Accounting Research Paper Sample

3.1.1 Statement
3.1.5 Share Prices V/S Social event
Sainsbury and Morrison are so far the biggest supermarkets in the UK. This aspect means their share prices are higher as compared to the less Tesco supermarket. In times of social events such as the Summer Paralympics, the share prices of the main supermarkets such as Sainsbury and Morrison are almost at par with the food and retail indices. The above graph shows that over the previous years the share price levels are at high levels. The movement though is highly dependent on the volume level. During social events, most supermarkets are highly involved. There is large volume of food and drugs being moved. These have a direct effect on the share prices of the involved supermarkets and the indices of the food and drug retailers. There has been a constant movement in terms of share prices and food and retail indices over the last few years as indicated in the above wave graph. At the same time, it is observable that Tesco supermarket share prices have not been on the same wavelength to the food and retail indices over the years. This aspect could be as a result of the low level of production the supermarket is involved in; meaning the volume movement of food and drugs is low(Moore,2010). The Food and Drug retail share indices are as high as 600 in the year 2014 to a slight drop up to 300 within the same year. The share prices for Sainsbury, Tesco were almost on the same wavelength in the October 2014 while there is a huge share gap in the 2011-2012 periods.
3.2.1 Design of Questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed using an online survey creating platform, SurveyMonkey.com. In order to gather the best opinion from the participants, each question was framed in an easy and understandable language (Smith, 2010). Each of the questions was designed to produce a particular aspect. The Age and Gender of the shoppers were taken to determine the average age and gender group of those who attend these different supermarkets. Most of the supermarkets in the UK are digitalized whereby customers can make their order online. Therefore, it’s important to determine how convenient the online shopping is as compared to the manual shopping system. The question on which supermarkets most customers shop in was essential in determining the frequency by which the supermarkets differs in term of market power, preference and the alternatives. Since the research focuses on the overview of the supermarkets, it was essential to know the pricing involved in the different supermarkets. The price level charged by the supermarket has a direct influence on the number of times a customer will visit the supermarket and the preference of the supermarket by the same customer. Most Consumers are often influenced by different or same factors when buying a product. Most of the supermarkets offer the same products but t different customer taste. There is customer who goes shopping as a habit; there are those customers which go shopping due to quality of the products offered at the supermarkets while others for the sake of product prices. This aspect further affects the type of product the customer is likely to buy and the maximum amount of money the customer is likely to spend within the supermarket. In summary, to determine an overview of supermarkets, the most important aspect of designing the questionnaire is asking questions that capture more on the customer’s shopping pattern.
3.2.2 Individual Responses
The research conducted had the highest number of female response at 52% compared to their male counterparts at 46%.A partly 1.6% of the respondents preferred not to disclose their gender.
The customer response indicates that the occupation of the highest number of shoppers in the UK is students with 46% as indicated in the graph.

In terms of obtaining grocery, the customer response chart indicates that 69% of the customers prefer supermarkets to other shopping outlets.

Of the 69% of the customers that prefer shopping in supermarkets, the above chart further indicates that 28.7% of them shops at Sainsbury, 26.2% at Tesco while only 6.6% shops at Morrison. This aspect could be as a result of different factors such as prices, quality of products or due to customer shopping habit.
One of the factors that determine the shopping preference is the price of products offered by the different supermarkets. From above the response, chart had indicated that most shoppers prefer shopping at Sainsbury while few preferred Morrison. The above chart further enforces these factors whereby of the three major supermarkets Sainsbury offers the lowest price as compared to Tesco and Morrison.
The other important aspect of determining the shopping preference by the customers is to determine what factors influence their purchases (Palmer,2009). From the chart below approximately 52.8% are influenced by the quality of the product while only 26% prefer looking at the price as a factor that determines their shopping.
3.3 Conclusion
At the conclusion of this research paper, where we conducted the trend analysis of three supermarket companies, and found that while liquidity roots of each company has been improving since last seven years. Sainsbury has the best performance in terms of current asset ratio meaning the current of the business are in a position to cover the business current liabilities. The profitability position of each of the company is on declining trend, with profitability trend of Morrison’s the most depressing one. As for solvency position, the increased debt position in all the three companies was only justified by Sainsbury, which indicated an impressive growth in its interest coverage ratio. From the findings, Morrison’s supermarket has a high risk than the other supermarkets due to its leveraging. This aspect though is as a result of the high debt ratio the business has retained (Harvey, 2010).

References

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