different depending on factors like price sensitivity, product availability, credibility of the
retailers, product quality and the flexibility of the restriction policies. On the contrary,
Constantinou & Bernhardt (2018) mentioned that the retailers often face dilemma in providing
the offers like PMG when the customers are too much price sensitive and the demand is price
elastic. It has been found by the authors that location and convenient access are two major
factors affecting the choice of stores for shopping as when the cost and time of travel are too
high, then PMG cannot influence the consumers’ preferences. In case of intermediate shopping
elasticity, the firms match prices for low profit equilibrium and they do not match price for high
profit equilibrium. Therefore, location of the stores, cost of travelling, as well as the restriction
policies all have their impact on customers’ preferences.
Thus, it can be said that various factors associated with PMG can have impact on the post
purchase behavior of the consumers. As the terms and conditions including flexibility of services
is important, there other factors as well, such as, location, convenience access, channeling,
availability of the products, rival’s position etc. are also important to influence the customers’

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post purchase behavior. This study will specifically focus on the impact of the policy restrictions
of the PMGs on the consumer’s post purchase reaction.
3.0 Research methodology
Research methodology implies the techniques and processes adopted by the researcher to
obtain the appropriate information, analyze and interpret those using suitable methods and
answer the research questions most systematically and rationally (Kumar, 2019). The
methodology is mostly based on the relevance of the data source, proper data collection method,
and data analysis techniques.
3.1 Appropriateness of source of data (primary/secondary/both)
As the purchasing behavior of the consumers of the retail sector will be explored and
evaluated, hence, primary data source will be most appropriate. As stated by Quinlan et al.
(2019), primary information is the one, which is obtained directly from the first hand data
sources through interview, survey, focus group, observation, feedback etc. and secondary
information is the one, which is gathered from secondary sources like books, journal articles,
newspaper articles, government reports, websites and publications, official websites of
organizations and publications like annual reports etc. In this study, secondary information will
be beneficial for creating the context for the subject and hence that will be used in the Literature
Review section. However, for the analysis purpose, direct firsthand information is required to
understand the consumers’ perspectives and behavior regarding the PMGs and the restriction
policies imposed by the retailers in New Zealand. Therefore, primary data will be collected for
this research.

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3.2 Data collection method
Primary data will be collected through a survey method. According to Ostrow et al.
(2017), survey method of data collection is highly useful in case of quantitative research study as
large volume of data can be collected easily in a cost and time saving manner. Other benefits of
survey method include easy analysis and visualization, comparability, scalability, anonymity of
the respondents, no geographical dependence, especially in case of online survey, less chances of
errors as higher validity and reliability of the responses (Couper, 2017). Therefore, as the given
study includes quantitative research, numerical values are required to perform the mathematical
or statistical operations on those and hence, a survey will be conducted for data collection.
3.3 Justification of independent and dependent variables
The research study aims to explore the causal or cause and effect relationship between the
variables depicting effect of restriction policies on the PMGs offered by the retailers and the
purchasing behavior of the consumers after the purchase. Thus, the independent or predictor
variable is the restriction policy on the PMGs and the dependent or response variable is the post
purchase reaction, represented by return visit and repurchase by a same customer. As the
restriction policies on the PMGs influence the customers’ behavior, therefore, it is the predictor
variable and the behavior of the customers, that is, their return visit and repurchase, are the
dependent variables.
3.4 Data analysis process
Quantitative methods of data analysis will be applied on the survey responses to get the
findings to the research problem. The survey responses will be converted into numeric values
using replicable scale, such as, the Likert scale and appropriate statistical calculations will be
performed to find out the impact of the restriction policies of the PMGs on the post purchase

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reaction of the consumers. Regression analysis and correlation will be conducted to find out the
impact of the predictor variable on the response variables and the correlational effect between the
variables. The findings will be presented in a descriptive manner.
4.0 Population and sampling
Population for a research study refers to the entire people who are the main focus of the
study. In this study, the entire base of the retail customers of Auckland, New Zealand form the
population for this research. However, since, the entire population cannot be studied, therefore,
by applying a suitable sampling technique, a smaller subset of the population is drawn, known as
sample. The sample also bears the same features as the population so that the outcome has no
sampling bias (Hadkhale et al., 2017).
4.1 Identification and justification the sample size and sampling methods for data collection
The target population for this research study contains the consumers of the retail industry
of Auckland, New Zealand and the demographic consists of age group 20 years and above,
monthly income level of NZ $20000 and above, shop both from brick and mortar and online
retail stores, buy all types of consumer goods. The sample will also contain the same
characteristics so that the outcome of the study is precise for the larger population also.
In this study, since the population size is extremely large, the sample size is determined
to be 50 for the convenience of the study. Purposive sampling technique, which is a non-
probability sampling technique is applied to get the sample from the population. In this sampling
technique, each of the samples do not have equal and random probability of selection and it is
chosen on the basis of the purpose of the study (Etikan & Bala, 2017). Thus, 50 customers of the
retail sector are chosen for the survey.

