Week4 - Web Design

Interactivity of Levi’s website

I’ll take Levi’s as a sample retailer to discuss the web design.

Koufaris et al., (2002) stated that interactivity provides a hedonic benefit of enjoyment. Park et al (2005) found that creating a positive emotional state and a hedonic experience triggered buying behavior of fashion goods. What’s more, Dennis, Fenech and Merrilees (2004) stated that increasing interactive features would lead to more online activity. Therefore, I’ll analyze the interactivity part of Levi’s.

Interactivity mainly has two functions, enticing communication and fashion inspiration. (McCormick and Vasquez, 2009)

Charles Dennis (2004) said, “Most of the interpretations of interactivity have a strong communication element, which builds on the analogy with the salesperson interaction in the offline world”. There are four elements to entice communication.

Suggestions

In Levi’s online shop, there is a banner said “Best sellers”. People are always interested in popular things, so they will try to click on it to find something new. Mutually, it gives suggestions to consumers to drive their purchase.

Email updates

When you register with Levi’s, they will promise you that you will receive their member-only offers sometimes. Normally, I will receive an e-mail from a certain fashion brand immediately after registration, like NEXT. But I haven’t received anything from Levi’s since I registered. So I think Levi’s should do some improvement in Email updates.

Add on/recommendations

They will provide some other pieces when you have chosen one piece to look, like personal selling. It may have correct recommendations which you really like. Or you can take the recommendations as reference. It may help people to find what they exactly want and entice communication as well.

Promotional offers

People always will be attracted by “Sale” banners. It will win a lot of clicks.

For fashion inspiration, Huang (2008) said, “Entertainment and surveillance are motives for visiting website”. In this branch, there are six elements. Fashion photography, new product information, fashion advice/blogs, journalist text, trend information – look books/fashion forecasts and daily updates – daily fix information. Levi’s has covered two, changed two, and missed two.

Levi’s has provided fashion photography and new product information in their front page as attraction. Besides, it has an amazing change in fashion advice/blogs. Unlike other brands which only give some current popular style advice, Levi’s created a small quiz in order to let customers know which jeans will fit them perfectly. You follow the steps and choose the bodily form you are in, then, it gives the result of a certain jeans model that this is your jeans! Since consumers can not try jeans on in online shop, it is the best way to make up this block. Moreover, Levi’s use videos to tell consumers about their news and events instead of journalist text, which makes it more vivid and enjoyable. On the other hand, since jeans have become an everlasting style, it can not create as much fashion elements as other brands. So trend information – look books/fashion forecasts, and daily updates – daily fix information are the segments they do not need to pay much attention to.

People like to try jeans on personally since they think it is the only way to find fittest one. Levi’s online shop has given a wonderful performance to cover it. It’s really a great job!

Week3-Case study - E-retailer review

H&M promotion methods

 

I’d like do the review of H&M, specific on promotion methods. All these methods are focusing on building up interactivity and hedonic atmosphere, which trigger buying behavior (Park, et al., 2005).

H&M was established in Västerås, Sweden in 1947 by Erling Persson. They now sell clothes and cosmetics in around 2,000 stores around the world. In many countries, people can also shop by mail order, either with H&M online shopping or using the H&M catalogue. H&M offers fashion and quality at the best price with a broad and varied selection for women, men, teens and children.

They have set up their online shopping system recently. It has applied most popular and effective promotion methods which can be counted as NO.1 in e-retailing. 

They use point-of-purchase promotion to get attention from consumers at the first sight. On one hand, they post a big photo about their new collections in the middle of front page, like a banner, informing consumers of their “best buy” clothes. On the other hand, they set up a brilliant interactive activity, called “fashion studio”. In that section, customers can try clothes on different kinds of models to see if the chosen clothes suit themselves. It makes the online shopping more vivid, just as being in a physical store. 

There is also a fantastic section, style guide, which is an online pictorial that tells customers what the current fashion trend is and shows how to be “in” style. When customers get a general idea about the popular style, they will recognize their needs and begin to shop online. So it evokes consumers’ need recognition imperceptibly.

Moreover, H&M applies video, magazine, facebook and cross-promotion with GQ magazine to provide more information about their brand and collections for customers. The purpose of it is to tell consumers that H&M has got variety of styles so that buyers can absolutely find the piece fits them perfectly.

