Net-A-Porter Group Limited and ShopStyles Website - Essay Example

E-Market Paper Marketing has become one of the most important elements in enhancing competitive advantage and achieving organisational objectives in various businesses. Marketing takes various forms: promotions, direct sales, personal selling, and internet marketing among others (Quelch and Klein, 1996). Internet marketing, also known as eMarketing or electronic marketing refers to the application of marketing principles in electronic media, especially the internet (Eisenberg, 2013). As businesses apply marketing principles by creating market segments from the rising internet users, marketers have developed new strategies to sell their products online in order to meet the demand of rising internet users. This paper focuses on the online fashion shoppers as the target market, and www.net-a-porter.com and http://www.shopstyle.com as the key websites that can meet the needs of the chosen target market. ShopStyle Website has a better communication strategy while Net-A-Porter website has a better structure and appeal to viewers. The Net-A-Porter Group Limited considers itself as the world’s premier online luxury fashion retailer. The market segment in this case is the luxury online fashion shoppers. The Net-A-Porter Group Limited was launched in 2000 and has successfully established itself in market using its luxury brand. The company prides itself in its exceptional pricing and highly effective customer care that has enabled them to remain strong and favoured in the highly competitive fashion market. Their website www.net-a-porter.com is an award winning website presented in a unique way – as a fashion magazine. The luxury fashion company targets online savvy luxury customers, and offers them what they want – customized fashion clothes designed to meet the specific needs of each customer. It focuses on bringing out the best looks of customer. The Net-A-Porter Group Limited provides cutting-edge labels and delivers its products through the worldwide express delivery. Customers find clothes of their choice from the company’s online store, and order whatever they want. The company then delivers them to wherever the customer prefers it to be delivered. The online luxury fashion market segment is a large market because most people who demand luxury products use the internet, and prefer their products to be delivered to their convenient places. The visitors of the company’s website per month are about 2.5 million. That shows that about 83,000 people frequent the website daily. This indicates that the online luxury market segment is large. On the other hand, ShopStyle is a brand established by PopSugar to provide various online shoppers with the goods they want. The company provides a wide range of products including women fashion, shoes, beauty, jewelry, men’s clothing, kids’ clothing, bags, etc. On the Home page of their website, they have a wide range of fashion clothes, especially for women. This shows that the company mainly needs women customers on web. There are also sensational work bags, wedding clothes and shoes. Generally, they offer anything fashion. ShopStyle is advertised by PopSugar, a company which offers advertising platforms for brands to sell their products online. The company reaches millions of customers in its main market segment, women fashion online shoppers. The website attracts an average of 250 million people per month, which amounts to about 8 million women per day, and 20 million unique visitors per month. PopSugar is mainly a lifestyle brand offering news and information that are up-to-the-minute about fashion, entertainment, shopping, beauty and fitness. PopSugar targets women with ages between 18 and 40. ShopStyle offered by PopSugar enables fashion brands to reach millions of customers through its website. Marketers sell their products through ShopStyle by entering into a partnership deal with PopSugar. There are various factors that make the two websites different from each other. Generally, ShopStyle website is a bit complicated and difficult to use compared to Net-A-Porter website. Shopstyle’s website also has more content. However, Net-A-Porter’s website is more attractive than ShopStyle’s website. Despite its complexity, http://www.shopstyle.com has features that appeal visitors. The website has more varieties of fashion products compared to www.net-a-porter.com. This feature has led the website to attract more viewers. ShopStyle’s website also has a better navigation system than Net-A-Porter’s website. It allows viewers to scroll from right to left and from top to bottom more easily and has a good visual appeal. At the home of http://www.net-a-porter.com, there is a picture of a beautiful woman wearing one of the fashion clothes offered by the company. This is a good way of marketing the product – on the first sight appeal. The photo is very attractive and it may influence the purchasing decisions of the website’s visitors. The photo is that of Jessica Stam and it advertises the new issue of her magazine on fashion (Net-A-Porter, 2014). This aspect of integrating celebrities with fashion magazine, beauty and fashion leads to customer attraction in the website. It also makes the website very appealing and attractive. On the other hand, the homepage of http://www.shopstyle.com has a search engine which allows customers to search for the products they want. As one navigates to the bottom, there are displays of several fashion clothes, bags and shoes with eye-catching appearances and nice words to attract viewers. For instance, there is a dress called Gorgeous Easter Dress and below it there are words written, “Every Dress, Every Price” (ShopStyle, 2014). This gives the viewer an idea that he can negotiate the price and she can choose the price and product that suits her needs. Net-A-Porter’s website mainly focuses on their magazines. Seemingly, the company attempts to attract customers by giving them an opportunity to check for their best offerings on the magazines before they make shopping decisions. On the other hand, ShopStyle offers many details of their products on the websites. They have a larger number and variety of fashion products and apparels on display than Net-A-Porter. Each product has some important information that the visitor of the website can use to make a sale. There is a feature on the website written “shop now”. If visitors click on it, they are directed to a link where they can purchase the product online. Furthermore, ShopStyle has some information of the products including price, colour, quality, etc. From this perspective, it is clear that ShopStyle communicates with potential and existing customers more effectively through its website than Net-A-Porter. It has a better communication strategy. This is because it provides a snap of the four elements of marketing on its websites – price, place, promotion, physical appearance and product quality (Los Santos, 2012). On the other hand, Net-A-Porter focuses on the promotion element and does not provide information about the price and product quality on the homepage. The search engine of Net-A-Porter’s website is also hidden and not as conspicuous as that of ShopStyle. However, Net-A-porter’s website is more appealing, simple, and well structured. It is easy for viewers to use http://www.net-a-porter.com than http://www.shopstyle.com. References list Eisenberg, B. (2013). What People Do on Your Site and Why. ClickZ Magazine. Accessed April 11, 2014 from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2284962/what-people-do-on-your- site-and-why Emarketer (2014). Mobile Search Reshapes the Path to Purchase. Accessed April 11, 2014 from http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Search-Reshapes-Path-Purchase/1010749. Furrer, O. and Sudharshan, D. (2001). Internet Marketing Research: Opportunities and Problems. Qualitative Market Research: an International Journal, 4(3), 123-129. Los Santos, R. (2012). Web Analytics - How to Enhance the Knowledge on your Online Visitors? Presentation for Forum eMarketing. ComScore. Accessed April 11, 2014 from http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2012/How_to_Enhan ce_the_Knowledge_on_your_Online_Visitors Net-A-Porter (2014). Net-A-Porter: The world’s premier online luxury fashion destination. Accessed April 11, 2014 from http://www.net-a-porter.com/. ShopStyle (2014). Brands You Love From the Stores You Trust. Accessed April 11, 2014 from http://www.shopstyle.com. Quelch, J.A. and Klein, L.R. (1996). The internet and international marketing. Sloan Management Review, 3(Spring), 60-75. Read More