Issues in E-Shopping
The paper provides the reader an in-depth overview of the online shopping behavior of the consumers in the retail industries of Australia. Australian retail is complex, noisy and fast paced (Solomon et al., 2014). The shoppers expect higher convenience, value and choices. Online shopping mode has already taken rapid pace of growth and the Australians are taking the advantage of online shopping experience to their fullest (Nwankwo, Hamelin and Khaled, 2014). Online shopping has its limitations as well. The paper will focus in critical examination of the 3 most recent issues related to e-shopping and how they will influence the consumer shopping behavior, especially cultural influences. Best suited solution of the problems will also be found out with real world industry examples.
In recent times a number of issues have evolved in Australia that forced the e-commerce businesses to rework on their strategic moves so that the consumer market is not adversely affected.
Though the ‘bricks and motor’ mode of shopping has turned into ‘brick and click’ mode yet a number of challenges have gripped up the growth of Australian online retail market (Jung Chang, Yan and Eckman, 2014).
First and foremost, Australia is a relatively small populated country and have small market size. Demographic constraint has limited the pace of growth of Australian retailers and e-commerce giant like Amazon has created difficulty for the native e-retail industries (Zhou, Zhang and Zimmermann, 2013). However not only retail industry but online retailing is also growing at slower pace instead of achieving higher momentum (Oliver, 2014). Big e-commerce giants are not eager to enter Australia due to its smaller demographic count. A greater percentage of people use general retailing method for shopping and are happy with their buying experience. They are not able to trust e-retailing so quickly and thus finding it difficult to shift to online mode instantly (Chen, Su and Widjaja, 2016).
Secondly the buying experience till now was not so smooth. A survey by NSW Department of Fair Trading has found that almost 40% of Australians face issues while buying goods through online retailers (Sutton-Brady, Kamvounias and Taylor, 2015). Major issues include late delivery, damaged products and in some cases the product has not arrived altogether. Faulty product return turns to be a complex process and sometimes a different product is being delivered which has no resemblance to the one being advertised. Costing also becomes higher due to unexpected charges. Level of transparency is much lower and this causes discrepancy among online consumers (Sirgy, 2015).
Cultural Influences and Buying Behavior
Buying from overseas online giants like Alibaba and Amazon, causes problems of currency conversion and shipping costs. Fraudulent use of credit cards for payment option creates communication issues and trust issues as well (Zhang and Benyoucef, 2016). Australian people have less trust on online retailers because of their operational mode. Many issues have cropped where refund, transaction mode and buying policies did not match the consumer’s interests and people did not buy the product even after one week of intense research.
When it comes to validating the purchase, Australians trust neutral information sources more in comparison to retail advertisements. The consumers rely on the review method where they discuss with family and friends about the product and finalize their buying decision. Less Australians are impromptu buyers (Sirgy, 2015). Their culture let them do more enhanced research of comparing products, product information assessment and product availability check along with delivery time. Building trust and maintaining relationship is one of the main business strategies of online retailers. Australia being a culturally diverse country finds it hard in trusting online retailers and vice versa.
Geographical and demographic attributes are hard to change, almost static in their nature. Australian though is a geographically isolated country in comparison to US, Canada and UK but it is rich in cultural heritage and have small yet diversified demographic. Each demographic segment needs to be focused upon individually. The target market needs to be sub-divided into a number of categories like young generation, middle aged generation and old aged generation. Another categorization includes male and female. Other one includes rural and urban Australia. The native retailers need to shift their business operations to online mode and should collaborate with e-commerce biggies so that both are mutually benefitted from the online market consumers (Zhou, Zhang and Zimmermann, 2013). If the retail industries people used to shop shifts to online mode then the trust factor will remain intact and consumers will not think twice before opting for online shopping experience with them.
A single global mode of online retailing should be encouraged so that currency conversion issues are mitigated to the earliest. Delivering and packaging modes need to be upgraded so that breakage and resource misuse could be minimized. Logistics should be strengthened and on time delivery service should be fulfilled by any means. The shopping experience need to be good which will help in trust building (Yadav et al., 2013). Operational issues need to be transparent so that chance of frauds lessen.
Best Suited Solutions for the Problems
Australians trust online advertisement lesser in comparison to peer reviews. So direct online promotional tools need to be modified and the online modes which are mostly used by the people need to be focused. Social media platforms like Facebook, You Tube, blogs, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and some company specific blogs need to be incorporated more while promoting online advertisements. Various chat groups could also help in promoting online marketing of e-commerce (Khare et al., 2016). So, the mode of promotion is to be shifted from mere online ads in e-commerce websites to social media incorporated promotional modes.