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4.2 Hypothesis formulation
H1: Restriction policies on PMG by the retailers significantly affect the return visit of the
consumers
H2: Restriction policies on PMG by the retailers significantly affect the repurchase decision of
the consumers
4.3 Potential Type I and Type II errors during hypothesis testing
Type I and Type II errors occur when hypothesis testing gives a wrong conclusion. The
statistical tests are conducted on the data collected from the sample to determine that whether
there is adequate evidence for rejecting null hypothesis (no relationship between the research
variables) formulated and for accepting the alternate hypothesis (relationship exists between the
research variables). However, there can be wrong conclusion and that leads to the occurrence of
Type I or Type II error (Bagga et al., 2020).
Type I error is the one that gives false positive, that is, null hypothesis is rejected even if
there is no relationship between the research variables and Type II error occurs in the case of
false negative, that is, null hypothesis is accepted even if the relationship between the research
variables is true (Rizzolli, 2018). In the given study, Type I error may occur from hypothesis
testing if the null hypothesis is rejected even if the restriction policies of PMG actually do not
have influence on the post purchase reaction of the consumers of the retail sector of New
Zealand. On the other hand, Type II error may occur if the outcome of hypothesis testing shows
there is no relationship between the restriction policies of PMG and the post purchase reaction of
the customers even if the policies actually affect the consumers’ behavior.

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5.0 Research Instrument
Research instrument refers to the tool used for data collection. In this case, survey
questionnaire is the research instrument.
5.1 Development of survey questionnaire
The survey questionnaire is developed on the basis of the frameworks explained in the
book ‘Questionnaire design. In The Palgrave handbook of survey research’, by J. A. Krosnick
(2018). The questionnaire contains 10 close ended questions, which are divided in two segments,
demographic and non-demographic. The demographic section collects the data on the age and
gender profiles of the consumers, their monthly income level and their preference for shopping
from brick and mortar stores and online stores.
The second section contains non-demographic questions based on the research topic, and
it has questions with including dichotomous and multiple choice variables. All the questions
were mandatory and the answers are framed with replicable scales, such as, Likert scale so that
the answers can easily be converted into numeric values for analytical purpose.
5.2 Survey questionnaire
1. Please mention your gender
a) Male
b) Female
2. Please mention your age group
a) 20 – 29 years
b) 30 – 39 years
c) 40 – 49 years

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d) 50 – 59 years
e) 60 years and above
3. Are you a retail customer?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Not sure
4. Please mention your monthly income range
a) NZ $20001 - $30000
b) NZ $30001 - $40000
c) NZ $40001 - $50000
d) NZ $50001 and above
5. How likely you will avail the price match guarantee programs provided by large retailers?
(Not at all likely) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Extremely likely)
6. Price match guarantee implies lowest market price.
(Strongly disagree) 1 2 3 4 5 (Strongly agree)
7. How much are you satisfied with the price match guarantee programs of the retailers?
(Highly dissatisfied) 1 2 3 4 5 (Highly satisfied)
8. Are you aware about the restriction policies (terms and conditions) on the price match
guarantees provided by the retailers in Auckland?

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a) Yes
b) No
c) Not sure
9. How likely you are to be influenced by the restriction policies before availing price match
guarantee next time?
(Not at all likely) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Extremely likely)
10. Restriction policies on the price match guarantee affects the brand loyalty of the customers.
(Strongly disagree) 1 2 3 4 5 (Strongly agree)
6.0 Ethical consideration
6.1 Ethical considerations (e.g. privacy and confidentiality)
All the research studies have ethical considerations to meet. The importance of ethical
considerations is more when the study contains primary data collection and involves individuals.
Firstly, informed consent will be taken from each of the participants before the data collection
process and they are clearly informed about the purpose and objective of the research study.
Secondly, every participant will have the right for voluntary participation. None of the
participants will be forced or bribed to take part in the survey. Thirdly, privacy and data
confidentiality will be strictly maintained. No personal information will be collected from the
participants and the information will be kept confidential and will be used only for academic
purpose. Lastly, the originality of the paper will be maintained by citing authentic references for
all significant information as plagiarism should be avoided.

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6.2 Development of participant consent form
Negative impact of policy restrictions on consumer's post purchase reaction on price matching
guarantees
PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM
I have heard and understood the information about the research project being conducted on the
restriction policy on the Price Match Guarantee provided by the retailers and its impact on the post
purchase reaction of the consumers in the Auckland area. I have been explained the details and purpose
of the research study clearly and I have been answered all my queries to my satisfaction. I also
understand that I have voluntary participation right, I can withdraw at any point of time and I also have the
right to ask any further question while filling up the survey form. I also have had adequate time to think
about whether or not to participate in this data collection.
Hence, I agree to participate in this research project.
Declaration by Participant:
I ___________ [print full name]__________ hereby consent to take part in this study.
Signature: _______________________ Date: ________________

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