Crystal-Clear Lens, Inc., a newly formed mail-order contact lens company, has struggled to obtain breakeven sales after five years in the eye-wear market. The company's founders felt that a high demand would exist for mail-order supply as a low-cost alternative to purchasing lenses at optical outlets. These retail outlets usually are within close geographic proximity to an affiliated optician. This allows customers to have their eyesight examined by the optician and then take the prescription to the optical outlet to purchase their eyeglasses or contact lens. Many retail outlets offer coupons that refund the cost of the eye examination upon the purchase of contact lenses, and offer several free follow-up visits after the sale to check that the prescription has been made up correctly. The mail-order process requires customers to send in their prescription after the eye examination, whereupon the contact lenses will be supplied within two weeks of receipt of the order. The managers at Crystal-Clear Lens, Inc., have employed you as their marketing research consultant, to determine the reasons for the low sales.
a. What would be the research purpose of this study?
b. How does the research purpose differ from the research objective? Illustrate this difference in terms of the Crystal-Clear Lens example.
c. What specific information would be required to achieve the research purpose? (That is, state the research question.)
d. State some preliminary hypotheses to answer the research question.