On the Design of Sales Support Systems for Online Apparel Stores

Many online stores apply several sales support systems, e.g., recommender systems, sorting and filtering tools, to support buyers during the shopping process. Although, the research highlights the positive effect of such systems, the current study questions its applicability in online stores for products which serve users\u27 needs to be unique like apparel or luxury products. We analyze female users\u27 buying behavior of apparel products in a laboratory setting and find that users with high trendiness undertake in general more search steps. Further, we find that most users rely during their search process on different sorting and filtering as well as on keyword search tools while personalized and non-personalized recommendations play a minor role for users in this industry. Further, we find that users with high trendiness avoid following top seller lists and wear with it -recommendations. Moreover, the provision of top seller rankings does not influence the consumers\u27 product choice

How can Kiehl's grow in Portugal?

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A video-based automated recommender (VAR) system for garments

In this paper, we propose an automated and scalable garment recommender system using real-time in-store videos that can improve the experiences of garment shoppers and increase product sales. The video-based automated recommender (VAR) system is based on observations that garment shoppers tend to try on garments and evaluate themselves in front of store mirrors. Combining state-of-the-art computer vision techniques with marketing models of consumer preferences, the system automatically identifies shoppers’ preferences based on their reactions and uses that information to make meaningful personalized recommendations. First, the system uses a camera to capture a shopper’s behavior in front of the mirror to make inferences about her preferences based on her facial expressions and the part of the garment she is examining at each time point. Second, the system identifies shoppers with preferences similar to the focal customer from a database of shoppers whose preferences, purchasing, and/or consideration decisions are known. Finally, recommendations are made to the focal customer based on the preferences, purchasing, and/or consideration decisions of these like-minded shoppers. Each of the three steps can be implemented with several variations, and a retailing chain can choose the specific configuration that best serves its purpose. In this paper, we present an empirical test that compares one specific type of VAR system implementation against two alternative, nonautomated personal recommender systems: self-explicated conjoint (SEC) and self-evaluation after try-on (SET). The results show that VAR consistently outperforms SEC and SET. A second empirical study demonstrates the feasibility of VAR in real-time applications. Participants in the second study enjoyed the VAR experience, and almost all of them tried on the recommended garments. VAR should prove to be a valuable tool for both garment retailers and shoppers. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2016.0984.The authors thank the participants in presentations given by the authors in College of Business at City Univeristy of HongKong and Cambridge Judge Business School for their feedback, as well as the Editor, the Area Editor, and two anonymous Marketing Science reviewers for their insightful comments. This research was supported by two National Natural Science Foundation of China Fund (Grants 71232008 & 71502039), and the Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG) at School of Management, Fudan University

Customer Acquisition in rural Norway - An in-depth exploration of how to acquire customers in the middle of Norway.

The continuous decrease in and aging of the rural population in Norway makes customer acquisition in rural Norway an important topic to investigate. By presenting the rural consumer, the rural business, and factors such as promotional channels, perceived quality, market segmentation and mindset equity, we cast a foundation for qualitative and quantitative study. Since customer acquisition has been a relatively scarce explored topic, particularly in Norwegian rural areas, in-depth interviews with independent business owners shed light on the perception of rural consumers as cautious and price conscious. In addition to this, we found that interpersonal relationships are crucial for the business, but also that the businesses perceived local shopping as a conscious choice by shoppers’ vs non-shoppers. Promotional channels available to the businesses were Facebook, Instagram, posters, and the local newspaper, which we chose to explore in the quantitative study. Through a web-based survey we explored the consumers side of rural shopping behaviour. The study validated rural consumers as cautious and price conscious but found no significant evidence that these factors influenced purchasing intentions or visiting frequency. We did however find that relationships are positively correlated with both purchasing tendency and visiting frequency. In addition to this, we found high numbers of positive attitude towards local businesses since Covid-19, clearly in favour of local businesses. Exploration of promotional and communication channels revealed that printed promotional channels such as flyers and local newspapers were most preferred, in addition to Facebook being a good choice for social media visibility. Whilst a perception of calling to be a dying form of communication, the sample had calling as their preferred communication channel in addition to Facebook Messenger. We find that customer acquisition strategies for rural businesses should focus on relationships, personal interaction, and an increased visibility of product/service- and price-range

