Blog 3 - Paper Topic

While brainstorming ideas for my project and looking at various articles online about Consumer Behavior, the corner of my eye noticed the “30% off at Banana Republic” advertisement. I quickly clicked on it completely forgetting everything I was doing and spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure out what to buy. That’s when I realized that 1. I am addicted to online shopping and 2. This is exactly what I want to write my paper on.

- Idea for the topic: I want to study the consumer behavior related to online shopping in the clothing/retail segment. After doing some quick research I found that online shopping has become the third most popular internet activity, even more popular than catching up on news and entertainment. I want to learn if there are certain types of people who online shop more than others, or if it becomes repetitive after trying it once. I want to research into the influencing factors contributing to online shopping consumer behaviors. How well does your education or income level play in the realm of online shopping? Do people with less time on their hands shop online more, or people who are lazy and rather not go to a mall? Are people willing to shop online at stores they normally shop at or are willing to try new places online first? I have many questions about this topic which will help me lead to analyzing the insights necessary to market to online shoppers.

- Why is this topic interesting to you? This topic is very applicable to me and my lifestyle. I actually shop online more than I shop at the mall. I shop online almost anywhere from Old Navy to Zara to Asos. (Zara creating an online system was a really good day for me). I have various reasons I shop online vs. at the store such as convince and availability. I want to research deeper into why some people shop online more than others, and why some people even prefer it to going to the store.

- What is the connection to the gathering and identification of customer insights and/or the design of valuable customer experiences? I feel like online shopping is all about attracting a customer to your website with products they already know they like. Having valuable customer insights about peoples behavior while online browsing can help determine why people buy what they buy online. I would like to so online shop-alongs with people who buy clothing items online and see if their habits are similar to others. Gathering this information can help determine if certain items are more likely to be purchased online verses others. For example, I believe it’s easier to buy shoes online verses a pair of jeans because shoes usually fit the same each time.  Customer insights about online shopping can help develop a dynamic sense of what people feel and how they react. Without being able to try on the item or touch how it feels, customers make online purchases. Why are people trusting of online shopping if you can’t even use half your senses when making a purchase?

- Cite and briefly describe at least one article that is related to your topic (this can be either an academic article or trade article, at this point).

http://analogik.com/articles/227/analysis-of-consumer-behaviour-online

This report was conducted by Dejan Petrovic which outlines behavioral characteristics of customers who shop online. The report was conducted on young adults ages eighteen to thirty four who were shopping for a mobil phone online.  According to research, there are four distinct groups with different intentions:

-       Exploration

-       Entertainment

-       Shopping

-       Information

The research also showed that a higher education and level in technology can be an encouraging factor.

I want to conduct a similar research except for online shopping for clothing. By studying external factors, demographics, personal attitudes, product quality, website quality, and personal intentions, I will be able to determine valuable customer insights.

Blog 2 - Qualitative Research of Online Social Behavior

Social media is a great way for marketers to build customer relationships in today’s modern environment. Social media is a great way to make initial contact with prospective customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers. Connecting through social media can also help improve customer retention by consistently providing marketing through the users daily social life. Some social media sites marketers target are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 

Traditionally marketers have taken a more quantitative approach to measure their business operations matters. For example, businesses will measure the number of followers on Twitter, number of “likes” on Facebook, and amount of traffic driven to the websites. While these measures are very useful in determining important information, it lacks the relationship aspect qualitative measures can achieve. A large number of “likes” on your Facebook page can give you a false belief that people like your company, when in reality half those people might not even know what your company does. These limitations from quantitative metrics can be fixed with qualitative measures of people’s attitudes and feelings about the company. Some examples of qualitative measures include customer satisfaction, brand awareness, and individual impact, observations of behaviors, and targeting through interests. 

