Undeniable, Internet is become commonly used and online business are attempting to globalize their sales through the Internet by promoting and selling products or services worldwide. Hence, many businesses set up web pages to run their businesses with online stores. A recent study found that approximately half of U.S.populations have made purchase online (Miyazaki & Fernandez, 2001). Even though there are benefits of online shopping that attract customers, but there is room for further growth of online shopping. There are many factors that contribute to encourage or discourage customer shopping online. At first, customers need to trust online businesses to shop on their Websites. Other technological factors, for instance searching products easily, trendy and chic updated regularly as well as delivery speed are essential to assure customers and build a loyalty customers relationship. The last factors highlight the website layout and design must be simple, and easier.
Website Layout
The website design and layout for marketing purpose mainly focus on attract new customers and retain the existed customers with promote the products via Internet, enlarge the market share and gain the profits as well. The web page will be updated on routine basis so that the customers can be updated on the new trendy and chic fashion. We prefer to use the colour of white as background. This effect gives the customers a fresh, simple and tidy at first glance. Besides, the website has to provide a good search engine and also provide certain level of convenient. This is relevant to 72% of online shoppers' claim that they would rather surf online than go to retail store to attain information about a product (Lokken et al., 2003). According to a study, 72% of online shoppers chose convenience over privacy (Bhatnagar, Misra, & Rao, 2000).Customer will likely to see that the payment method and other disclaimers will state clearly on the main page. The customers will only start to trust and purchase the products if they feel secure. The features of the website also include the information such as FAQs, company history and the like. In addition, site map and navigations are essential on the web page to ease the customers to overview of the website.
Furthermore, we prefer to set up a marketing design with Facebook. Let’s face the trend today, peoples do love Facebook. We heard peoples talk about Facebook every single day. Adding Facebook to the design impacts the users’ view on the company as a so call “up-to-date” company which knows what the teenagers doing and wanted nowadays. It significantly fits their theme as a fashion-oriented business website. Facebook is a social network website allows peoples to interact with each other. Adding Facebook into the design improve the interaction between customers and customers as well as customers with the owners. Customers can easily discuss what they wanted and also the new fashion out there today. Last but not least, adding Facebook into the design makes the website looks a lot merrier. Customers can easily make friends with the rest that share the same interest with them. They can also know the popularity of the website based on the amount of the Facebook’s fan list that the website managed to get into.
We recommend that this website have to using different languages as long as those products will be exports to others country. The demand of customers rises due to the more language such as Mandarin. This is because; some customers have the language difficulties so that they cannot understand clearly the website which is full of English words.
Trust Issues
Trust has always been a key element in successful marketing. For the Internet, trust-based marketing is the key to success. Trust-based website provides customers with accurate, up-to-date, complete and unbiased information, not only on their own products, but on all the competitive products available in the market.
Website trust can be enhanced by ensuring customer privacy. Customers increasingly demand that their personal data be kept private. Web sites should not employ cookies unless their use is specifically allowed by the individual customers. Sites can build trust by assuring customer that their online payments are secure and can be executed only with proper authorization. For instance, sites can use encryption and authentication services.
Information on the website must be complete and accurate. Sites that ask customer to make a purchase should provide all the information needed to make an informed decision for instance price, delivery time and reliability. So, Web world must learn to communicate and sell product by providing trusted information so customer will enter into a trusting and enduring relationship with suppliers on the basis of the exchange of this information.
Marketing Aspects
i) Pricing
ii) Trendy and chic
i) Pricing
With the online tools that facilitate product comparison, customers are able to contrast product prices and features to make a better decision with less effort. The online shoppers will prefer to visit the website which is update with new trendy and chic fashion as well as with a reasonable price. Mostly online shoppers are only care about the quality, pattern, stylish but not the price. Only some online shoppers will considered about the price and the quality. Besides, the shipping charges have to state clearly for those customers who want to purchase the items. Transaction efficiency such as delivery speed and providing tracking number is also a significant condition that will satisfy consumers (Limayem, Khalifa, & Frini, 2000). No hidden charges and do guarantee the delivery speed to satisfy the customers. They expect to get the products with high speed while shipping, and able to track their purchased item to avoid any frauds
ii) Trendy and chic
Understanding the factors that drive sales is a critical part of business planning and forecasting. The fact that styles often change dramatically from season to season creates difficulty in modeling the sales of fashion goods. As a result, the forecasting process is typically very qualitative. Retailers of fashion goods are given wide latitude in selecting popular styles of fashion goods. Consumers who make early purchases of fashion apparel often pay a premium for being the first to wear the new styles. Many decisions faced by retailer of fashion goods are more aggregate in nature, however, and are influenced by many of the thousands of stock-keeping units they carry.
