Jane Walker is the founder and CEO of Sport Style, a sporting goods manufacturing company based in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in leather goods. The company currently is under contract as exclusive supplier of Sport Style accessories for one of the leading sporting goods companies. This large multinational company markets the products under its own label as part of its “Made in the USA” promotional campaign. Sport Style has expanded its product line to include golf gloves; premium quality leather grips for tennis, squash, racquetball, and badminton rackets; and sports bags. The contract for exclusive supply will expire within the next year.

Ms. Walker has recently felt that Sport Style specialized products may not be best served by this method of distribution, and she believes that her company’s sales revenue could be increased drastically if Sport Style were to market its goods under its own label as specialty goods.

This would allow the company to eliminate the intermediary and its portion of the selling price. The specialty goods could be offered at the same prices as are currently being asked, but without the intermediary Sport Style would get a larger proportion of the final retail sales price.

Ms. Walker has decided to undertake a marketing research study to determine whether a market exists among retail outlets and sporting goods distributors for these specialty items, under the Sport Style brand name.

(a) Define the target population for this study.

(b) Suggest a suitable sampling frame.

(c) Recommend a sampling procedure for this study and support your answer.