Answer :

Introduction

The survey data provided for the purpose of this assignment includes responses from 75 students of the USC University. The survey was conducted to understand the students’ soft drinks market at the university. The market for drinks is measured in terms of 375ml cans.

The following report aims to analyse the collected survey data so as to understand the preferences of various students with respect to available variety of beverages. The report will also analyse how this preference changes when price points change and promotions such as, discounts are made available. Further, the report will also throw light on the difference in preferences of domestic and international students.

Data Analysis

The collected survey data for a sample of 75 respondents provides information regarding the origin of students, consumption of beverages, consumption at various price points as well as change in preferences under various conditions.

The available beverage categories are soft drinks, fruit juices, tea/coffee, energy drinks and other beverages (includes water, milk, etc.). The preferences have been ranked from 1 till 5 as follows: 1= first preference, 2=second preference, 3=third preference, 4=fourth preference, 5=fifth preference. The change in preferences when discounts are provided have been recorded as 1= yes and 2=No.

Answers

What proportions of the students in your sample are local and what proportion are international?

From the sample of 75 respondents, the number of domestic students (recorded as 1) and international students (recorded as 0) was counted by using ‘COUNTIF’ formula. The results are presented below in absolute and percentage terms:

Domestic Students (Represented as 1) = 65 or 86.7%

International Students (Represented as 0) = 10 or 13.3%

What is the relationship between price and average quantity consumed by students?

Based on the 75 samples, we analyzed and compared from the excel sheet shows that the pricing of food items and the amount of consumption based on the prices ranging from lowest to highest. According to the samples provided on average the data indicated that if the cost of Drinks and food items are lower the consumption of these beverages go higher and vice versa. This is clear from graph below:

Hence, we can conclude safely that in-line with the law of Economics, as the price points increase, average consumption declines and vice versa.

What are the most popular and least popular soft drinks among students?

The available beverage categories are soft drinks, fruit juices, tea/coffee, energy drinks and other beverages (includes water, milk, etc.). These were ranked by students in order of preference from 1 till 5 with 1 being the most preferred and 5 being the least preferred.

The student preference can be analyzed if we count the number of students who rank a particular beverage at Rank 1. The beverage for which maximum students rank it at top can be safely said to be the most preferred beverage. The results of this are presented as below:

From above table and graph, we can see that the Preference 1 has been given maximum to the orange category (37) namely, other beverages. Hence, this is the most popular drink among students. 

Also, Preference 5 has been given maximum to the blue category (37) namely, energy drinks. Hence, this is the least popular drink among students. It can also be seen that Energy drinks has been marked as Preference 1 by minimum number of students (4), again indicating that it is the least popular.

How loyal are students to their brand? (Do students change their preference when they receive a 25% or 40% discount on their preferred drink?)

The data shows that the price will impact on beverages. If 25% discount is offered, then 22 out of 75 students are willing to change their preference, However, when the discount goes up to 40%, as many as 46 out of 75 students are willing to change their preference. Furthermore, it shows that the students do not have any specific brands. It is all depends on price and the preference.

How does the demand (price-quantity relationship) of international students differ from that of local students?

The above graph shows average consumption of domestic and international students at various price points. It can be seen that both type of students indicate same relationship, that is, as price point increases, average consumption declines and vice versa.

However, in case of international students, they consume lesser than domestic students and also the gap between the two types of students reduces as the price increases. So much so, that at higher price points, international students’ average consumption is more than the domestic students.

What are the most and least popular drinks among local students? How does this compare with the preferences of the international student?

The data demonstrates that the most popular drink amongst domestic students is “Other beverage” (31 rank it at 1) while the least popular drink amongst domestic students is energy drinks (31 rank it at 5).

The data demonstrates that the most popular drink amongst international students is “Other beverage” (6 rank it at 1) while the least popular drink amongst domestic students is energy drinks (6 rank it at 5).

How likely is it that the student will choose soft drink (Pepsi, Coke etc.) as their first preference? Provide 95% confident interval estimates and interpret your results.

Based on sample data for 75 respondents, 95% confident Interval has been calculated for students preferring soft drinks at rank 1. 

13 respondents out of 75 chose Soft drinks at Rank 1. So, ^ = 13/75 = 0.1733

The 95% confident estimated is that between 9.6% (LCL = .096) and 27.8% (UCL = 0.278) of students will choose to drink the soft drink (Pepsi Coke etc) as the first preference.