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Reference:
Miyazaki, A., & Fernandez, A. (2001). Consumer Perceptions of Privacy and Security Risks for Online Shopping. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 35( 1), 27-43. Viewed 6th September 2010.
Lokken, S., Cross, G. W., Halbert, L. K., Lindsey, G., Derby, C., & Stanford, C. (2003 March).
Viewed 6th September 2010.
Comparing online and non-online shoppers. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 27(2), 126-133.
Viewed 7th September 2010.
Bhatnagar, A., Misra, S. M., & Rao, H. R.(2000, November). On Risk, Convenience, and Internet v Shopping Behavior. Communications of the ACM, 43(11), 98-105. Viewed 6th September 2010.
P.M Doney and J.P Cannon, “An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer-Seller Relationships,” Journal of Marketing 61 (April 1997): 35-52. Viewed 10th September 2010.
D. Hoffman, T.Nowak and M. Peralta, “Building Consumer Trust in Online Environments, February 1998,Viewed 13th September 2010.
P. Kollock, “The Production of Trust in Online Markets,” Advances in Group Processess 16 (1999): 99-123. Viewed 13th Septmeber 2010.
Limayem, M., Khalifa, M., & Frini, A. (2000, July). What Makes Consumers Buy from Internet? A Longitudinal Study of Online Shopping, 30(4), 421-432. Viewed 13th September 2010.
1996 American Statistical Association, Journal of Business, January 1996, Vol 14, No.1. Viewed 13th September 2010.
A thought about Marketing aspects:
ReplyDeleteI think you should consider things other than price and trends. Consider value propositions, and perhaps buyer factors, for example target buyers.
I agree with Chia Yin and Siaw Si that website layout, trust issues, pricing and trendy are factors that would either encourage or discourage online shoppers into purchasing an item on a particular website. These factors play an important role in persuading shoppers to complete a sales transaction.
ReplyDeleteBesides that, I think that as stated by Wang et. al. (2008), consumer cognition plays an important role too. Consumer cognition is associated with the ability of consumers to touch and feel a certain product. Online shopping can only give visual persuasion on customers. They are not able to personally experience a product.
In addition of what is mentioned in pricing, what would also encourage/discourage online shoppers to do surf and purchase online would be discounts and promotions (Benjamin 2005). Normally, most brick and click companies encourage online shopping by ways of discount. Customers are able to find cheaper similar products online as compared to retail stores. Besides that, free shipping could also be given when customers purchase online. The promotions and value added activities will encourage more customers to shop online.
Online shopping has well become a popular trend for consumers who prefer to get desired goods without having the fuss to drive to retail stores. As shown by statistics by U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce sales amounted to a total of 88,915 million dollars during 2007. Goods of range from books/magazines to furniture and electronic appliances are also being bought online. The trend here shows that in the future, perhaps more than half of a company’s sales consist of e-commerce transactions.
In conclusion, it is estimated that advancement of technology and internet will lead to more e-commerce transactions and the emerging of mobile commerce transactions as well.
Reference
Benjamin, H 2005, ‘Online shopping: what factors are important to shoppers?’, Journal of Academy of Business and Economics, viewed 4 October 2010, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Online+shopping:+what+factors+are+important+to+shoppers%3F-a0149213915.
Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses—Total and E-Commerce Sales by Merchandise Line: 2006 and 2007 2007, U.S. Census Bureau, viewed 4 October 2010, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s1022.pdf.
