Retail management case study - Essay Example

Comparison Shopping Q) Discuss the role of comparison shopping Web sites in each stage of the consumer decision process. A) The advent of retail shopping has given rise to various different forms of retail experience. From shopping malls to catalogue services the retail experience is getting hotter and more flexible. The online shopping experience is the newest addition to the retail experience. As the B2C (Business-to-Consumer) shopping grows the e-commerce service providers need to understand the different ways top anticipate the consumers’ needs.

The efficient shopping platform is required in order to get the customers hooked. But most of the times the websites are unable to correctly gauge the decision making process of the consumer. With the help of Simon’s decision-making structure one can examine the decision making process. Also, included in the model is the time and cost savings of the customers. The satisfaction levels can also be measured with this model. Apart from the design and choice factors the consumers also give due consideration to cost and time savings factor.

These aspects affect the consumers greatly and help them to make the decision accordingly. In the present structure of online shopping the comparison shopping agents play an active role between the suppliers and the consumers in order to yield efficient markets. But the recent days shopping agents are mostly determined by the price factor and it is not dependent on the supplier and consumer differentiation. However, in spite of tremendous growth in the Web commerce and the superlative growth of consumers now making purchase online it is not very clear what actually makes the consumers purchase from the online shopping malls.

The most important characteristics of the online retailers is that they allow the vendors to make their own unique interactive web pages, enabling Comparison Shopping 2the consumers to decide accordingly as per their needs and comfort zone. These tools are a great differentiator in terms of consumer preferences and can change a shopper from one website to the other. The product information available can help the customers to take the decisions accordingly. But while making the decision the consumers at times are unable to evaluate all the available alternatives with in depth analysis.

Hence they use primarily a two stage process while taking such a decision. These are:1. During the 1st stage the customers are usually a large set of available products. Out of these products the consumer chooses the set of the best possible alternatives. 2. Later on in the 2nd stage they evaluate the products with more in depth analysis. They make comparisons with keeping in mind the important attributes and then make the purchase decision. Considering this the consumer requires the correct tools in order to select the most appropriate commodity.

These tools are very effective to make the initial decision much easier. The in-depth analysis can also be made before deciding on the final product. The better the tools the easier is for the consumer to decide on the product. These factors are essential for any website retailer to understand and it needs to have the best possible tool integrated in its online retail system. On the far sight the following factors can be considered as the crucial decision making attributes. 1. Personal characteristics2.

External environment3. Demographics 4. Website quality5. Vendor/service/productComparison Shopping 3All these factors help the consumer to take the correct decision and leads to consumer satisfaction.