The Importance Of Brand Loyalty For Sustainability In E-Business Using Amazon As An Example

Importance of Brand Loyalty in E-Business

Proposed title: An investigation into the importance of brand loyalty on organizational sustainability – A case study on Amazon

Marketing is an important subject and it is vast, covering almost every minor and the major function of a brand that needs to be studied by all managers to function better in a company. One of the most important concepts is brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is the phenomenon where despite the temptations of other products or services offered by brands even at a better rate the consumers will refuse and prefer their selected brand from where they have been buying goods and services. Brand loyalty is difficult to achieve especially in the modern world where competition is cut-throat in every industry for every brand. Amazon is one such brand where they have the vision of being the most customer-centric company in the world and therefore for them brand loyalty is an important aspect. E-Business is such an industry where the services can easily be switched with another brand at the same time the products can be substituted hence customer service and other factors are very important for Amazon. Hence sustainability will always be questioned. To maintain sustainability such type of business must maintain their brand loyalty as the rest of the factors involved are almost identical or have minor differences. Therefore retaining customer base and acquiring new customers is very important when it comes to the objective of business sustainability.  Their customer service is the only point of differentiation that can assure brand loyalty (Bello et al. 2016).

The rationale of the research is simple as explained earlier finding and maintaining a USP also known as a unique selling point is very important in the modern-day market. Hence the study will take Amazon as an example and show how important it is to have the USP which naturally increases or helps in developing brand loyalty which ultimately leads to the success and sustainability of the brands. 

The main aim of the research is to understand the importance of brand loyalty on the sustainability of an organization. To be more specific how in E-business brand loyalty can help sustain the organization concerning the brand Amazon.

The research objectives are:

1. To critically identify how brand loyalty can influence the sustainability of the organization.
2. To analyze marketing techniques applied by Amazon to increase brand loyalty
3. To develop a suitable brand loyalty strategy for Amazon.

Research questions 

The research questions are as follows:

1. How does brand loyalty affect or rather have an impact on the consumers’ buying behavior?
2. What are the methods that are used and how do they function in effectively increasing the brand loyalty of the consumers?
3. What are the digital marketing tools that influence the consumers and increase brand loyalty?

The works of Huang (2017), explain and demonstrate the effectiveness of brand loyalty in the modern-day competitive market. The study shows that under general circumstances customers would compare multiple products and brands in terms of features and utilities. If the needs of the customer are satisfied by a group of products then they go for price comparison and buy the cheapest one available. However, this is where brand loyalty is effective, if a customer is loyal to a specific brand then irrespective of some of the features and completely ignoring the price factor they will most certainly purchase the product from their favorite brand. The example explanation was wonderfully portrayed by the expert. It showed and analyzed that compared Samsung and Apple provide smartphones with almost the same features except for minor differences. Apple iPhones follow a premium pricing model and the products are of very high pricing, however, people who have been a customer of iPhones for a long time prefer to buy the new models for an unnecessarily high amount price even though they can get better smartphones or similar ones from other brands at a much cheaper rate. I have observed people clicking mirror selfies or pictures where the Apple logo is present and visible and then uploading it on social media this I believe is a clear symbol of showing off and less of brand loyalty. I believe if a costlier snob mobile phone brand enters the market and becomes famous this segment of customers will switch to that brand easily and purchase their products to show off their wealth and the fact that they are keeping up with the trend. As the work of Alhaddad (2015) also clearly shows that when it comes to the price factors the customers chose to ignore it when it comes to brand loyalty. Even though they have various alternatives some even better they still prefer their favorites. The study also shows that people who have been using an iPhone for a long time at least two-three years prefer not to use any other model no matter how good the other models are. However, it is to be noted that for both the research there is a massive gap rather limitation. As observed the reason for purchasing a product may not always be brand loyalty at times it is the snob appeal or the status symbol that encourages rather than influences the people to choose the brand.

Factors Contributing to Brand Loyalty

Coelho, Rita, and Santos (2018) explain how a status symbol can impact the consumer’s behavior in terms of purchasing from a brand that can be mistaken or wrongly perceived as brand loyalty. As the research shows that the majority of the consumers ta Starbucks go for status symbols and not that they are loyal to the brand. It is almost a necessity to click his picture with the glass that has the name of the consumer written and then later uploads it all over social media as a symbol of showing off. Despite other brands existing in all corners of the world that serves cheaper coffee of the same quality or even better people will still prefer Starbucks. Even though the research uses data and relevant examples of multiple industries to shed light on such an important factor that creates a differentiation between brand loyalty and status symbol it still does not clarify the facts between the two with data that distinct. I believe that there remains confusion as the study does not give any pointers or observations of how there can be a differentiation between people buying as a status symbol and people buying as they are loyal to the brand and this by far is the only flaw of the study (Coelho, Rita and Santos 2018). I think it is very hard to determine these factors as people will not be willing to give honest answers due to the psychological aspects of what the society might be thinking and the opinion of others, thus the answers can be different leading to an inaccurate result.

