Walmart Price Change - Essay Example

A recommendation is therefore given that strategies should immediately be employed to price match products in the online market. IntroductionThe internet market has grown considerably in the past couple of years. Statistics show that the number of online shoppers reached an all-time high of about 178.5 million people in 2011. Recently, there have been proposals to the company to reconsider its online trading policies to boost its sales volume.

Presently, the company does prices match its products online and neither does it offer its competitor’s online prices. Therefore, research was carried out to determine whether the proposed strategy of price matching online products would be profitable to the company. Methods The method of research used was a questionnaire that was conducted online for a period of about a quarter of the fiscal year. Online shoppers from the United States (14 years and older) that visited the company’s websites were randomly selected to participate in the questionnaire.

First, a pilot study was conducted on online shoppers. This involved open-ended questions that placed no limit on the customer’s responsibility. Questions in this study were general in nature like, what is their overall attitude to Wal-Mart customer relations policy. Later, a close-ended questionnaire was used to provide a better reflection of the public view. A maximum choice of five answers to each question was given. The questions were generally categorized into 4 sections each covering a unique field.

The survey was voluntary and anonymous and no personal data was collected. ResultsThere was an approximate response rate of 88% to the questionnaire from both prospective buyers and those who actually made online purchases. A complete breakdown of the responses shows that the majority of respondents were in favour of the company providing price matching information. About 80% of the respondents indicated that they would buy more products if price matching information was provided.

Sixty per cent of those added that they would buy exclusively if they were provided with that information. Discussion What is clear from the results is that most online shoppers would favour the provision of match pricing information in online trading. ConclusionProviding price matching information to online shoppers is clearly a favourable option for the company.

This is because more online shoppers will be attracted to the company’s products and this will effectively lead to an increase in the company’s sales volume. RecommendationThe general recommendation is that Wal-Mart immediately re-evaluates its online selling policy and start providing its online customers with price matching information. This information will ultimately be available to all online shoppers.POINTS.Survey QuestionAnswer Level of MeasurementResponse Type(rating, ranking, categorization, sorting)How the data analysis of the data collected from this question helped the research110EXAMPLE: What type of product did you purchase?

Electronics Food FurnitureNominalCategorizationData collected here helped to determine which products should be given preference in price matching210What did you think about its price? Cheap FairExpensiveNominalRatingThis data was used to determine the price that customers consider as favorable.310What did you think about the quality of the product? high average LowOrdinalRatingData collected here was used to determine how the customers perceive the products that they buy online410How do you compare the price with that of other companies?

SameHigherLowerOrdinalRankingThis was used to determine by how much to price match the products sold online.510Should the company standardize its prices?YesNo UnsureNominalSortingThis was used to show whether the customers were in favour of the company providing price matching information610Would you buy more if the company provided price matching information? Yes, Not reallyMaybeRatioSortingThis was used to show the effectiveness of the price-matching strategy.710Data validity is maintained by ensuring consistency in the data collection and recording techniques.