B&M IA HL help

[vic]

First off, thanks for a great forum (even though I haven't posted anything yet I often lurk around...)

I'm about to start my Business & Management IA. Ironically enough, our B&M teacher got pregnant. Her replacement has no experience

what so ever about the IB; asking her is pretty much a dead end. That is why I chose to ask you guys at the forum.

Currently I'm working on my action plan and research proposal.

My RQ is "Should company X open a physical store in town X?".

The company I'm going to do my IA on sells gaming consoles online, and is now considering opening a physical store in town X.

I'm planning to consider both financial and non-financial factors in my investigation, the problem is I don't know where to start.

What kind of financial methods/techniques would be interesting to look at? I have access to the financial performance of the company, how

can I use this data in my IA? Also, should I check how much it costs to e.g. rent the facility or what?

As you notice I'm totally lost. I hope you can understand my writing, I'm totally stressed out just as everybody else!

I know you are not my personal homework-army, I'm just asking for some guidance.

Thanks in advance,

v

[Abu]

I think you should look at their online sales data. Try and find trends from them, as in when they're most busy or least busy. Do these correlate with traditional brick and mortar shops? If you can, try and find the financial data of a high street shop so that you can have a go at comparing online and over the counter sales.

Do primary research (i.e. questionnaires) with both the business and potential customers in the target location of their retail shop.

Try and find out what the rent would be, as well as overhead costs in the business so that you can work out what their costs would be. With all this information you can have a rudimentary calculation of the approximate profit that the business would generate. You should also generate some figures in the event of the company scrapping retail shop plans and focusing on their online business. Would increased advertising result in better net profit and hence would it be more profitable to just boost online sales rather than open a retail shop? Always do a SWOT analysis, one for each scenario and refer to it in your commentary. They like that.

All that should provide a sound financial basis on the decision that you would provide the company with post IA.