For example, if was targeting my group project persona for Nordstrom’s, I would ask the person to follow and like my Facebook page, send out reminders for new collections and sales, and ask for feedback on these new items. The main goal for Nordstrom would be to interact with my persona on Facebook, not simply just “like” the page.  I would want my persona to follow Nordstrom on Twitter and find ways to do promotions for her to RT Nordstrom’s. For example Nordstrom can Tweet “RT if you love the new J Brand collection” I would hope to catch my persona’s attention as J Brand is the new popular jeans she may own or want to own, thus getting the word out to her followers as well.

King Fish Media has done statistical testing on the marking of Quantitative and Qualitative data through social media. The results are shown below. (http://www.kingfishmedia.com/Portals/51063/pdf/kfm-social-media-usage-2010.pdf)

Results show us that customer relationship and identification of new customers if one of the key benefits derived from good social media strategy. Also, the research shows that the method companies use to contact their customers for marketing campaigns the most is by direct dialog.

A more well-rounded view of the target customers through social media can offer many great benefits to marketers.  It will help us develop a connection with the customers by targeting their personal needs and individual characteristics.  The ability to captivate an audience through social media is extremely possible with the new generations becoming dependent on these tools. Markets can gain dynamic insights, levels of interest, and key personal information to see what drives the brand. While there are many advantages to qualitative research, there are a few disadvantages. Quantitative analysis through social media can be labor intensive since a continual connection must be made worldwide at all times of the day making it time consuming also. In addition, the methods used may not be accepted by the public or find their results to be invalid or biased. 

Overall I think the best approach to reach a consumer is though both quantitative and qualitative marketing through social media.

Persona- Jason Smith

Jason Smith is 38 years old and lives in Austin, Texas. He is American born and lived in Texas most of his life. Jason graduated from the University of Texas and went to grad school at New York University to study Interactive Telecommunications. Jason is married to his college sweetheart and has two baby boys, ages four and eight months. He is currently a software engineer and helps develop software for new social media.  For example, he helped develop the Facebook game, Farmville. His job keeps him really busy and it’s a battle for him to find work life balance. Jason makes a reasonable income for him and his family to leave a healthy and comfortable lifestyle. His short term goals include buying a new house to give his kids more space to grow up in, reach a new breakthrough at work, and spend more time with his children.

The empathy map below a good overview of Jason and the information below gives a more detailed overview. 

1. What does he or she think and feel?

Jason is always thinking about his family and kids, they are the most important things in his life. Common thoughts are surrounded on the healthy, happiness, and pains of his kids. The second thing Jason thinks about is work. Jason is consistently working on new projects hoping that it will be the next big thing. Sometimes work can get very frustrating because projects he works on for weeks will be thrown out. Every time Jason gets in his car, he wishes he had a new one. Jason definitely wants to get a new car so he is always thinking about what he will get next.

2. What does he or she see?

Jason loves to see his kids when he comes home from work, it is something that gets him through the day. Jason regularly is surfing the web all day keeping up with current events and researching for the best innovations in computer technology. When he is not spending time at work or with his kids, he loves to watch football and catch up with his friends. Sometimes when he has a little extra time on his hands, Jason loves to take a jog around Town Lake.

3. What does he or she say and do?

Jason is a very enthusiastic and optimistic man. He always talks about the importance of a healthy lifestyle and enforces that lifestyle on his children. He loves to compliment his wife and take her out to weekly dates. At work he likes to strive for success by motivating himself and the ones around him. He constantly asks for ways to improve and takes and advice and criticism seriously.

4. What does he or she hear?

Since Jason is at work for most of the day, he is constantly hearing the words of his co-workers. His boss is usually complimenting Jason on his work and asking him about his new ideas. At home his kids always ask him to play and his wife is asking him to do this and that!

5. What are his or her pain points?

Jason really has a hard time finding work life balance. He wishes he had more time with his kids, the weekends alone just don’t seem like enough. Jason also wishes to achieve a higher standard at work to get a better salary.

6. What does he or she hope to gain?

Jason really wants to move into a new house where his kids can have more space to grow up in. But before he does that Jason needs a new car because the one he has now is going to give out soon. Jason knows to afford all these things he is going to need a bigger savings account and/or a higher salary.