Question

Using online shopping as an example to explain (eg Zalora, eBay)

A) A thorough, insightful description on different marketing communications tools
applied in its industry.
B) An integrative approach in formulating its marketing campaign
C) A conclusion of explaining how successful the IMC strategy is.

(1500 Words)

Answer 1

A) answer

ZALORA sells accessories, apparel, shoes and beauty products for men and women as an online fashion retailer. It’s headquarter is located in Singapore. ZALORA has its localized sites in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam. ZALORA sells both local and international brands in each country. In Australia and New Zealand ZALORA also operates as iconic (a Sydney based online, Australian fashion retailer). In Singapore it is a flagship investment of rocket internet. ZALORA launched in 2012. As a major player in Asian-Pacific region, it has been serving more than 2 million customers since 2012. It stepped its feet into market with the help of Tech incubator Rocket Internet and German venture fund. In 2013 ZALORA expanded the services by offering a delivery service to Brunei. In mid 2013 ZALORA expanded the offered service in Malaysia by offering a delivery service to the Brunei. In 2013’s last quarter, ZALORA launched its own private label. It has also come know that it had become the sole online distributor of River Island, UK based fashion brand in Southeast Asia. ZALORA has also announced about their successful completion of the second round of funding by raising a total amount of US$112 Million (Kim, 2012). ZALORA declared about the plans to set up a marketplace in the first quarter of a 2014.

Zalora applied mny marketing communication tools for its company some noteworthy are as:

Using SMS aggregators, thousands of Zalora's SMS messages were not being delivered, negatively disrupting mobile shoppers' experience. A new solution was needed.

Solution:

Vonage SMS API

Results:

Consistently high mobile user acquisition rates, increased traffic to the ZALORA eCommerce and mCommerce sites, decrease in the customer contacts ratio per order to reducing overall customer service costs.

Improving Customer Communications with Vonage's SMS API

Today, more and more shoppers in Southeast Asia are going mobile, changing how businesses engage these consumers. While there is still a use case for email, the channel faces stiff competition from mobile, which has proven an effective user acquisition, marketing and operational messaging channel.

Zalora is Asia Pacific’s leading online fashion destination with operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. The company offers free returns, speedy deliveries, free delivery over a certain spend, and multiple payment methods including cash-on-delivery, making it a truly innovative retailer in Asia.

Understanding the trend toward mobile eCommerce, Zalora sought an SMS solution to implement effective marketing campaigns and provide customers with reliable transaction, order and delivery updates. Initially, Zalora turned to local SMS aggregators but discovered that thousands of their messages were going undelivered, which negatively disrupted customers’ shopping experience.

Bolstering Zalora’s Marketing and Transaction Efforts

To overcome these challenges, Zalora partnered with Vonage to use its robust SMS API for:

• Reactivation campaigns. Customers who have not purchased after a certain amount of time will receive an SMS with device-specific coupon code that can be used for their next Zalora purchase. In addition, SMS provides an easy way to bring customers back to Zalora website and/or brand app.

• Event marketing campaigns. Time-specific events including Cyber Monday, Black Friday, November 11, December 12, and birthdays are critical marketing periods for Zalora, and SMS allows them to communicate region-specific sales in real time.

• Transaction & operational updates. When a customer places an order, they receive real- time confirmations, payment reminders and delivery notifications via SMS.

Zalora has greatly improved operational and marketing efficiencies with the Nexmo SMS API. Since implementing Vonage, Zalora has experienced consistently higher mobile user acquisition rates, increased traffic to the Zalora eCommerce and mCommerce sites and a decrease in the “customer contacts ratio per order,” reducing overall customer service costs.

“Because the deliverability is so high with the Vonage SMS API solution, Zalora has seen a significant uplift, both in terms of increased revenue and traffic to our website. SMS is no longer a ‘nice to have,’ it’s an expectation from our customers. We look forward to continuing to push the boundaries of what’s possible in customer communications with Vonage.”

In the past, Zalora has been focusing on reaching out to more consumers through Facebook and search engines (using search engine marketing, or SEM). However, the company claims that over 45 percent of its sales come from mobile devices through the app and the mobile site, so for this year Zalora will focus a lot more on mobile, starting by improving its iOS and Android apps. Ojeda adds:

With huge mobile penetration in Thailand, it makes sense that as leaders in fashion ecommerce, we have the best mobile offering possible.

In addition to the apps, Zalora also partners with popular messaging app Line, which is very big in Thailand with 24 million users from a global total of about 400 million registered users. As with Rocket Internet’s sister site Lazada, the fashion ecommerce site offers special discounts through Line’s mobile commerce shopping service, which is called Line Hot Deals.

