Customer journey: Online versus offline in fashion industry

Technological improvements are allowing the development of the customer experience both online and offline, and the purpose is to create a better experience. Nowadays, customers can decide to purchase products/ services in two different ways, i.e., online or offline. The online experience has been changing the way companies reach the customer, while in-store experience is the traditional way of purchasing. This study analyses the customer journey and the most important attributes when the customer wants to purchase a product and has to choose between the two channels in the fashion industry, in Portugal. It is important to understand why customers choose a channel instead of the other one, and if the combination of the two channels can improve customer experience. The fashion industry is very competitive; therefore it is necessary to constantly innovative and integrate both channels, with the use of technologies, such as virtual reality. In this industry, sensory elements are crucial, and it is necessary that these elements are also present in the online channel. Can the combination of online and offline channels be the best option for customers with the help of technology? Interviews were conducted and a qualitative analysis was carried out. The main findings indicate that sensory elements are essential when customers what to purchase a clothing item and that is one of the reasons that customers, in general, prefer to purchase offline. Moreover, using new technologies to bring the two channels together seems to be a good option.As melhorias tecnológicas têm vindo a permitir o desenvolvimento da experiência do consumidor tanto online como offline e o objetivo é criar uma melhor experiência. Hoje em dia, os consumidores podem decidir comprar produtos/ serviços de duas formas diferentes, ou seja, online ou offline. A experiência online tem vindo a mudar a forma como as empresas chegam ao consumidor, enquanto que a experiência em loja é a forma tradicional de compra. Este estudo analisa a jornada do consumidor e os atributos mais importantes quando o consumidor quer comprar um produto e tem de escolher entre os dois canais na indústria da moda, em Portugal. É importante entender porque é que o consumidores escolhem um canal ao invés do outro e se a combinação dos dois canais pode melhorar a experiência do consumidor. A indústria da moda é muito competitiva; portanto é necessário inovar constantemente e integrar ambos os canais, com o uso de tecnologias, como a realidade virtual. Nesta indústria, os elementos sensoriais são cruciais e é necessário que esses elementos também estejam presentes no canal online. A combinação dos canais online e offline, com a ajuda da tecnologia, poderá ser a melhor opção para os consumidores? Foram feitas entrevistas e realizada uma análise qualitativa. As principais conclusões indicam que os elementos sensoriais são essenciais quando os consumidores desejam comprar uma peça de roupa e, esse é um dos motivos pelos quais os consumidores, em geral, preferem comprar offline. Adicionalmente, o uso de tecnologias para aproximar os dois canais parece ser uma boa opção

Contemporary Issues in Digital Marketing

Web-marketing;Customer services;International busines

Designing Multi-sided Community Platforms for Local High Street Retail

The continuing rise of online retail comes at the expense of small and medium-sized stores in local high streets. Many cities now experience substantial vacancies and the decline of independent and family-owned stores, impeding citizens’ perceived quality of living. In this paper, we design the community platform ‘smartmarket²’, with which networks of local retailers interact with networks of customers to co-create a physical and at the same time digital customer experience in a high street. The platform connects with retailers’ information systems, while interfacing with in-store technologies to connect with potential customers’ smartphones. From a theoretical perspective, the platform exemplifies how previous research on value co-creation, multi-sided (engagement) platforms, and retail communities can complement each other to constitute online-offline customer experience. Based on comparing smartmarket² with rival IT artifacts, we abstract nascent design knowledge by conceptualizing a design theory for ‘community platforms for high street retail’ as a new class of IT artifacts. We conclude the paper with identifying how digital services—including cross-promotions, geographical recommender systems, and geospatial analytics—may be offered on the platform to leverage the competitive position of small and medium-sized retailers in local high streets through online-offline customer experience

The impact of servation on the results of economic digital entrepreneurship activities

Main focus today: optimizing IT for successful digital transformation, cybersecurity, privacy. GDPR: enhanced personal privacy rights, increased duty for protecting data, significant penalties for non-compliance. Under the influence of new Internet technologies and online platforms, the global economy will gradually “get free” from the numerous barriers that divide it and will be characterized by a special “spatial plasticity” designed for the dynamics of communications and the driving force of innovation. Already today we observe both the economies of different countries inherent clustering, direct connection between economic participants; collective way of responding; hyperminous institutional environment. Digitalization of the economy, which is actively taking place today in Ukraine, to some extent “touched” all spheres of business. Its actors, aimed at long-term success and development, are forced to accept the challenges of the modern economy – only way they can become leaders in business. Digital transformation and servation of economic activity at the micro level can help them