Conclusion And Recommendations
Australian retail shoppers are the most digitally influenced shoppers across the globe. Online mode of information research has become a fashion before actually buying the product either from physical stores or through online shopping sites. In B2C e-commerce markets the trust factor plays a major role in differentiating the consumer buying behavior. Once the trust is built long-term relationship will be automatically maintained (Malbon, 2013). Online mode of business needs longer time in developing the trust in comparison to physical store chains. Quality product delivery in specified time frame is the biggest challenge for e-commerce business firms. Various marketing tools like e-promotions of online discounts, coupons, buy 1 get 1 free, free talk time, payback points, free membership, movie passes and loyalty bonus points for engaging other customers, deciding upon target market and e-supply value chain need to be upgraded so that Australians find it easy and safe to trust e-commerce biggies and could help them revolutionize the world retail business.
Amazon in Australia was having limited growth before its recent launch. Previously it had only Kindle store and Amazon Web Services. The Australians preferred to buy Amazon products from US Amazon sites for may years and the reason was trust factor. They find US Amazon site more trustworthy in comparison to new Australian Amazon site. Amazon prime is not here yet but Amazon has decided to avail a lot of benefits to the Australian customers like lower cost, shipping benefits, wide product line and larger market place to the small businesses where local businesses could sell their products on Amazon (Khare et al., 2016). But still the growth of it has been lagging behind in comparison to other emerging target markets of Amazon. The customers are less excited about the expansion of Amazon now than they were twelve moths ago.
Trust Factor and Promotional Campaigns
Another retail market ruler Marks and Spencer started its Australian operations with a very aggressive campaign but its operational activities have been lowered by the GST invoices of Australia which it failed to deposit in due time (Sutton-Brady, Kamvounias and Taylor, 2015). The effects were not good for its customer base and Australians lose their trust on Marks and Spencer which resulted in decline of sales figures.
Myer, Australia’s largest department store has started its online retailing mode and is facing difficulties in its online operations. Supply chain and home delivery services are the most affected ones. Click and collect option is available in some limited (only 4) stores in the entire country. The consumer behavior and shopping trends as decided by the company has gone wrong and trading environment cannot be blamed for this. Australian consumers emphasis on value the most instead of product volume. And here Myer failed due to wrong customer introspection.
References
Chen, J.V., Su, B.C. and Widjaja, A.E., 2016. Facebook C2C social commerce: A study of online impulse buying. Decision Support Systems, 83, pp.57-69.
Jung Chang, H., Yan, R.N. and Eckman, M., 2014. Moderating effects of situational characteristics on impulse buying. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 42(4), pp.298-314.
Khare, A., Khare, A., Mukherjee, S. and Goyal, T., 2016. Do consumer shopping styles influence consumer attitudes toward services offered by shopping websites?. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 28(1), pp.28-41.
Malbon, J., 2013. Taking fake online consumer reviews seriously. Journal of Consumer Policy, 36(2), pp.139-157.
Nwankwo, S., Hamelin, N. and Khaled, M., 2014. Consumer values, motivation and purchase intention for luxury goods. Journal of retailing and consumer services, 21(5), pp.735-744.
Oliver, R.L., 2014. Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer. Routledge.
Sirgy, M.J., 2015. The self-concept in relation to product preference and purchase intention. In Marketing Horizons: A 1980’s Perspective (pp. 350-354). Springer, Cham.
Solomon, M.R., Dahl, D.W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J.L. and Polegato, R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.
Sutton-Brady, C., Kamvounias, P. and Taylor, T., 2015. A model of supplier–retailer power asymmetry in the Australian retail industry. Industrial marketing management, 51, pp.122-130.
Yadav, M.S., De Valck, K., Hennig-Thurau, T., Hoffman, D.L. and Spann, M., 2013. Social commerce: a contingency framework for assessing marketing potential. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4), pp.311-323.
Zhang, K.Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2016. Consumer behavior in social commerce: A literature review. Decision Support Systems, 86, pp.95-108.
Zhou, L., Zhang, P. and Zimmermann, H.D., 2013. Social commerce research: An integrated view. Electronic commerce research and applications, 12(2), pp.61-68.
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