Consumer Behaviour Online - Research Paper Example

Consumer Behavior Online Introduction Gone are the days when starting from cooking food till communication took hours and days. Now it is the age of Internet an icon for the pace at which the world is running. Internet is the medium used by wide range of people for several functions. As days pass through more and more people are gravitating towards the Internet usage with more intensity due to the easy accessibility of technology, availability of information and easy way of interaction. (1) Marketing in current days can be defined as the management process that responsible for proper identification, anticipation and the one that is responsible for satisfying the customer’s requirements, profitably. (2) According to the center for communication policy the online shopping is the third most popular Internet activity, immediately following email using and web browsing. Online shopping behavior can be defined as the process of purchasing products or services through Internet. In this online process shopping, the customer when feels a need arousing goes to the Internet and search for the relevant information. In due coarse during searching is also attracted by information about closely associated products with the felt need and naturally evaluates both and goes for the better option. Finally transaction is made in term of buying a product through Internet. Thus the online shopping attitude and consumers behavior is a psychological state. (1) With the total Internet users population growing from 1.73 million in 1993 to 110 million in 2001, more and more brick and mortar companies are entering the e-Market. The advantage of e-marketing may be considerable effects made on products, services, skills, staffing, structure, system and customer based. But e-Commerce is different in that, here the customer decides the coarse and the volume of customer database provides to depth of the success. In e-Market, the service providers have to face a very strict competition, as the possibility of varying the promotion is very less. So it becomes very clear that in order to survive and be profitable in online business the knowledge about potential customers and the behavioral aspects is very important. This point is the base of the entire assignment. (Changchick &Vorkurkara,2003) (3) Analysis, Findings, Literature review and discussion Generally analysis of customer behavior is done either by personal discussion, survey, conduction of the experiments, by simulation studies, by usage of questioners or by simple observation. In this I have used the selected number of observation of my own Online behavior and that of my family and friends, employing observation discussion and questions, trying to find out what all we doing and why are we doing. The negative findings are as follows: The Internet usage for shopping is primarily influenced by consumers’ personal aspect. The ease with techniques, user-friendly environments tempt them to involve where as the fear of gadgets and difficulties in accessibilities shuns them away. The inability to physically experience the products is a main drawback felt by the subjects in this study, as the physical contacts gives them much needed assurance and it reinforces the genuineness of purchases made. The lack of face-to-face interaction with the merchant and also with the other people who are also involved in the buying is an much felt lag. The need for long time needed to analyze and compare the prices to et the best bid is at times testing for the consumers. The feeling of insufficient security and possibility of theft in transaction and the fear of the visibility of the security coarse to third party is a negative force that affects the market. The fear that shipment may not occur properly and the time it consumes if there is a need for exchange of lesser quality products and the procedures it takes to contact respective departments deters the participants cum Online buying. The fear for unnecessary obligations to fill surveys, forms, unnecessary mails accumulating in the mailbox. The loyalty and trust that forms the base of any business cannot be expected in this. The Positive findings include The quality of time saved from brick and mortar companies purchase convenience and personal empowerment. The availability of prices and product information at the click of the mouse that enables the customer to compare and to arrive at an logical solution. The option of auction, an avenue for buying products at a cheaper rate. Thus now lets discuss the points that is emphasized by the analysis. Lets discuss the above points in the e-marketing mix style for better understanding. The marketing mix principles, famously known as four P’s are used as business tools to assist them in pursuing their adjectives. It is a part of organization’s planning and it involves analysis of products, place, price, and promotions strategies, extending marketing mix being personalization process at physical evidence. (Burke, R., 2002) (4) The review of literatures pertaining to the Internet marketing shows that many researchers have been done in different perspectives and was. for e.g., Case, Burns and Dick (2001) (5) suggested that Internet knowledge income and education level might be the powerful influential factors for internet purchase. Ho and Wu (1999) {6) established the relation ship between behavior and product characteristics website technology home page presentation etc. So all these studies are towards the understanding the dynamics of online shopping where as