Math 1313: Statistical Methods
Section: 204
Fall 2012
Dr. Mohamed Al-Najjar
Assignment 1: Data Analysis
Topic: Online shopping
Khlode AlGhamdi - 201101362
Introduction:
Online shopping is a very successful project; especially among the young
youth. Teenagers tend to search for the type of cloths that are weird, unique, colorful,
and funky. They also tend to get every new electronic device even before it arrives to
their country, my brother for example ordered the new iPhone 5 online from the
Apple website, rather than waiting for 3 months more to get it in some local Saudi
stores with doubling the price, and its coming during 2 to 3 weeks.
For the previous reasons, I chose online shopping site to be my project for
the statistical course this semester. This project consists of collecting as many data
and information about the topic as I can, interview or distribute survey papers that
contain some questions about the topic, and collect the answers, transfer the answers
into Microsoft Excel; to study it carefully, later on decide wither the project is good
and should be done, or not.
This assignment is important in order to differentiate between the two types
of data, which are categorical data –consists of nominal data and ordinal data-, and
numerical data –consists of discrete and continuous data-.
Nominal and ordinal data are all a part of the categorical data, they are the
data that answers a certain questions by words; meaning that the answers are speaking
words, but the only difference that ordinal data requires order to its answers such as
job categories, unlike nominal questions. In the other hand, discrete and continuous
data are the types that require numbers as answers but not words, the difference
between these two types is that discrete data is counted and can be easily repeated, but
continuous data is measured and can hardly be repeated. My survey questions must
contain two questions from each nominal, ordinal, discrete, and continuous; to
understand each concept of them.
I will name my site “shop with Khlode” and this site will serve both females
and males, and not only we will be selling clothes, we also will be selling
accessorizes, shoes, games, handbags, and beauty products. All these products will
catch the two genders, because the provided stuff isn’t just for females, and from each
brand we will provide clothes for females and males as well, to get as more customers
as we can.
As I mentioned before, I expect this project to succeed; since our services
serve everyone. We will try to provide more than one-way for payment, and more
than one delivery company for delivering products, and if the product is above 1000
R.S we will deliver the product for free. Our profit will be 35% from the product
price; because we still have to pay for Internet space that we use, and I still have to
pay for the people who are helping me with managing the site.
I hope that my project will succeed, and gain so many customers, so that my
site will be internationally known. After succeeding I may think to have my own
fashion line that will also be in our site, and if I got lucky and collect a lot of money, I
may open a shop to sell my products.
Literature review:
Despite the slowing penetration of regular Internet users, the number of
consumers using the Internet to shop for consumer goods and services is still growing
(Forrester Research, December 2011). So apparently it appears that many people agree
with online shopping, and find it a good project. According to the GFK research on
(2002) the number of online shopping sites have increased from 27.7% to 31.4%,
which is a lot considering the number after the increase of sites. Not only the number
of online sites increased, but also the revenue from selling products increased as well
by a huge difference.
According to Miyazaki & Fernandez who wrote a scholarly article titled
“Consumer Perceptions of Privacy and Security Risks for Online Shopping” they
noticed that the peoples’ main concerns about doing an online shopping is their
privacy information. Such as address, mailbox, visa card number, and some similar
stuff. However if the costumers trusted the sites, they will be comfortable buying and
shopping online with no concerns to their private information.
(Nate, n.d) stated that “There are a lot of benefits to online shopping, you can better
compare product features, retailer prices, and read product reviews from customers,
instead of only hearing the biased pitch of a sales clerk.” Taken from the yahoo
answers about this topic.
Jake Rocheleau also wrote an essay stating his opinion about online shopping
(June 4, 2012) saying “Everybody is moving their business online and building up a
strong web presence. I highly recommend looking into shopping carts if you have
never considered one before. Especially when you are moving physical(or even
digital) goods to your customers”. So apparently he agrees with shopping online, and
think that everyone should transfer his or her work on Internet.
Methodology:
In order to select the data for this assignment, I chose the survey method;
because it’s easier to distribute between everyone, for example I had to collect
information from males, and since I can’t interview them, I simply printed the survey
paper and gave it my brother to help in collecting data from his friends. Also it saves
time and effort.
This assignment requires to select at least two questions to represent all the
types of data (nominal, ordinal, discrete, and continuous), so I tried to look and search
for questions that will help me as a project maker, and in the same time will meet the
requirement set of data types.
An example of the questions that I chose to represent nominal data, favorite
color, and favorite brand. These two questions will allow me to know what does my
customers want, and what are the most favorite colors to drag it in all styles.
The two questions that represent ordinal data are: How often do you shop
online? And the answers go this way a) very often b) often c) sometimes d) never.
The second question is: rate your level of using Internet. The answers in order: a)
advance b) intermediate c) beginner. The answers to these two questions will allow
me to know wither a lot of the people around us know how to use it; so we guaranty
customers, or shall we put a whole discussion link in the site to show how to shop in
the site.
Then there are more two questions to present discrete data, the first questions
is: how many numbers of brands would the customer expect or want to have in our
site up to 10; so we know how many brands shall we drag in our site. The second
question is: how many numbers of delivery mail services shall our site contract with
to deliver the goods to customers, the answers were: a) 1 b) 2 c)3, and by this question
I meant companies such as Fedex and Aramex.
The last two questions represented the last type of data, which is continuous
data, the two questions were: What is the maximum price you’re welling to pay over a
piece of cloth or something else? And the other questions were how much do you
weight? The answers of these two questions can hardly be repeated, and the purpose
of choosing them were to know the limited price in the site, and tell what price people
can afford to buy something, and the weight question to know what sizes shall we
provide in the site.
I asked 40 people in order to get my data, this number might be little, but
because I worked individually this was the number that I was expected to collect. The
40 people were a mix between ages from 15-36, and both genders. The data later on
were transferred from printed papers to Microsoft excel as the doctor asked us to.
References:
Fernandez, Ana, and Anthony D. Miyazaki. “Consumer Perceptions of Privacy and
Security Risks for Online Shopping.” The Journal of Consumer Affairs 35.1 : 27-44.
Rocheleau, J. (2012, June 4). Case Study into Online Shopping Carts /
Design Tickle. Design Tickle / A Dribbble Showcase Magazine. Retrieved
October 1, 2012, from http://www.designtickle.com/2012/06/case-studyinto-online-shopping-carts/
Study Reveals the Factors Affecting Online Shopping Boom - Yahoo!
News. (2012, September 7). Yahoo! News - Latest News & Headlines.
Retrieved October 1, 2012, from http://news.yahoo.com/study-revealsfactors-affecting-online-shopping-boom-011316378.html