Business Analysis of Groupon Company

Research process

As the secondary data on the evaluation of customers in Vietnam with regard to Groupon is not available, the method to be used in this study is almost research employing a combination of qualitative and quantitive approaches. Problems Quantitive research Research design Qualitative research Questionnaire online survey Sampling Fieldwork Data analysis Managerial implications

Figure: the stages of customer evaluation research Normally the starting point of any research process is the research problem and research objectives.

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The next stage is to design plans for getting information about both quantitive and qualitative figures. Then the objectives transform into a questionnaire. In the survey, both quantitive and qualitative questions are used. Multiple choices with scale measures are used on the other hand question with open answers are used to identify the quantitive problems. Information to be obtained should be determined prior to the building of the questionnaire. What to get how is the customer valuation of Groupon companies’ reliability! How is the customer valuation of Groupon companies’ responsibility!! How is the customer valuation of Groupon companies’ assurance! How is the customer valuation of Groupon companies’ empathy! How is the customer valuation of Groupon companies’ tangibles! Responsibility Customer Assurance Customer Empathy! Customer! Tangibles Customer! The next step after questionnaires were designed and sampled was executed that involved the completion and return of the questionnaire. Data analysis can start after the returned questionnaire was checked. Finally, the research process ends with the most important part that is the managerial implications.

Quantitative study

The purpose of the quantitative study is to identify the relationship between 5 factors reliability, responsibility, assurance, empathy, and tangibles, and the quality of Groupon companies’ services. The details about sampling, data collection, and data analysis methods are described in the next part.

• a. Sampling.

Sample size: a sample of 390 people was drawn from residents living or working in some districts in Hanoi and some parts of districts 1 Ho Chi Minh city. 90 people answered some questions to classify in 3 groups which are the people have used Groupon service, the people never use Groupon service but they know about it and the people never use Groupon and do not know anything about it. As expected, 50 percents of people who were asked to do survey are a student because a large number of people who use Groupon to buy product and services is low-income people; 30 percents of that is white-collar worker the reason is that they have to work with computer and internet in plenty hours in a day and they want to buy a product with low-cost also and the last group of people the survey focusing on is housewives which have 20 percents in the total sample. The sample should include both women and men, belonging to 5 groups of age (from 18 years old to over 55 years old).

Selection criteria: the selection criteria for those participating in the study were age (between 18 and over 55 years old), income ( at least more than 1 million Vietnam dong per month), ability to use a computer and the internet ( because almost all Groupon companies are working base on internet environment). In addition, respondents should not be acquaintances of each other because they can share the same attitude about some services and companies.

• b. Data collection. The questionnaire consists of 25 questions to determine 25 items that belong to 5 factors. These factors were developed from the study model Sequal. The Likert was used for those items that aimed to measure consumer’s evaluation and felling.

Factors 1: reliability has 5 questions that were designed to explore the customer’s beliefs.

Factors 2: responsibility was aimed to out the felling of customers about the responsibility of the companies whether they can respond to the requirement of customers immediately or with some delays. This factor was determined by 5 questions.

Factor 3: Assurance is the factor that has 5 questions to measure the security of the companies’ service.

Factor 4: empathy uses 5 questions to explore if the staff of companies try to help and understand customers or not.

Factor 5: tangible have 5 questions to determine like the last 4 factors. Those questions used to evaluate the appearance of the companies such as the website, voucher, or uniforms of the staff.

Does every question use multiple choices-point scales from 1-5 which means terrible, poor, average, very good, and excellent? The questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese and pre-test on 5 respondents to ensure the correct understanding and the ease of answering. The questionnaire was distributed to 730 persons in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city via an online survey which is designed by Google and send by email, direct message, and social networking. Of 730 people sent survey 390 returned result, of which 163 were usable (163 respondents use Groupon as the media to shopping). The valid questionnaire must (1) not having more than missing values; (2) not selecting all “1” or all “5” for all questions. The distribution of questionnaires and the collections of returned ones were carried out from 8th October to 20th October 2012.

• c. Data analysis. Answers from the respondents were reviewed for completion and usefulness. Accepted questionnaires were coded and the raw data input in the SPSS package version 20 for Mac. The reliability of measurement scales was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha value. A scale is reliable if the alpha is higher than 0. 6. Descriptive analysis is used to describe the variables in terms of frequency. Due to the small size sample, subgroup analysis is not meaningful. Analysis variance (ANOVA) or cross-tabulation results therefore were not used. The list of variables is shown in Appendix Phu Luc CAC bien Factor analysis was used to reduce the number of variables and to identify the underlying common dimensions. Factor scores were then analyzed using multiple regressions, through linear relationships between a dependent variable and various independent variables (predictors) were determined.