Wang, N, Liu, D, Cheng, J 2008, Study on the Influencing Factors of Online Shopping, Atlantis Press, viewed 4 October 2010, www.atlantis-press.com/php/download_paper.php?id=1749.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI would like to provide another point on the marketing aspect of online shopping that can encourage customers’ consumption - customers’ reviews.
Campanelli (2006) is of the opinion that online reviews of satisfied customers have a major influence on other potential buyers compared to other types of promotional tools. This is because it is a type non- pressure type of tool, more passive in nature, which unintentionally spurs consumers to purchase, assuaging their doubts of purchasing the products from the particular e-tailer. Tom Cox pointed out a key point based on this experience with carrying on an online business, “People who are shopping love to leave reviews (Campanelli 2006). They provide relevant content for both readers and search engines”. I agree with that wholeheartedly. This is because consumers tend to be more confident in the e-tailer’s ability to deliver the products successfully without error by referring to the positive reviews made by previous buyers. It is also found that “customers who leave reviews have a higher average transaction size and a greater lifetime value than non-reviewers” (Campanelli 2006).
Of course, customers’ reviews are a blade that could cut both ways. What happens if the reviews are negative? Would it drive potential customers away? In that case, negative feedbacks can be used to be a benchmark for further improvements. What better ways to get into the good books of customers then showing them the sincerity and willingness to change? It shows that the opinions of customers are seriously considered by the e-tailer. Bad reviews may actually bring some benefits to the company if it is managed properly.
Ultimately, product reviews is also able to initiate transactions with potential customers besides increasing the e-tailer’s reputation in the virtual market.
I hope this can help! =)
Reference:
Campanelli, M 2006, Peer pressure, Entrepreneur Magazine, Entrepreneur Media, Inc., viewed 4th October 2010, http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/article166012.html
I agree with Chia Yin and Siaw Si that the factors like website layout, trust issues, pricing and trendy would either encourage or discourage online shoppers.
ReplyDeleteApply for the Pricing Issue which mentioned for the gals. Yes, Fashion is a passion driven industry, many companies find it hard to resist the temptation and overestimate potential sales. Thus, can’t deny that customer is very sensitive in pricing and the main goal of a retailer is to turn a profit. One of the major steps taken towards making a profit is setting the right price which the customer willing to buy and they think that the price is worth to the clothing.
As we all know that, Internet is a price war, most of the fashion apparel boutiques in Internet are fighting and competing over the price, therefore, normally, online boutique will set low price in selling their products in sequence to attract the customers. So, this is also one of the advantages where fashion apparel goes online as they can charge lower price than physical store because they do not need to pay rental fee, electivity fee, employee's salary and many other expenses. However, there are some fashion apparel will also set a high price with a superior quality to guarantee its customer that they clothing quality is different from other online boutique.
Now I would like to add another point on the marketing aspect of online shopping like we should also consider value propositions, and target market segments for buyer.
a) Targeted market segments
Market segmentation is a strategy that involves dividing a larger market into subsets of consumers who have common needs and applications for the goods and services offered in the market. The main objective is to help company to determine marketing strategies and realistic marketing objectives by understanding customer trends and buyer behaviors.
For example, once the online boutique market has been segmented, they can pursue all or a number of segments with a different offer for each through differentiated or niche marketing that creates and maintains value for the targeted segments. The important target market for online boutique maybe will be the customer buying habit, age, income, social class, motives or lifestyles.
b) Online value propositions (OVP)
Value preposition refers to the benefits, including intangible and non quantitative ones that a company can drive from using the model. For example, a value preposition defining how a company's product or service fulfills the needs of customers and important part of the marketing plan of any product or service.
For instance, Airasia can online booking ticket in 24 hours, the services provide for the website can satisfy the benefits consumers. For example, consumers can enjoy the insurance when purchase the air tickets. Airasia marketing plan is stabile and profitability so this rapidly increases the revenue of the company and passengers as well.