few were directed towards consumer Online behavior response, that is the solid base of successful business. E-Product strategies – The main lacuna felt in this field was lack of personal interaction of customer with products. The UK e-Commerce sales had increased its sales rate by addressing this issue. They gave the same rights as we buy from the shop by clearly describing the items to be purchased to the clear photographs and details. Post purchase they immediately send an email detailing our purchase. The store can be contacted if there is a mistake with the order. The customer in addition was also granted the cooling of period where we can send back the products if we don’t like. (Liang, T., and Huang, J. , 1998) (7) E-Prices strategies – The pricing is very difficult aspect of online marketing. The Internet as it does not contains store price, staff price there is much competition forcing the retailers to cut the price. The Internet gives power to the consumer to dictate the prizes through the novelty of online auction and he can get the best deal at the click of button. The payment is made safe by any Internet banking as paypal or any other online payments with the advent of technologies could be done with encrypted codings. The system used can also be effectively protected by antispam, firewall and fireknox etc. (Borchers, A., 2001). (8) But the question of internet fraud and breach of loyalty is an issue to be addressed. (Julie Fishman-Lapin, 2006) (9) E-Place Strategies – Location is very important and online retailers duty is to ensure that products are delivered to the customers with in the reasonable time. (Hoffmeyer, 2005) (10) This could address the fear of late shipment and the delay in the process. E-Promotion Strategies – It has the number of issues to be addressed. First recognition followed by effective advertisement is important for e-promotion, which could be done through banner promotion, issuing of leaflets having a domain name and web public relation. (Jahng, J., Jain, H. K., and Ramamurthy, K., 2000) (11) This could address the fear of involvement of customers in an un known arena. The extended e-Market mix includes the following: External environment which includes to address the loyalty and trust, there is a legal frame that take care of laws in Online transactions, third party recognition certifications that ensures trust worthiness and increase number of competitors giving a better choice. (Senecal, S. 2000) (12) Demographics as age, gender, education, income, online time is found to be highly influential. Generally young highly educated wealthy people promote e-market. Product Characteristics as physical location, store reputation, store size, reliability, and testimonials positively influenced consumers’ behavior and attitude. Web Site Quality that includes promotions, service, information influence and resource facilitation positively reinforces and alters customers perceptions, attitudes and behavior. Functional, serviceable, privacy, visual appearance, organization of information of website positively attract customers. (Bhatnagar etal.,2000) (13) Attitude towards online shopping, intention, decision making in online shopping. It is highly believed that consumers’ attitude will affect the intention to shop Online, which primarily depends on consumers acceptance of internet as marketing resource and affinity towards particular store. The amount of financial privacy, security, functional, time, opportunity loss fear by the customers all affects the behavior. The decision making of customer is influenced by his information seeking alternatives comparison and choice making attitude. (Haubl, G., and Trifts, V. , 2000) (14) Customers’ satisfaction is the perception of the consumer that affects his behavior towards e-marketing. (Li & Zhang,2002) (15) The result of the primary research was that, free shipping, discounts, brand names, picture of product display, tax free, reasonable prize, easy return policy and the dependable loyalty were factors that influence customers behavior and response Online. CONCLUSION A research shows that 50% of consumers give the dot coms only one chance to earn their business as consumer can leave the company and find the competitor with a click of mouse. Another research also shows that 90% of mental activity needs to perception thinking and decision making that takes place on sub conscious level. This means that to achieve a successful business effective observation of consumers behavior is the need of the hour. So the suggestion I would make as an effective e-Commerce customer is Integrating different forms of marketing email as that is a vast resource least tapped as rented list, e-list, e-news letter, traditional communication with direct mail and advertising would achieve maximum response even from non net users. Building and exploiting customer knowledge by employing various researches to assess their characteristics, communication, preference, behavior and response. Online channels as web, email, wireless messaging that linked to customer database should be used to build and deepened the relationship with customer. As there is no business without the customer. As the “ First impression is the best impression”, retailers should try to give the best to the first time users to make them bee them again and to appreciate the loyalty of repeated buying customers, loyalty incentive and discounts can be introduced. Because I am also one among the billion who use online market. Bibliography. 1. 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