The online Survey Report

The online survey report about

customers' attitudes towards the e-commerce site of Nile

Contents

1.1 Introduction

With the increasing competition among enterprises, adapting to market changes and meeting customers' needs are crucial for the survival and development of an enterprise. Therefore, as an effective tool for decision-makers to get feedback from public, surveys come into being to help enterprises accomplish their specific goals. According to the online retailer Nile's requirements of finding out the way customers use the site and how they rate it, this online survey report aims at displaying the complete processes involved in constructing a questionnaire to meet the needs of Nile. Through constant discussion and revision of group members, the topic of "To investigate customers' attitudes towards the e-commerce site of Nile through the use of it "can be established.

The report consists of two parts which have a close relationship between them: the second part reflects the outcome of the first part's critical discussion." Descending the ladder of the survey "shows how to refine the vague objectives to make it concrete. "How the objectives were searched "demonstrates how each question in the questionnaire is designed and the thinking of questionnaire's format." Discussion of original draft "exhibits the modification of the questionnaire after pre-testing. The reference list which presents the relevant material we used during writing the report and also can assist in extending further reading.

In the second part, the introductory letter which plays a role of advance notice can help reduce non-response rate effectively. The completed questionnaire unfolds the final version of the questionnaire after modification. The codebook lays the foundation for the convenience of analysing data in each option by computers for every question designed.

1.2 Descending the ladder of abstraction

After reading carefully about the requirements of online retailer Nile: the way customers use the site and how they rate it, we began our discussion. At first, some members proposed that it looks like a customer satisfaction survey, so we searched relevant materials about the definition of customer satisfaction survey and many customer satisfaction questionnaires to know in depth what really a customer satisfaction survey is. Through comparison and summary of different customer satisfaction questionnaires, we knew that this kind of survey aims at getting satisfaction by means of surveying customer-related behaviours.

According to the goal of the survey that Nile wants to achieve, we should obtain evaluation about the website via the questions which best reflect daily bahaviours of customers. We were well aware that once the topic laid down, our future work should closely be around it. And at last, the topic of" To investigate customers' attitudes towards the e-commerce site of Nile through the use of it" can be determined. We also discussed what the "customer" here stands for: we defined it as registered users. Because compared with non- registered users, registered users visit more often and know more about Nile's website. We therefore chose registered users as our target population.

The next step needs to be done is to build up a brief outline for the questionnaire. According to the draft objectives given and the topic, we divided objectives into three parts firstly: basic information about customers, the usage of Nile's website and attitudes towards the website. As for the objectives like asking about general e-commerce sites, we wanted to remove them. Because we thought the main target for the questionnaire is customers of Nile, questions concerning general e-commerce sites seemed useless. But a member doubted that Nile's website is also an e-commerce site, there's a close relationship between them: Nile can not live without the background of general e-commerce sites. So we re-discussed whether we needed the content about general e-commerce sites and if needed, what the function of it is. Finally we got the conclusion that some information about general e-commerce sites can help make the questionnaire become more valuable. Through setting the same questions for general e-commerce sites and Nile's website, we can achieve the goal of comparing the differences between them. By way of this, Nile can master their current situation and in which areas need to be improved. The following shows four specific objectives which we descended from the topic:

1. Basic information about customers.

2. General information about customers using e-commerce sites

3. The usage of Nile's website

4. Attitudes towards Nile's website

Subsequently, we grouped and modified the draft objectives that Nile gives to make them more targeted.

1. Basic information about customers.

a. Age

b. Gender

c. Average earned income weekly

2. General information about customers using e-commerce sites

a. Rating about owning knowledge and skills

b. Whether use e-commerce sites before

c. Average number of hours per week using e-commerce sites

d. Categories of things regularly purchase

3. The usage of Nile's website about customers

a. Whether use Nile's website before

b. Average number of hours per week using Nile's website

c.Some situation about purchasing things (regularity, categories)

d.The use of specific function(wish list、shopping basket)

4. Customers' attitudes towards Nile's website

a. Importance of aspects about customers' satisfaction

b. Aspects need to be improved compared with best website

After grouping and modifying objectives, we found that it makes each question become clearer. So we decided to show this frame in the