Thanks
References:
Brs: Centar for Business Planning-Market Segmentation ; Provided by Business Resource Software, Inc.; viewed at 7 October 2010; http://www.businessplans.org/Segment.html
Internet Based Moms 2008, Selling on the Internet: Some Internet Statistics, viewed 7 October 2010, http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/net_selling.htm
BusinessDictionary.com 2009, Core Product, BusinessDictionary.com, viewed 7 October 2010, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/core-product.html
Hi Chia Yin and Siaw Si,
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that the pricing and trendy would always be the one of the essential factors to encourage a huge number of consumers to shop online. Most of the online shoppers would like to shop around in order or compare prices and also the fashionable for the goods/products when they shop online. Thus, the visual attractiveness of the pages, icons and layouts which convey the feeling of shopping, hyperlinks to additional product information (pricing and trendy) will encourage consumers to further explore on it.
Besides that, I also agreed with what had been mentioned by Gavin that “discounting and promotion” would always attract many consumers to see at a glance even though they are not interested in buying before. For me, as an online shopper, the SPECIAL discount or promotion for the goods will usually let me have the desire to want to buy. In my opinion, I think that the biggest reason for majority of the consumers to shop online is they want to buy such goods/product they want by using the least pay. They prefer to get the cheapest price compare to the offline shopping. If the goods/products are expect higher than offline stores, then what is the motive for consumers to shop online for those items which cannot be touch or smell?? (Spiller and Lohse, 1997)
(Part 2)
ReplyDeleteInstead of the factors above, here I would like to add on some factors which may encourages customer to shop online. First, a good and attractiveness online shopping environment would always influence customers’ intention to shop and revisit. This online shopping environment can be conceptualized as entities, which are used by consumers to make sense of or further explore the site's content and products. For example, such cues as navigation buttons, the overall clarity or clutter of screens, product information, transactions and shipping processes enable consumers to make sense of the environment, its products and the transactions they are engaged in. These clean and straightforward environments will encourage consumers willing to spend their leisure time to shopping online.
Another factor that would encourage consumers to shop online is convenient. From www.janetmperkins.com, the survey results show that “81% said the convenience of shopping whenever they wanted was the main reason they chose to shop online, while 77% said they shopped online because it saved time.” Online shopping usually more convenient for office ladies (OL) and those who do not have enough time or lazy to go shopping. With this, they can easily to buy whatever they want by using the Internet and electronic device in anywhere. Therefore, online shopping is thought to be pleasurable and satisfying to consumers when the retailer sites are fast, uncluttered, and easy-to-navigate. Uncluttered and easy-to-navigate sites economize shopping time and the cognitive effort consumers expend figuring out how to shop effectively online (Szymanski and Hise, 2000).
At the end, to encourage consumers shopping online, the online shopping attributes have been classified into 4 categories: merchandise, customer service and promotions, navigation and convenience, and security.
Jarvenpaa and Todd (1997) said:
“Merchandising includes product-related characteristics such as assortment, variety, and product information.”
Lohse and Spiller (1998) said:
“For the customer service and promotion, customers want careful, continuous, useful communication, across geographic barriers.”
Szmanski and Hise (2000) said:
“The third attribute category is navigation and convenience. This is related to the user interface of an online store.”
Elliot and Fowell (2000) said:
“Security of online transactions continues to dominate the discussions on electronic commerce.”
References: (Part 3)
ReplyDeleteCatherine Demangeot & Amanda J. Broderick (2007), “Conceptualising consumer behaviour in online shopping environments”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, v.11, viewed October 9th, 2010, http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/journals.htm?issn=0959-0552&volume=35&issue=11&articleid=1631233&show=html
Chung H.P., & Young G.K. (2003), “Identifying key factors affecting consumer purchase behavior in an online shopping context”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, v.31, viewed October 9th, 2010, http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/journals.htm?issn=0959-0552&volume=31&issue=1&articleid=857396&show=html
Online shopping store, Gifts & toys, Clothing & apperal, “Some Tips To Make The Best Of Your Online Shopping Experience”, published in September 13th, 2010, viewed October 9th, 2010, http://www.janetmperkins.com/?p=7
I strongly agree on the idea of integrating social media like facebook into one's webpage.