Establishment of a distribution network for Aqua Organic Cosmetics

JEL: M31 – Marketing; L66 – Cosmetics; L81 – Retail and Wholesale tradeAqua Organic is a German cosmetic company with its head office in the heart of the Munich city centre. The product line contains only premium organic care cosmetics, which locates the brand in a niche market. The main key success factors of an organic brand refer to the purity of the ingredients, the sustainable approach through all processes, a complementary service offering, social responsibility, an exclusive philosophy and most importantly combining natural cosmetics with classic aspiration and a modern, fashionable appearance. Nowadays, consumers get more conscious about sustainability and organic care. The consumer habits and demands towards organic cosmetics experience a major take off. Therefore, Aqua Organic faces an increasing competitive market, characterised by the growth of organic care companies. Direct and indirect competitors complicate the successful economic activity. Organic care companies in the niche market as well as mass-market natural care firms and product enhancements from well-established cosmetic brands overstock the market. Therefore, this project thesis elaborates a distribution and communication plan for the organic cosmetic brand Aqua Organic. Results of the research data as well as an internal, external and competitive analysis help to implement proposals. The implementation proposal consists on the development of a marketing strategy and operational recommendations. The distribution plan is composed of propositions regarding channels and intermediaries. The communication plan, on the other hand, reveals specific business-to-business communication actions in order to increase the brand awareness.Aqua Organic é uma empresa de cosmético alemã com sede no coração de Munique. A linha de produtos consiste apenas produtos de cosmético premium, o que coloca a marca num nicho de mercado bastante específico. Os principais fatores de sucesso de uma marca orgânica consistem no grau de pureza, a sustentabilidade presente ao longo de todo o processo, a oferta de um serviço complementar, a preocupação na responsabilidade social, uma filosofia específica, e o mais importante é que o faz aliando os cosméticos naturais a uma aparência muito exclusiva e moderna. Hoje em dia os consumidores estão mais conscientes acerca das questões de sustentabilidade e cuidado orgânico. Os hábitos de consumo e exigências em relação a estes produtos tem crescido continuamente. Para além disso, a Aqua Organics enfrenta cada vez mais uma concorrência de Mercado, caracterizado pelo crescimento de empresas deste tipo. Competidores diretos e indiretos complicam o sucesso da actividade económica. Empresas de cuidado orgânico e ramificações deste género de produtos provenientes de marcas grandes e estabelecidas no Mercado da cosmético entopem o Mercado. Sendo assim, esta tese pretende elaborar um plano de distribuição e comunicação para a marca de cosmético orgânica, Aqua Organic. Os resultados de pesquisa interna, externa e de análise competitivo irão ajudar a implementar propostas de resolução. A proposta de implementação consiste no desenvolvimento de uma estratégia de marketing e de várias recomendações a nível operacional. O plano de distribuição é composto tendo em conta o seus canais e intermediaries. O plano de comunicação, por outro lado, revela ações de comunicação especificas para B2B, de maneira a aumentar a notoriedade da marca

Women’s Fashion Consumption in Saudi Arabia

This study investigates the influence of the sociocultural factors affecting the fashion and clothing consumption of Saudi women. It is a multidisciplinary study that combines fashion and consumer behaviour approaches in order to define and explain the collective sociocultural norms that underlie the patterns of women’s fashion and clothing consumption in Saudi Arabia. It applies a mixed-method approach as a strategy for data collection, with primary data gathered through observation, a face-to-face questionnaire completed by 654 respondents and interviews with local retailers and experts in the fashion market. The analysis of the empirical data revealed significant findings related to consumption patterns and the characteristics of the local market. It identified that there are two main systems that define fashion consumption in female Saudi society. Each system operates in a different social setting (public and female-only social settings) that requires communicating or establishing a specific value or a set of values to meet social expectations. The research findings also indicate the structure of the market and its operational system used to respond to consumer demands. In the light of these findings, theoretical models were developed to define the particularities of fashion consumption in Saudi Arabia as outcomes of this study. This study could have a substantial influence in academia as it provides a broader insight into fashion consumption behaviour in Saudi Arabia compared to that available in the existing literature. It could also help retailers and investors to understand the particularities of Saudi women’s fashion consumption in more depth. This understanding could be applied to develop strategies to meet Saudi women’s fashion demands.Saudi Cultural Burea

