MID SEMESTER EXAMINATION

MARKETING RESEARCH

1. Please read the article in Appendix I. (GAP an ICON in Crisis)

a. List down all the information you consider as symptom
 Inventory in the fashion world signifies “death”. It means that in the fashion
world where fashion is changing rapidly, the stock must be sold quickly.
 The fashion leaders business must be able to sniff and recognize market tastes
well.
 A leader's failure to recognize the market can disadvantageous the company,
this happens when Drexler wants to revitalize the brand, and he predicts
wrongly, which is bad.
 Succession (change of leadership from Drexler to Pressler) did not go well,
especially when the Pressler was not able to pinpoint the target market
correctly
 Most consumers prefer the GAP products with classic style

b. Can you point out the managerial/practical problem for GAP

 The changes made by Drexler as the beginning of disaster for GAP
- Decrease in sales makes Drexler take a new step with brand
revitalization
- The revitalization of the brand by focusing on youth fashion is not
yielding good results
- The sales delayed for 29 months
- suffered huge losses in just 2 years
- The company could not rise for the last two years of Drexler's
leadership
- The beginning of corporate debt accumulation
- Leadership change
 The failure in Pressler’s leadership
- To overcome the error caused by Dexler, Pressler just bet on the
product launched, which is not necessarily in accordance with market
 needs, consequently Stockpiling too much in Gap inventory because
the product becomes slow moving (not sold quickly enough)
- Sales income declined
- Debt increases
- The company's profit is running out
- Large promotional costs through TV ads that should be expected to
attract consumers become ineffective.
2. According to the article
a. From the text, can you point out managerial decision? Please write down the
managerial decision statements.
 Develop product diversity
- Diversify the original model that has been owned by ZARA
- Adjust the model with the new distribution center
 Determine new distribution center
- The original distribution center in Spain will be developed based in
Indonesia and Southeast Asia, ASEAN
- Because population density in Indonesia, making Zara has a new
customer group
- Putting the company closer to some of its supply chain participants
 The managerial decision statements:
- To increase product speed to local market of Indonesia and ASEAN
- Can understand the needs of local consumers better
- Achieve more efficient coordination with suppliers
- Increase profits for the company in the medium to long term.

b. Given the situation, what research design would you recommend to the decision
makers at Inditex? Why?
Regarding to the type of cases that have been described, then in this case the
type of marketing design that will be proposed is the type of problem identification
research. In this case, the problem identification research is a marketing research
conducted to look for potential sources of threats and opportunities for companies that
 are not usually seen directly. Marketing research like this is explorative, or usually
better known as "exploratory" rather than "problem-identification", and is generally
used as research subject, focus group interviews and in-depth interviews. In addition,
this type of research is also often used to identify trends and patterns that exist in the
marketing environment so that it can be used by managers as a basis for shaping
marketing strategies. In general, recognition of economic, social or cultural trends,
such as changes in consumer behavior, can lead to underlying problems or
opportunities. Identification of research problems is usually only an introduction to
more detailed analysis (Zaborek, 2015).
Related to the explanation above, the reason for the proposed type of
marketing research—problem identification research or often referred to as
exploratory—this is because to open a new distribution center elsewhere is an action
full of uncertainty, so a company needs a more in-depth investigation about all the
possibilities that will come together with this uncertainty. Particularly this relates to
the selection of distribution centers (Indonesia) which are very different from the
main distribution centers (Spain). It can be seen that Spain and Indonesia are two
countries in other parts of the world, in terms of geographical, social, economic,
cultural, etc. Thus, a special investigation is needed to see what is needed for a
manager to form an appropriate strategy.

3. Please read the text in Appendix II.

a. To prove the theoretical model, what unit analysis the authors use in their research?
Argue.
From Paul A. Pavlou’s research with the title "Consumer Acceptance of
Electronic Commerce: Integrating Trust and Risk with the Technology Acceptance
Model", it can be seen that the unit of analysis used by the researcher is the consumer in
electronic commerce.
The main focus in this study is to predict consumer acceptance of e-commerce by
proposing a series of major drivers to engage consumers in on-line transactions. The main
construction used to understand consumer acceptance of e-commerce is the intention to
transact and conduct on-line transactions. To do so, this concept is done by following the
theory of reasoned action (TRA), which it usually applied to technologically driven
 environments, while for the variable (perceived usefulness and ease of use) model
acceptance technology (TAM), is considered as the main driver of e-commerce
acceptance. The practical usefulness of TAM comes from the fact that e-commerce is
technology driven (Pavlou, 2003).
The proposed model serves to integrate perceived beliefs and risks, which are
included due to the implicit uncertainty of the e-commerce environment. The proposed
integration of hypothesized independent variables is justified by placing all the variables
under the nomological TRA structure and proposing their interrelation. The resulting
research model was tested using data from two empirical studies, namely: 1) the
exploratory study consisted of three scenarios of experience identified from 103 students;
and 2) confirmation research using 155 samples of on-line consumers. Both studies
strongly support the e-commerce acceptance model, by validating the proposed
hypothesis (Pavlou, 2003).

b. Operational variables (measures) of each concept from that research (Pavlou, 2003)
No. Concept Operational variables (measures)
1 Actual - Consumers must actively engage and interacting with the
Transaction retailer
- Product certainty and identity
- Transaction security
2 Intention to - The extensive use
transact - The distant and impersonal nature of environment
- Implicit uncertainty of using infrastructures for transactions
3 Trust - Consumer behavior, indicated by:
 Consumer purchase intentions in multiple cultures
 Consumer satisfaction with the past trancaction
 Customer loyalty or frequency
- Consumer perception to company competence, indicated by:
 Company reputation
 Brand competence
 Country of origin
Daftar Pustaka

Pavlou, P. A. (2003). Consumer Acceptance of Electronic Commerce: Integrating Trust and Risk
with the Technology Acceptance Model. International Journal of Electronic
Commerce/Spring 2003, Vol. 7, No. 3, 69–103.
Zaborek, P. (2015). Elements of Marketing Research. Retrieved Juni 29, 2018, from Research
Gate:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Piotr_Zaborek/publication/279749417_Elements_of
_Marketing_Research/links/5599110108ae5d8f39340840/Elements-of-Marketing-
Research.pdf