Sasmita and Suki (2015) in their work have shown how the younger generation or the younger audience can be easily influenced by marketing tools and techniques. Digital marketing as we know is very much effective in modern times. With global technological improvements and the fact that smartphones sell has increased at the same time introduction and popularity in the demand of VR and AI are symbols of increased digital presence (Ha 2018). Their research shows that the younger generation globally spends nine hours digitally on an average day. Starting from social media to video streaming to studying online they have an average of 9 hours of daily digital presence (FOX and EDWARDS 2022). I believe and have seen many of my neighbors and peers involved in social media and YouTube. Our generation has many YouTubers and influencers and that is quite visible as a fact. Hence I believe that there is no doubt that brands must switch to digital marketing methods and channels to generate a satisfactory outcome for their brands. Brands switched to digital marketing as they have understood that they can capture more attention and more audience online. They can easily be influenced over digital mediums, for example, an advertisement of a smartwatch digitally on VR when the potential customer is wearing VR they can see real-time 3D effects of what the watch might look like on the wrist (Sasmita and Suki 2015). My observation and opinion are to involve the customers more in the marketing process and the introduction of surveys can provide ideas of product development as well as preferences of customers that can lead to effective marketing. Hence may be influenced better and perhaps purchase the product. This study has a major flaw in that is they discuss the effectiveness of digital marketing in influencing buying behavior however they do not link their study to brand loyalty as how this can have an overall impact on increasing brand loyalty has not been associated (Bobrovskij 2018).

Impact of Brand Loyalty on Customer Behavior

Bilgin (2018) the study explains the impact of social media marketing on brand loyalty (Tuten and Solomon 2017). The study shows that the majority of people in modern times have a social media profile irrespective of their age and other demographic factors. The research also shows that an average human being spends 147 minutes per day on social media (Statista 2022). Hence using social media can be perhaps the next big thing for the brands to increase brand loyalty. The study shows how e-commerce brands and fashion brands have come up with creative campaigns to attract and keep customers interested and throughout time using the same platform brand loyalty is developed (Deyan 2022). The flaw with this study is that it’s not supported by much data and the proof of brand loyalty based on social media marketing is vague (Bilgin 2018).

Rahi, Abd Ghani, and Alnaser (2017) in their works explain how brand loyalty can be increased by providing various offers in e-business. Loyal customers who have been using the same platform for a long time can be provided additional benefits or offer such as free delivery and additional discount rates. This creates a satisfactory effect in the cognitive part as human psychology always feels the best of emotions when they are rewarded. The psychological aspect here is that consumers will think rather than perceive that they have been given such offers for their loyalty hence if they continue to remain loyal then they will get even better offers in the distant future hence brand loyalty increases (Rahi, Abd Ghani and Alnaser 2017). Khan, Garg, and Rahman, (2015) through their research, have explained how customer service can not only be a point of differentiation in certain industries but also make sure to encourage brand loyalty. If the customer service is top-notch where the team will treat every customer as a special customer and help them in every possible way then naturally due to the behavior and support customers will be more inclined towards the brand (Khan, Garg and Rahman 2015). However, the flaw remains such that there is no relevant data that eliminates other possibilities such as geographical factors may allow customers to have access to one specific brand or supply chain as well, then there could be a fact that in the industry or the market there are no major players hence the customer has no option but to use the same brand again and again.

There are a few facts other than the flaws mentioned in the literature review that can be considered as the literature gap. The first is that the works do not have enough statistical analysis and hardcore data to support their views. Hence representation of facts or statements can be difficult and at times not reliable. The other gap is that the researchers shed light on important matters and paint a clear image however they do not eliminate the other anomalies from the research that can be confused with brand loyalty. As in many situations as observed brand loyalty is not the case but having no other alternatives, even showing off rather status symbol is the reason for approaching the same brand. These are the flaws of the analysis and studies.

Role of Brand Loyalty in Establishing a Unique Selling Point (USP)

Research philosophy / methodology

There are three types of research philosophy interpretivism, realism, and positivism. Positivism research philosophy allows the development of an in-depth analysis of the intended research and its outcomes hence this will be the philosophy that is to be followed.

Research design 

Leavy (2017) has wonderfully explained the concept of research design to be the set of techniques that may perhaps be used for the study to generate various results from various perspectives (Leavy 2017). Descriptive, exploratory, and explanatory are the three main types of techniques that can be used. Descriptive research needless to say helps in understanding and evaluating the outcomes descriptively. Meanwhile, the function of exploratory research is to understand the concepts at the initial stage. Thus it can be concluded that the descriptive and exploratory combination can be used for the study.

Considering the nature of the research the collection of both primary and secondary data will be required. Primary data can be gathered through various surveys and interviews, meanwhile, the secondary data can be gathered from all available data sets on online platforms and other relevant authentic research.

To make sure that there is uniformity in the analysis quantitative data collected by the survey will be transformed into various numeric and percentages format so that it can be comprehended and compared (Saleh and Bista 2017). They can later be converted into various charts and graphs for graphical representation of the various parts of the study rather than the analysis. When it comes to the qualitative data the thematic approach will be taken into consideration. Here the different information gathered from various interviews conducted will be sorted and written based on various themes that may be directly related to the research topic.