The future of online fashion retail: a case study of Zalando SE

The pedagogical case study at hand pivots on Zalando SE, a German online retailer for fashion and accessories, that put innovation and user experience at the core of its business values. In pursuit of European market leadership, Zalando looks at improving the customers’ digital experience through implementing technological features of the next generation. Qualitative and quantitative analyses, which included the online fashion retail market and Zalando’s business performance, were applied in order to gain a holistic understanding of the European e-commerce industry. In a second step, industry trends and critical success factors were analysed and ranked. To answer the guiding question of this case study (How can Zalando SE leverage on its strong market position and technological progress in order to become Europe’s number one online fashion retailer?), future trends and critical success factors are paired with Zalando’s strengths, core values and business model. The case resolution shows that the online retail market is undergoing a shift from a sector where offerings are decided by its merchants to one with offerings dictated by consumers. The tech-savvy e-commerce consumers demand to play an active role in building the consumer-brand-relationship. For consumers, Zalando should become the go-to stylist offering sophisticated fashion products and services through its digital as well as physical channels. For partners and suppliers, Zalando should develop into the go-to advisor for online retail by providing a holistic spectrum of services, such as marketing, logistics and, business development. With this two-track approach, long-term sustainable competitive advantage can be achieved.Este caso pedagógico trata a Zalando SE, um retalhista online de moda, alemão. Esta empresa tem uma visão muito aplicada na inovação e na conveniência para o utilizador, os seus principais valores de negócio. Com vista à liderança, a empresa procura melhorar a experiência digital dos seus clientes. Análises qualitativas e quantitativas foram adotadas de forma a obter uma compreensão holística da indústria Europeia de comércio de moda online, bem como do histórico de negócio e desempenho da Zalando. Numa segunda etapa, tendências do setor e fatores chave de sucesso foram analisados e classificados, sendo alinhados com os pontos fortes da empresa e respetivo modelo de negócio de modo a responder à questão principal deste caso (Como pode a Zalando SE alavancar o seu posicionamento de mercado e progresso tecnológico de forma a tornar-se o retalhista de moda online número um da Europa?). O caso demonstra que o mercado de moda online passa por uma profunda alteração, evoluindo de um setor cuja oferta é determinada pelos retalhistas, para um novo paradigma onde a oferta é ditada pelos consumidores. A Zalando precisa compreender que o futuro e-consumidor deseja desempenhar um papel ativo na relação com as marcas que segue. Para os consumidores, a Zalando deverá tornar-se um ávido consultor no que toca ao retalho online, que oferece um conjunto holístico de serviços, entre os quais o marketing, logística, desenvolvimento do negócio. Assim, e com esta abordagem de duas vias, a vantagem competitiva, sustentável, e a longo prazo poderá, efetivamente, ser alcançada

Personalization through a proactive live chat in an e-commerce: The case of Byside’s client, a multinational retail company

Retail e-commerce companies currently struggle in managing and optimizing the performance of a proactive live chat software application. It is assumed by companies present in the sector that providing personalized assistance to online visitors brings positive outcomes, however, there is no scientific evidence in this field to prove this assumption. This research aims to bring new insights into the contribution personalization can have regarding the performance of this app. Specifically, it investigates whether increasing personalization on the provided assistance to the online visitor has an impact on the number and value of influenced checkouts. To test the hypothesis that providing more personalized assistance to the online visitor through this application leads to increased sales, the performance results of this app in the Croatian market of a multinational retail client were analyzed. Two five-month periods were observed, one providing nonpersonalized assistance and the other with personalized assistance for online visitors, the results of both periods were analyzed using three independent samples t-tests. The outcomes showed a statistically significant positive effect of the personalized assistance in the application performance results. These results suggest that online visitors who received personalized assistance are more likely to proceed to the checkout funnel and complete the purchase and to perform checkouts with a higher value. On this basis, personalization should be considered when managing or optimizing proactive live chat campaigns in retail e-commerce. The thesis is finalized by outlining its limitations and proposing new avenues of research

Digital Divide: Investigating the integration of marketing and ICTs for South African retailers expanding throughout Africa

