What is "Research Design" in a E-commerce Business Plan?

Hello Everyone,

I am currently writing a business plan and I came across part of my outline that was labelled "Research Design." What does this mean and what outline topics do I need to touch on? Thanks, if there are any websites that will help that would be great.

There is RESEARCH and there is research design.

What you research and how you design your approach to that research is fundamental to the sucess of a business. In the eComerce business, it is a whole new field and conventional methods and pathways for researching things like size of market, your anticipated share of that market, how you intend to separate yourself form others in the same market, how long it will take to get up and running, the capital needs, your product, where will you get it, will you have an exclusivity on the product or will you be selling standard widgets like everybody esle? How long before you become profitable (Amazon.com went for 4 years without turning aproifit, burning cash like it was a bondfire)

There are amillion contingencies to funding a startup business and an investor wants to know HOW considerate you were in planning out this venture that you want him to be a part of. No amount of research can guarrantee a business success but good research can turn up possible areas of concern that will be better addressed BEFORE you and your investor take a long walk off a short pier.