Besides these fabulous promotion methods, H&M online shop has a problem with its delivery policy. Shoppers can not find any information about their delivery fee until they finish the payment part. People can only see the delivery fee after typing in all bank details and code. It is really an obstacle lying between buyer’s purchase intention and final purchase decision-making.

But all in all, the promotion methods of H&M are wonderful and impressive. We can dig out a lot of valuable concepts from study.

Week2-Web 2.0 The E-tailing tipping point

Analysis of Taobao Web 2.0 functions

I still use Taobao as a model to analyze the functions of Web 2.0 applied in e-retailing.

Hedonic aspects such as experience, interactivity and entertainment drive the online experience, (Childers et al., 2001). These three aspects are also the main features making up Web 2.0. Taobao has many promotion activities besides retailing, belonging to three hedonic aspects.

Experience

There is an amazing activity called “Free Trial Centre”, providing consumers a chance to try the product they admired. After customers have applied for the product successfully, the product will be delivered to them for free. The whole process doesn’t charge any fee, the only thing that customers should do is to submit trial feedback about their real personal experience after using the product. The more serious and active attitude the feedback presents, the more free trial chances the customer will get later.

Interactivity

BBS and Wangwang (a chatting tool like MSN) are the main interaction parts of Taobao. BBS is a place for all Taobao members to share their shopping experience, product evaluation and latest fashion news. Wangwang is a chatting tool for buyers ask sellers specific questions about product details. Buyers can get accurate information of the product through Wangwang, and it is also a good opportunity for sellers to show their hospitality to stimulate purchase. Both of them are good methods to build effective communication between buyers and buyers, and buyers and sellers. 

Entertainment

Fashion week section and Pictorial both offer popular collocation information and latest collection of fashion goods to consumers. The difference is ‘Fashion week’ focuses on mass fashion trends and ‘Pictorial’ is more brand perspective, providing current collection of a certain brand. Besides, there is a Taobao community, a platform like Facebook, containing games, sharing space, group-buying activity, credit system, etc. All these three entertainment methods bring fun and enjoyment to consumers when they are shopping online, which makes online shopping not only a pure buying behavior, but an interesting activity.

Through “Free Trial Centre”, consumers will have actual experience of the product. No matter how the product performs, the impression of Taobao service will be better. Through BBS and Wangwang, a good relationship will be built between consumers and retailers. What’s more, Fashion week section and Pictorial not only give a fashion guide to consumers, but also the hedonic atmosphere which will trigger buying behaviors.

According to Alibaba Group Research Centre (2010), the aim of shopping online has changed from “searching cheap”, to “seeking convenience”, to “pursuing unique”. That’s the biggest reason that Taobao now is focusing on web design.

Week1-The online market place

Replicating strategy

The internet-based electronic commerce environment has developed dramatically in recent Chinese market (iResearch, 2010). According to Chinese digital products online retail statistical reports (2009), the turnover of e-retailing has rocketed into 250 billion RMB last year. C2C, B2C retailing model accounted for a lion’s share in this market share, followed by B2T retailing.

C2C and B2C retailing refers to Taobao, a similar e-retailing website like Ebay. It is established in 2003, covering 80% market share in e-retailing area nowadays.

B2T retailing is associated with a new online shopping model, called Group-buying, which stemmed from a U.S. based business, Groupon. Being a team leader can be a lot of work, so group-buying websites have sprung up, serving as agents between buyers and sellers and receiving a commission from the sale. They usually offer bulk discounts, ultra-discounted tickets, discount coupon and rebate coupon.

A common factor between these two models, which makes them success, is replicating strategy across the globe for different markets. No matter Taobao or Group-buying, the concept of its retailing model is completely copying U.S. based e-businesses. Since those American retailers have won the market perfectly, they are regarded as great models in e-business area. Chinese e-market was not as mature as American’s in early time. Considering the wonderful performance of U.S. e-market, Chinese investors predict a promising e-market in China if they choose a right time to build up. Now Chinese e-market is in its fullness of time since more and more people can access to the internet conveniently and are willing to have a try on purchasing online. Therefore, replicating right things in right time gives Chinese e-businesses a big success. One thing worth mentioning is Taobao has won eBay completely in Chinese e-market. We can say that the pupil outdoes the master.