IndexIntroductionResearch ResultsCoffee Consumption:Coffee Brand Consumption:What Does It Mean for Us?RecommendationsIt took us some time to decide which company to help improve, but After extensive research, we felt that Dunkin Donuts was a company in a competitive industry that we could do more research on. It became obvious that they are one of the top 3 brands when it comes to coffee, but there was still room for improvement. To delve deeper into this aspect, we wanted to analyze a sample to better understand what current coffee preferences were. This is what our first survey aimed to do. As you'll see, we ran into some expected biases based on the available resources we had and who we could turn to. The survey allowed us to better understand the position of the Dunkin Donuts brand, especially among our fellow college students. By going further, we were able to narrow down the areas of the business we should focus on for our next search. We saw that Dunkin Donuts was convenient, price sensitive, and that quality was more of a subjective measure and would be difficult to measure. This led us to focus on the internal layout and design aspects of Dunkin Donuts. The reason was that it was the only thing our interviewees disagreed on. So we focused our in-depth research on store layout preferences. We have provided 18 different combinations to evaluate their preference on. After this survey we were able to determine that consumers care more about comfort than appearance. By taking all the research we have done, from preliminary to more in-depth, we have been better equipped to determine our recommendations. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay IntroductionWe began this research to better understand how to increase Dunkin Donuts' sales and market share as a company. It would have required preliminary research to understand Dunkin Donuts' position in the market, but also more in-depth research to have a more specific answer on how we would achieve these results. This study was necessary because the status quo isn't always good enough and if Dunkin Donuts wanted to increase its sales and grow its market presence, we needed answers from real coffee consumers. As far as the scope of the study, we were slightly limited but also managed to focus on one of the largest demographic groups of coffee drinkers among our fellow college students. For this research, we had no excess funds and resources other than Google Forms. In terms of contact with interviewees, we each targeted our fellow university students. This was free and most of the other students were more than willing to help when it came to filling out a quick survey with no incentives. The problem with this form of research and sampling can create potential bias and limit its scope. This is very important because when it comes to making a large scale marketing decision it would be necessary to conduct further research on a larger scale that can better represent all the regions where Dunkin Donuts is located. It would be too risky to undertake the research that we have done and allow this to represent the entire population of coffee drinkers in the United States. The good thing, however, when it comes to making a marketing decision is that theBinghamton University can be used as a sample to better represent opportunities on college campuses. Any research comes with risk, but if the information we have provided is used correctly it could still be a great way to help increase sales and grow Dunkin Donuts' overall market share in the coffee industry. The main sampling technique we used during our research was convenience sampling. Although not the most ideal sampling technique, we chose to use convenience sampling to obtain results quickly due to time and monetary constraints. To stay within certain deadlines for this project, convenience sampling seemed to be the most appropriate method to collect as many respondents as possible in a short amount of time. Convenience sampling primarily led us to reach those who were directly connected to us in one way or another. Our sample size came primarily through classmates, requests through social media sites, and asking friends and family for their contributions. The disadvantage of this sampling technique is that it can lead to certain errors and is not fully representative of the population as a whole. Our sample size included primarily college-aged adults who may have different opinions towards our research topic than older and younger generations. Furthermore, given that our sample knew they were being asked for coffee, there is the possibility that a self-selection bias was also at play. If time and money had not been a limiting factor for our research, the most ideal sampling technique we would have implemented would have been simple random sampling. Since with this sampling technique every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected, it is the best sampling technique to use to obtain information about the opinion of a population and prevent the possibility of some selection errors. Our research attempted to discover the population's opinions regarding Dunkin' Donuts and therefore simple random sampling could have provided more conclusive and effective results. Our key data collection method for this study was the use of surveys. Specifically, we used the online survey resource Google Forms to create and distribute our surveys. We used this method of data collection because, similar to our use of convenience sampling, it was the fastest and cheapest method to reach as many people as possible. Within a few days we were able to receive 66 responses to our first survey and begin our analysis. The limitation of this research method was that there was little or no opportunity for feedback from interviewees and no opportunity for follow-up questions or clarifications. While we included an open-ended question and an “other” option for some questions, overall the responses we collected were limited to the options we provided. If we had additional time and resources for our study, we would have liked to conduct additional surveys based on the responses we received and possibly also conduct a focus group. Using a focus group for our research would have allowed us to obtain this personal feedback from our interviewees and respond with additional questions to benefit our research. The type of information we attempted to address through our research was the perception of the Dunkin' brandDonuts. In the first survey we focused on many different aspects of Dunkin' Donuts to narrow down some of the key questions related to how customers perceive their brand. In our second survey, we focused on how their perception could be improved by redesigning the store decor. When analyzing the first survey, we primarily used Google Forms' summary feature to examine how people responded to our survey. This broke down the responses into different percentages and allowed us to easily analyze the data. For the second survey we conducted, we dummy-coded the responses to find out which furniture layout was preferable. Next, we performed a conjoint analysis and regression analysis to further analyze the significance of the results. Research Findings At the beginning of the semester, we collected information from a survey on consumers' coffee purchasing and drinking behavior. We wanted to understand what Dunkin' Donuts could do to improve sales, competitive position, and customer perception of the brand. Coffee Consumption: Of our responses, we found that 81.5% of our respondents drink coffee, meaning only 18.5% say they don't drink it at all. Half of the people who said they drank coffee said they drank it every day. Just over 30% drink coffee at least once a week, if not several times a week. Consumption of coffee brands: Within this first survey, we then moved on to asking coffee drinkers where they buy coffee, which brands they choose and why. Nearly 40% of responses told us that people make coffee at home, rather than buying it in public. We'll come back to this in a minute. About a quarter of those surveyed said they buy their coffee from Starbucks, followed by Dunkin' Donuts with about 17%, while the remaining shoppers tend to make their purchases at local coffee shops. We asked those who brew coffee at home which brand of beans they decide to buy and examined customers' brand preference and loyalty. Only 17% of respondents used home-brewed Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Around 40% of respondents chose another brand we indicated as an option and the remaining 42% chose "other". Specific questions about Dunkin' Donuts: Evaluators responded 67% that they only stop at Dunkin' Donuts once a month. or even less. This leaves only the remaining 33% to be consumed once a week or more. About 43% of our respondents said they would choose Dunkin' Donuts over other brands purely for convenience. That's almost half, which leaves only a quarter of them choosing the brand for price, another quarter for quality. No interviewee chose the brand because of the atmosphere inside the store. However, quality was rated 4 out of 5 when we asked, and over a third of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for coffee if quality also increased. What does this mean for us? Dunkin' Donuts is clearly affordable, which is definitely a good thing when you consider the brand. According to survey responses, Dunkin' Donuts rates its products well. However, we need to understand what they can do better. It is clear that the quality of coffee can be improved, but quality is subjective. People's opinions will not always be the same towards a product. However, the one aspect that all interviewees seemed to agree on was the atmosphere inside the store. None of the people interviewed agreed on this point. Based on these.