Tuesday, February 21, 2012

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).

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.

1 comment:

  1. Radha - I like this topic idea a lot. I also find myself being very distracted by online shopping (J. Crew & Zullily are huge time wasters and distractions for me). I think the topic might still be a bit broad, even focusing on clothing, but I think you can remedy that with a focused outline. On this blog post, I was wanting you to go a bit more in depth on your ideas for the topic. Keep in mind that the minimum guideline is a page and a half, and yours goes just over a page (including the bulleted list and spaces between paragraphs). I think this is a good start to move forward with, so just let me know if you want to talk along the way.

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