Personalised Virtual Fitting for Fashion

The paper describes the "Body Shape Recognition for Online Fashion" research project and the development and testing of the garment size recommendation app, ShapeMate, embedded within a fashion e-commerce site. Not finding the correct garment size causes the high return rate of 30%-40% (According to interviews commissioned by the research project with leading fashion e-commerce and retailers in the UK), in fashion e-commerce. The app captures a single image with minimal user input, to estimate and classify the 3D body shape, in order to generate body measurements and using this information, to match with garment data for size recommendation. An extensive user-experience study was conducted. The developed app was empirically tested through semi-structured focus group interview and questionnaires, to validate results and obtain further insight. This research offers a major innovation for low-cost size recommendation generated from a single image for fashion e-commerce. It enhances the online apparel shopping experience, by matching body measurements with a personalised recommendation for garments

Apparel recommendation system evolution: an empirical review

Purpose: With the developments of e-commerce markets, novel recommendation technologies are becoming an essential part of many online retailers' economic models to help drive online sales. Initially, the purpose of this paper is to undertake an investigation of apparel recommendations in the commercial market in order to verify the research value and significance. Then, this paper reviews apparel recommendation techniques and systems through academic research, aiming to acquaint apparel recommendation context, summarize the pros and cons of various research methods, identify research gaps and eventually propose new research solutions to benefit apparel retailing market. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilizes empirical research drawing on 130 academic publications indexed from online databases. The authors introduce a three-layer descriptor for searching articles, and analyse retrieval results via distribution graphics of years, publications and keywords. Findings: This study classified high-tech integrated apparel systems into 3D CAD systems, personalised design systems and recommendation systems. The authors' research interest is focussed on recommendation system. Four types of models were found, namely clothes searching/retrieval, wardrobe recommendation, fashion coordination and intelligent recommendation systems. The forth type, smart systems, has raised more awareness in apparel research as it is equipped with advanced functions and application scenarios to satisfy customers. Despite various computational algorithms tested in system modelling, existing research is lacking in terms of apparel and users profiles research. Thus, from the review, the authors have identified and proposed a more complete set of key features for describing both apparel and users profiles in a recommendation system. Originality/value: Based on previous studies, this is the first review paper on this topic in this subject field. The summarised work and the proposed new research will inspire future researchers with various knowledge backgrounds, especially, from a design perspective

Establishing psychological relationship between customers and retailers: a study of the small to medium scale clothing retail industry

Purpose The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how young female customers establish psychological relationships with small- to medium-scale retail stores over time forming purchase intentions, actual purchase patterns and repurchase behaviour. Role of various customer typologies was also considered. Design/methodology/approach A case study approach was implemented to collect and analyse data, where data was collected from 20 young female customers and ten clothing retailers using purposive sampling via semi-structured interviews. Interviews with customers were conducted in a place of their choice such as in a coffee shop, whereas data from retailers were collected in the retail stores. Both online and offline retail patronage was considered to incorporate the growing tendency towards online shopping. Results were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings This study managed to reveal a number of interesting findings on how female customers form and develop psychological relationships with clothing retailers over time that ultimately builds customer loyalty. Customer behaviour in pre-purchase, purchase and re-purchase stages can significantly vary according to their individual perceptions, whereas they have a few favourite clothing brands that they frequently shop for. Preference for online shopping was found to be minimal, most of them enjoying in store experiences. Further, word of mouth and unique designs emerged as key contributors in establishing retail brand loyalty. Practical implications This paper provides better insights for clothing retailers and industry practitioners in understanding how customer perceptions affect clothing purchase decisions. Originality/value This paper contributes to the retail literature by emphasizing on various elements that should be amalgamated through proper synthesis to serve customers. The research is unique as it analyses customer behaviour using a recreational activity model as opposed to marketing models to demonstrate how customers develop relationships with retail brands overtime