The limitations of the study can be that when it comes to e-commerce the data that is relevant to the study is hard to get even for a brand like Amazon. There can be various publicly accessible databases that can be accessed and used however the data sets may perhaps be vague and too big to compile or reach a statistical conclusion. The data representation will most certainly be a problem as human behavior or favoritism can be very difficult to represent using data. After that as mentioned earlier, the main limitation is that the anomalies cannot be eliminated such as the reason for repeating one specific brand could also be a status symbol or since there are no other alternatives however this matter cannot be removed. The next limitation can be that the sample taken must have a hugely diverse portfolio of customers which may perhaps be an impossible task at the same time online surveys may generate plenty of wrong data as many people do not prefer sharing information and may purposely provide wrong information.  

There are plenty of ethical concerns with the research as firstly information cannot be taken without the participants knowing the purpose. Hence when data is being collected the participants must be made aware of the purpose. Also, they have to be assured that their provided information will only be used for study and research and will not be sold anywhere for profit. Forcefully information cannot be acquired that is if anyone is not willing to take part in the reassert or sharing of information they cannot be coerced to do so. It is to be noted that ethics will be maintained at all costs during the entire research.

Case Study: Amazon

The research will focus on the effectiveness of brand loyalty in the sustainability of any organization. Examples such as the brand loyalty of Apple and Starbucks can be countered by saying that customers acquire those products to show off and not brand loyalty. Similarly in the case of Amazon brand loyalty may not be present but anomalies such as the monopoly of the brand can be the cause of customers’ constant buying. These aspects have to be considered as well and a fine-tune will be required at the time of analysis. The research can follow various models to generate an outcome however it is to be understood that there are limitations to the study that may prevent a satisfactory outcome or reduce the accuracy of the results. Brand loyalty determination can be tough as there can be plenty of junk data that can be acquired which is almost impossible to remove or clean, at the same time the research pool may not have diverse candidates. Heavily should rely on the descriptive research model and facts that can be acquired from other studies.

References 

Huang, C.C., 2017. The impacts of brand experiences on brand loyalty: mediators of brand love and trust. Management Decision.

Alhaddad, A., 2015. Perceived quality, brand image, and brand trust as determinants of brand loyalty. Journal of Research in Business and Management, 3(4), pp.01-08.

Sasmita, J. and Suki, N.M., 2015. Young consumers’ insights on brand equity: Effects of brand association, brand loyalty, brand awareness, and brand image. International journal of retail & distribution management.

Coelho, P.S., Rita, P. and Santos, Z.R., 2018. On the relationship between consumer-brand identification, brand community, and brand loyalty. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 43, pp.101-110.

Bilgin, Y., 2018. The effect of social media marketing activities on brand awareness, brand image, and brand loyalty. Business & management studies: an international journal, 6(1), pp.128-148.

FOX, M. and EDWARDS, E., 2022. Teens Spend ‘Astounding’ Nine Hours a Day in Front of Screens. [online] WVEA. Available at: <https://www.wvea.org/content/teens-spend-astounding-nine-hours-day-front-screens-researchers#:~:text=American%20teenagers%20spend%20an%20%22astounding,playing%20games%2C%20researchers%20reported%20Tuesday.> [Accessed 29 April 2022].

Rahi, S., Abd Ghani, M. and Alnaser, F.M., 2017. The influence of e-customer services and perceived value on brand loyalty of banks and internet banking adoption: a structural equation model (SEM). The Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 22(1), pp.1-18.

Khan, I., Garg, R.J. and Rahman, Z., 2015. Customer service experience in hotel operations: an empirical analysis. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 189, pp.266-274.

Leavy, P., 2017. Research design: Quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and community-based participatory research approaches. Guilford Publications.

Bobrovskij, I.N., 2018, January. How to Select the most Relevant Roughness Parameters of a Surface: Methodology Research Strategy. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 302, No. 1, p. 012066).

Saleh, A. and Bista, K., 2017. Examining Factors Impacting Online Survey Response Rates in Educational Research: Perceptions of Graduate Students. Online Submission, 13(2), pp.63-74.

Bello, D.C., Radulovich, L.P., Javalgi, R.R.G., Scherer, R.F. and Taylor, J., 2016. Performance of professional service firms from emerging markets: Role of innovative services and firm capabilities. Journal of World Business, 51(3), pp.413-424.

Ha, Y., 2018. Online brand community and its outcomes. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics, and Business, 5(4), pp.107-116.

Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage.

Deyan, G., 2022. How Much Time Do People Spend on Social Media in 2022?. [online] How Much Time Do People Spend on Social Media in 2022?. Available at: <https://techjury.net/blog/time-spent-on-social-media/#gref> [Accessed 29 April 2022].

Statista. 2022. Daily social media usage worldwide | Statista. [online] Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/#:~:text=How%20much%20time%20do%20people,minutes%20in%20the%20previous%20year.> [Accessed 29 April 2022].

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