Information Communication Technologies are increasingly used in organisations’ market expansion strategies. These Information communication technologies provide organisations with opportunities such as ease of communication and movement of resources, making the entry into new markets a faster and less resource heavy process. When expanding throughout the African continent, the challenge presented in using this approach is that many African markets have underdeveloped information communication technology infrastructure. In considering this barrier, the extent to which information communication technology enables market expansion throughout the African continent is the topic which has been fully analysed and discussed. An exploratory research design and a qualitative method have been used in this study. The subjects of the data collection were three key individuals selected from a large South African retailer. These three individuals job roles spanned across the marketing and IT departments and were influential in the organisation’s expansion efforts throughout Africa. The findings of this study show that the levels of information communication technology infrastructure vary vastly from country to country on the African continent, noting South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and Botswana as the more advanced nations with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda lagging in development. The findings also show that for retailers, the retail focused technology available in South Africa is not yet available in other African nations which causes challenges in offering the same value to consumers across the board. However, the finding show that the development of cloud-based systems has assisted in the widespread use of technologies without the need of heavy investments into physical locations

Proceedings of the 1st Doctoral Consortium at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (DC-ECAI 2020)

1st Doctoral Consortium at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (DC-ECAI 2020), 29-30 August, 2020 Santiago de Compostela, SpainThe DC-ECAI 2020 provides a unique opportunity for PhD students, who are close to finishing their doctorate research, to interact with experienced researchers in the field. Senior members of the community are assigned as mentors for each group of students based on the student’s research or similarity of research interests. The DC-ECAI 2020, which is held virtually this year, allows students from all over the world to present their research and discuss their ongoing research and career plans with their mentor, to do networking with other participants, and to receive training and mentoring about career planning and career option

Consumer behavior in a multichannel context and its managerial implications

The dissertation project consists of four papers. Two papers are concerned with multichannel customer behavior: (a) drivers of competitive webrooming and (b) profitability effects of offline channel additions. The remaining two papers deal with consumer reactions towards different website cookie notifications

Adoption and Impact of QR-codes in an Omnichannel Customer Experience; The Perspective of Consumer Electronics

Physical retailers are struggling to compete against digital players. Providing a positive omnichannel customer experience instore has become a vigorous strategy to stay competitive in today’s retail environment. QR-codes can offer a wide variety of digital information almost instantaneously. Retailers of consumer electronics are suggested to benefit from this easy access to information by responding to consumers need for interactive and personalized experiences. QR-codes are especially suitable in the prepurchase stage of the customer journey, in which consumers consider and evaluate products. Moreover, QR-codes has had a revival due to its potential during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, there is still an ongoing discussion about the adoption of QR-codes and a lack of empirical insight on the impact of QR-codes on the omnichannel customer experience as well as a lack of studies that take a holistic approach to investigate QR-codes in a consumer electronics setting. The objective of this study was therefore to fill this knowledge gap by answering the following research questions: (1) why consumers adopt or resist QR-codes, and (2) which QR-code information and features provides experiential value and influences purchase intention in consumer electronics. In answering the first question, a theoretical framework was developed, which extends the Technology Acceptance Model with functional and physiological barriers from the Innovation Resistance Theory, as well as potential moderating factors like age, gender, and personal innovativeness. One or more hypotheses for each construct were based on extensive literature review, and the framework was tested in a cross-sectional survey study. In answering the second question, an experiential value and purchase intention framework was built upon theories on customer experience. Based on literature regarding omnichannel behavior, QRcodes, and shopper-facing technology, it was assumed that more digitalized and personalized information and features were preferred by consumers. This assumption was tested using conjoint analysis. The findings from the cross-sectional survey shows that QR-code adoption is primarily driven by perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, compatibility, and age. The findings from the conjoint analysis generally indicate that less digitalized and personalized information and features can add experiential value and that more digitalized and personalized trigger purchase intention. Features such as personalized reviews should especially be consider by retailers as this was important across both experiential value and purchase intention. In conclusion, retailers should focus on both utilitarian and hedonic benefits of QR-codes and ensure that the touchpoints fit with consumers’ shopping behavior and age. Retailers must also be aware that there are differences in the preferences for what can create experiential value and purchase intention, and they should carefully consider the purpose for which QR-codes are implemented and allow this to guide them in what information and features they apply