What Does a Research Proposal Look Like?

DoorDash$$Preparing a Research Proposal

DoorDash, Inc. is a U$.$S$.-$based company that has an online food ordering and food delivery platform. The company is based in San Francisco, California, and was started in $2012$ by several Stanford University students. The company has operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan, and is the largest food delivery company in the United States with a $56$ percent overall market share and a $60$ percent market share in the convenience delivery category.

Three primary stakeholders are associated with the DoorDash platform: consumers who purchase food, $$dashers$$ who deliver food, and restaurants that are selling food. These stakeholders engage with the DoorDash logistics and operating ecosystem to facilitate food orders, payment, and order fulfillment. The company has enjoyed much success but recognizes there are more opportunities on the horizon as well as competitive and operating challenges. As a result, management is contacting organizations that could provide information useful in preparing a strategic plan. A number of questions associated with the plan have been identified as described below.

Research Proposal

The purpose of the proposed research project is to collect attitudinal, behavioral, motivational, and general demographic information to address several key questions posed by management of DoorDash concerning the future of on$-$demand delivery.

Key questions to be addressed are the following:

What are the major strategic issues DoorDash faces?

What resources and information will be useful in better understanding and evaluating DoorDash$$s performance?

What additional information should DoorDash request from marketing research providers?

Will the provider meet on$-$site with management as part of the discovery phase? If yes, how many meetings are likely to be required and how soon can you meet? What are $23$ key topics about which you will want to obtain information?

What key performance metrics would you propose to judge the success of DoorDash$$s on$-$demand delivery service?

What topics need to be addressed in the research proposal?

To collect data to answer these questions, the research will be a structured, nondisguised design that includes both exploratory and descriptive research. The study will be descriptive because many questions focus on identifying perceived awareness, attitudes, and usage patterns of on$-$demand delivery consumers as well as demographic profiles. It will be exploratory since it is looking for ways DoorDash can optimize their operational processes to deliver a better experience for stakeholders while keeping costs down. In addition, DoorDash needs to invest aggressively to improve relationships and capabilities with both their restaurant and delivery partners, expand into new product categories, and increase their geographic footprint.

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DoorDash is currently the dominant player in the on$-$demand delivery space, followed by Uber Eats and Grubhub. Investment bank UBS projects that online food ordering may rise more than $20$ percent annually to $$365$ billion by $2030\mathrm{.}6$ The target population consists of people who want to order food from the comfort of their homes and are willing to pay for the convenience. In $2022$ more than one$-$half of U$.$S$.$ consumers had ordered from at least one of the on$-$demand delivery companies, up considerably from previous years$\mathrm{.}7$ Additionally, DoorDash had a record number of monthly active users of over $25$ million and grew total orders $35$ percent year$-$over$-$year to $369$ million$\mathrm{.}8$

Statistically a conservative sample size would be approximately $400,$ but a more useful sample of about $1,500$ would support examination of sample subgroups. The proposed sample size will be based on the likely response rate for the sampling method and questionnaire design, a predetermined sampling error of $\backslash$pm $5$ percent and a confidence level of $95$ percent, administrative costs and trade$-$offs, and the desire for a prespecified minimum number of completed surveys.

Probability sampling will be used to draw the sample from DoorDash$$s monthly active users, with usage rates per month ranging from a minimum of $2$ orders to $10$ or higher orders per month. Monthly active users will be randomly selected as prospective respondents and they will be sent a link to an online questionnaire. The email will explain the study as well as outline incentives for respondent participation. Given the nature of the study, the trade$-$offs regarding costs and time considerations, and the use of incentives to encourage respondent participation, an online survey is the most appropriate method for data collection survey questions will be pretested using a profile of a cross$-$section of DoorDash users to assess clarity of instructions, questions, and administrative time considerations. Response scales for the questions a