Results

Groupon-buying discount products or services online are consumed by a large number of the population due to the development of the internet past 10 years. The sample includes 46 men and 117 women, aged from 18 to over 18 years old with the majority being the age group of 18-24 years old. Of 162 respondents 20. 2% using Groupon for their work, 64. 4% using for their personal purpose and 15. % using Groupon to buy products and services for both purposes which are personal and work. More than 60% of people who are asked have a low income which is less than 5 million Vietnam dong per month, it can be reasonable when most of Groupon customer has a low income and it may explain that price is very important when they decide to buy something. And a large number of the respondents are students which are a young generation. They can easily use the internet and the modern way of shopping.

Figure : Gender distribution

Figure : Purpose distribution 15% 28% 20% 72% 64% Man Women Personal Work

Personal and work

Figure : Age distribution

Figure : Monthly income 1% 7% 13% 16% 11% 12% 79% 9million 5-9 million other 61% 18-24 25-29 30-40 40-50

How customers trust Groupon companies services in Vietnam, that thing can show up by some factors such as the quality of products that companies guaranteed and the punctuation of delivery. Consequently, the result will show how customers believe in companies and their goods. Groupon companies always sell all products at a very cheap price so this factor explores how is the customer’s belief.

1. Customer’s belief in Groupon companies Percentage (n=163) Terrible/ poor
2. The customer’s belief in discount price
3. The customer’s thinking of products and services qualities
4. Delivery’s punctuation
5. Customer care staffs’ knowledge
6. Customer care staffs respond 22. 6% 21. 5% 17. 8% 19. 6% 22. 7% Very good/ excellent 30. 7% 31. 3% 55. % 42. 9% 34. 7% Average value (means) 3. 08 3. 10 3. 53 3. 29 3. 21

As can be seen, the customer belief indicator is more than 3 but still below 4. The respondents accepted and trust those companies. How do customers evaluate the responsibility of Vietnamese Groupon companies: Online shopping is very different from traditional shopping because clients can pay money and have goods or services immediately so that responsibility is a very important factor to qualities. It can be seen that customers evaluate after-sale service is poor. It is probably due to many Groupon companies in Vietnam think that the responsibility which is taking care of customers after they had bought products and services belong to suppliers, they only have to sell goods. It may lead to 47,9% of respondent thinks responsibilities are terrible and poor.

• c. How customer rate companies’ assurance: Not as traditional transactions, online shopping should have a more secure transaction. Most of the payments for Groupon companies are electronic payments that have many potential risks. As the result keep customers' personal and payment data is very essential.

Vietnamese people do not care much about security but in modern life but when credit cards, online wallet,s, etc. are becoming more popular every day it has to be a factor to evaluate service qualities. Every item belonging to the assurance factor is shown on the table. It is believed that respondents rate this factor pretty well.

• d. How companies and their staff empathize customers: This factor was designed to uncover customer’s feelings about companies’ empathy. There is an idiom that “customers are always right” so that communication between sellers and their customers is very important. Those 5 questions explore how respondents think about staff attitude and empathy.

Staffs’ behavior and attitude. Companies' staff pay attention to customers' private requirements. Customers always feel convenient and satisfied with services. The company makes improvements after the client complains. Clients don’t have to wait for a long time to user service 14. 1% 27. 6% 21. 5% 31. 3% 21. 5% Very good/ excellent 46. 7% 35. 6% 33. 1% 20. 9% 41. 1% Average value (means) 3. 37 3. 09 3. 14 2. 88 3.  Respondents evaluate that improvements of the company after their complaints are poor, 31. 3% think that it is terrible and poor.

• e. How are the tangibles of companies: Although almost all Groupon companies do not impress their customer by a fancy shop or building there are some aspects to evaluate their tangibles such as their vouchers and websites whether they are beautiful or ease recognizing. Respondents think that about these 2 things Groupon companies do well and they probably appreciate that. However, there is an aspect having a low evaluation by respondents which is the staffs’ uniform.

Responsibility

Hotline for customer care. Customer’s convenience and satisfaction of services. The attention of customers' private requirements. Customer care staffs’s response. Staffs enthusiasm.

Staff quality

Customer care staffs’s knowledge. Companies solve your problems actively. Factor component. Nr Factor name Factor component. The customer’s thinking of products and services qualities.

Reliability

The customer’s belief in discount price. Delivery’s punctuation. The above 5 factors were considered independent variables in the multiple regression model and the dependent variable was “Quality of group service”. Multiple regression results are presented in the next section.

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