ReplyDeleteOne example is Levi's jeans. It is one of the first big brands to integrate Facebook's social plugin into their online retail shop. Turning it into a "social retail experience". Customers are now able to share Levi's product with all their friends by clicking “Like” them, or find “Top-Liked” products across their network. Shopping online would be a more social and enjoyable experience.
“We’re creating a new social shopping experience that will change the way people shop online and, frankly, make buying jeans more fun. We’re excited to pioneer this new technology and help our loyal fans connect with our brand and share their favorite Levi’s products with friends.” Jodi Bricker, Vice President of Digital for Levi’s Americas.
Besides that, more and more popular brands like Gucci and Ralph Lauren has made their own pages on Facebook. This brands use facebook to update their fans on the about upcoming discounts, sales and promotions. Furthermore, this brands are offering exclusive deals to their facebook fans, like free shipping, special discounts and even offering products that has not been officially launched yet. Such deals are only available online and through social media. This in my opinion encourages people to do online shopping rather than the traditional shopping.
http://mashable.com/2010/04/22/levis-facebook/
http://developers.facebook.com/plugins
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=186370837130
I have the same opinion with Chia Yin and Siaw Si.
ReplyDeleteHow could any you trust a website enough to either give your personal information or credit card numbers to purchase something online? Especially women are skeptical towards online shopping; they tend to fear risks and threats associated with online shopping. The acceptance of online transactions depends on the perceived risks involved, the technology used for the online transactions and the organizations as the other parties in the transactions.
In such an open and unidentified market place assurance and reliance are intricate yet important (Mahadevan 2000). Trust issue can be enhanced through technology dimension. First of all, there are several common problems which reducing trust.
a)Eavesdropping
Information remains intact, but its confidentiality is compromised. For example, someone could get to identify your credit card or bank account information, intercept classified data or record a sensitive conversation. (Mahadevan 2000)
b)Tampering
Information is altered when it is transferring to the recipient. For example, someone can modify an order for goods or alter a person's personal information. (Mahadevan 2000)
(PART 2 of my comment)
ReplyDeletec)Impersonation
Data passes to a person who pretends as the intended recipient. Impersonation
can take two types: (Mahadevan 2000)
(i)Spoofing
A criminal pretends to be a business or organization in order to gain access to a computer user’s sensitive information such as bank account, credit card, or Social Security numbers. For instance, a person can act to have the email address 123@abc.com, or a web site can identify itself as www.abc.com when it is not. (Mahadevan 2000)
(ii)Misrepresentation
Fraudulent misrepresentation of a person or an organization. For instance, a site www.abc.com can act as a fashion store when it is a site that takes credit-card payments but never deliver any goods to the consumer. (Mahadevan 2000)
(PART 3 of my comment)
ReplyDeleteIn online business marketplace, transactions take place in a virtual environment. It is crucial to assured of the right identity of the transacting parties (authentication) and non-denial of the transaction (non-repudiation) (Mahadevan 2000). The intention of non-repudiation is to offer verifiable proof or evidence recording of information (Mahadevan 2000). It ensures that transacting parties cannot disclaim the transaction by utilizing non-personal nature of electronic transactions (Mahadevan 2000).
It is also crucial to provide authentication. It refers to using a network or computer system proves genuinely of an entity (Mahadevan 2000). Regardless of any industry, attackers will attempt to comprise the company site and damage the trust they have build with the customers. Passwords and digital certificates alone cannot prevent email phishing schemes and man in the middle attacks. Once an attacker compromises the site and exploits the data, customers may never return and company reputation is tarnished. Thus, there must be a process that verifies whether a company exists, has a name, and is entitled to use that name.
(PART 4 of my comment)
ReplyDeleteIn addition, e-mail an activation link and sending a text message with an activation code can ensure site visitors continue to trust the site. Trust is especially critical for web sites that sell products and services thus strong privacy policies and good transaction security are needed in the company’s website.
References:
Mahadevan 2000, A framework for Building On-line Trust for Business to Business E Commerce, viewed 7 October 2010, http://onemvweb.com/sources/sources/building_online_trust_ecommerce.pdf.
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ReplyDelete