Week 10: eConsumers

1) In Chaffey (2008) chapter 4 three types of shopper behaviour are identified. These are the tracker, the hunter, and the explorer. What are the characteristics of these customer behaviours and how in particular might you encourage an explorer to purchase online?

When looking at the three types of shopping behaviours which are the tracker, the hunter and the explorer. The characteristics for these shopping behaviours are:

· The tracker- the characteristics of the tracker are that they are consumers who track a product which they go onto the website to look for products “price, availability, delivery times, delivery charges or after sales support” (Chaffey, 2008). This ideally means that a tracker is a consumer who knows what product they want and go searching for it.

· The hunter- is a consumer who knows what type of product they are after (such as an iphone, LCD TV for example) but do not have a specific product in mind (Chaffey, 2008). An example would want to buy a new iphone but know knowing what brand to buy.

· The explorer- is consumers who do not know what specific product they are after. These consumers ideally have defined shopping objectives (Chaffey, 2008).These objectives could be trying to buy a present for a friend. This means the customer wants to buy a present but doesn’t know exactly what to buy.

With the explorer wanting to buy for a purpose but not knowing exactly what to buy the internet might be a good way to purchase. To encourage explorers to purchase online it might be a good idea because the website might have a catalogue such as k-mart of items online to buy. Even eBay is a good way to look for presents because the explorer could look through different items. Eventually online purchases would be a good way for explorers to search because they can search at home and do not have to go anywhere.

2) Given that the main fears about using the Internet are securtity and privacy, what can organisations do to reassure customers?

When conducting any transactions or contracts over the internet, security and privacy becomes a big issue. Organisations have to make some assurance to customers that their details and transactions are safe. A way that organisations can reassure customers that their security and privacy is safe is by having a disclaimer. Websites such as the Commonwealth bank have information about how your details and transactions are secure by having information about security and privacy of the website. Websites have to secure which would reassure the customer. Basically companies/organisations have to assure customers that their information is private. Security and privacy are major issues when using the internet for transactions and details. Mainly businesses which have online websites have to ensure that customer information and details are safe.

3) Onsite information processing can be divided into 5 stages. - 1) Exposure, 2) Attention, 3) Comprehension and perception, 4) yielding and acceptance and the last is 5)loyalty. What do you think is meant by each of these stages?

When discussing the 5 stages of the information processing I have interpreted these stages as:
Exposure: This is when a consumer goes onto a website or store which is ideally the first contact with the website or store (product). An example would be going onto the Commonwealth website which is the first contact with the website without doing anything. The exposure to the website ideally means that the customer sees the website to ideally process what the website is offering.

Attention: This is keeping the consumers attention when in the store or website. An example is when going onto a website such as a restaurant and the layout and colours are eye catching. This keeps the consumers attention because the website is not boring but showing personality and intrigues the consumer.

Comprehension and perception: This could mean the consumer understands the content or product. The customer might have an opinion of the product/website. This the stage where the consumer thinks about and makes an opinion about the website/product.

Yielding and acceptance: This is when the consumer accepts the product and wants to return to the website to purchase the product. The website ideally needs to allow the consumer to be able to process the information and evaluate if they like the website.

Loyalty: lastly loyalty is a big thing with information processing because this means the consumer can become brand loyal meaning they will continuously buy the product. All firms want consumers to be brand loyal with them. Brand loyalty is a major part of marketing because ideally companies want returning customers. Just like the 20/80 rule which means 20% of customers make up 80% of products.

4) How can (online) customer loyalty be improved?

Online customer loyalty can be more difficult than offline loyalty. Online customer loyalty can be improved by companies trying to make customers brand loyal by sending offer and information updates on products which the customer is likely into. The company has to try and make customers loyal by keeping the customer feeling important and wanted. This can be shown through value propositions such as the company’s best clients receiving better rewards to keep the customer feeling special and wanting to continue to be loyal to the brand. For example companies which deliver out the goods/products need to make sure that the delivery time specified reflects the actual time the consumer receives it. Online businesses have to ensure that consumer’s wants and needs have been met. Under promising and over delivering may be a key indicator for more online customer loyalty.

5) It is very cost effective to conduct online market research, but there is also potential for sampling errors. The article extract below shows that 78% of women would rather have a pet than a husband. Do you think this figure is accurate? Give reasons for your answer.

By looking at this extract in my opinion there is defiantly a sampling error. With most of the listeners being female of course the number was going to be significantly high. By looking at the age of the listeners it can be assumed that women between 23-49 would have different views on marriage. For example if 50,000 of the listeners were in their early 20’s there is a huge chance that they do not want to be getting married at that age and would rather a pet than a husband. Whereas women in their 30’s and 40’s would either want to get married or are already married. This all depends on the age of the women voting. The broad range of listeners could be hard to dictate since most majority of the listeners could be in their 20’s which could make up the 78%. This survey is tough to know because the age range of the people who completed the survey may not be a good indicator of the given question. The radio station has a percentage of 87% of listeners being female aged between 23-49.

"An online poll released by DogCatRadio.com, shows more women would rather have a pet than a husband.Of the 103,900 votes cast in a period of seven days, an overwhelming 78% voted for a furry rather than a hairy companion. The poll has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.While it's been said that a dog is "Man's best friend", the radio station says that 87% of its listeners are women between the ages of 23-49."

6) As more and more services can be delivered via mobile devices, there is already talk of the post-PC consumer. What impact will this have on marketing?

When looking at services turning more to delivery via mobile devices this would impact marketing by marketers having to think of different ways to market products by mobile devices. This is not a new concept meaning services such as Optus already use mobile marketing. Optus sends out ads and text messages talking about new deals and offers. If other companies started to take this approach then more services and products could be sold because mobile devices are the now. With the introduction of iphones this indicates better technology showing better picture quality for ads to be shown. Marketing can be used through mobiles because most consumers have the internet already on their phones.

7) Watch the 1800 flowers video. If you want to just watch the 2 minutes versions. How does 1800 flowers optimise fresh delivery of flowers in all states of America?

After watching the 1800 flower video the main information I gathered from the video were that:

· 1800 flowers had a Mobile contact so customers could order flowers
· The use of One click technology
· The customer information is already stored
· Web 2.0 technologies
· Social networking
· Using blogs

Basically the video talked about how 1800 flowers optimise fresh delivery of flowers by allowing customers to order via their mobile. This is easy for customers because the device allows them to order flowers and the company already has their information. 1800 flowers use’s one click technology which means that customers can order by a click of a button. This makes the process a lot easier. 1800 Flowers also uses web 2.0 technologies to increase recognition of the brand. 1800 Flowers use social networking and blogs to talk about the business. 1800 Flowers uses different mediums to reach a wide audience of consumers.

8) Watch the Yahoo video (or just the 2 minute version). What are the key elements of a social network that are identified?
After watching the Yahoo video the main key elements of social networks which were identified were:

· Social search
· social interaction
· Sharing information.
· Social contact
· Quality of content

These elements were discussed because this is ideally what has made social networks popular. Web 2.0 has expanded and is used more now than ever before. Social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are popular amongst internet users because of these above elements. The social search is used to find friends who may have an account on these networks. The social interaction such as on Facebook and MySpace can be through commenting another user’s profile/status or by using the chat. Sharing information is like having pictures and videos on the network and tagging friends in pictures so they have the photo as well. Social contact is a big thing with social network sites because it allows people to find old friends whom they may not have been able to get into contact with before. Lastly the quality of the content is a big element of the social network because the users want the site to look good and be easy to use.