B)answer

Enteepreneurs, who wish to sell their craft, are able to set up their own online boutique through ZALORA marketplace and do customization accordingly.

Factors That Influence Buying Behavior Of Customers To Purchase:

ZALORA opened in Singapore’s ION Orchard Shopping Center. ZALORA’s Singapore marketing director Dione Song emphasis upon the fact of dominance of the retail space is evident through customer behavior. Dione said “there is a significant share of overall retail in offline marketing, which is seen as a lot of potential to test out such a retail concept.

ZALORA is no doubt the best online boutique in Malaysia. ZALORA offers varieties of amazing online products for both women and men. As an online marketing strategy ZAROLA adopt Business-to-Consumer strategy, where the products are directly sold to end users through online. There are growing numbers of consumer, who are using internet enabled devices to find and compare best price-matching offers. In online exchange process, customers can initiate and control the contact. Hence online marketing requires new marketing approaches ZALORA is seen to apply them (Nawatta Kimwong, 2013).

The rapid development in IT (information technology) gives a great impact. There are lots of people who are using it and it is potential for organization and business to transform from a common B-to-C platform to a social commerce, which is more customer oriented. There are two leading platform in social-commerce, which are Zalora.com and ZALORA face book. There are some review papers, which show the e-commerce objectives for each designing principle layer to give focus for the identification of the user preferences, building community and to develop conversation- all these provide high quality websites, motivates users (Marsden, 2001).

According to Shein (2012), online footwear and fashion seller ZALORA has agreed upon both regional and domestic strategy, offering its fashion goods across Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as within the country. ZALORA offers many unique conditions, which attract customer to engage with them. ZALORA have more than 300 local and international brands with expensive catalogue of menswear, womenswear, beauty product, cosmetic with various styles and categories with different rice range. The most highlighted offer provided by ZALORA is the free shipping within Malaysia and 30 days return policy. Again, ZALORA is committed to provide a enjoyable shopping experience along with great customer service.

Sellers, who wish to build their own online fashionable wares, will find that it is easy enough to create their own online shop within ZALORA. They will even get help in setting up shop with free advice and consultations from ZALORA’s strategic marketplace expert (Rees and Park, 2013).

Strongest influence to purchase apparels on ZALORA based on six factors, such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, service and product quality, information security and privacy, role of experimental online shopping motives and social influences (Hassan, Zaman and Santosa, 2015).

• Perceived usefulness is considered as the degree to which someone can believe that his performance can be enhanced by the system (Solomon, 2006).
  
• Privacy refers to the condition, where based on individual identification, a condition of limited access is given. On the other aspect security can be described as the “state or quality of being secure and to be out of danger while online” (Noel, 2009).
  
• Good quality of product information helps to increase customer’s confidence and trust for the shopping in website. Better product information helps customers to be more confident on online purchases because consumers trust the website. Hence, they feel lower risk of information security. At the same time product prices are main concern as they affect purchase intention. With the rapid growth of the internet along with e-business technology, there is a rapid growth in internet exchange, where products are available at lower prices than in conventional outlets (Goworek, 2007).
  
• Generally social circle of a person comprises of his peers constitute of family member, friends. Therefore online shopping is a socially desirable behavior. Beside all these, social media also contribute a strong impact towards buying things online through the exposure of the products online with the help of social networking sites or with the attractive advertisement (Paley, 2007).
  
• Online shopping experience comprises a present or past occurrence and results in two scenarios, such as outcome of desired fulfillment and outcome of desired conflict. Outcome of desired conflict occurs when a person fails to achieve goal or experiences an unpleasant incident, which develop negative emotional reaction (Cooke, Watkins and Moy, 2008).

Zallora create new strategies for customers loke:

Provide more options for customers

Zalora isn’t just a clothing store anymore – it also has its own fashion label. Started in Singapore, Zalora’s own label, called Ezra is now available in Thailand too. According to Ojeda, the firm’s own brand clothing accounts for 25 percent of its business in the country.

Create first-time buyers

Zalora believes that ecommerce in Thailand still has a lot more room for growth. According to Ojeda, online commerce only accounts for one percent of the entire shopping industry in the nation. It’s still an exciting space. So the main challenge is to convert people into online shoppers.

Create first-time buyers

Zalora believes that ecommerce in Thailand still has a lot more room for growth. According to Ojeda, online commerce only accounts for one percent of the entire shopping industry in the nation. It’s still an exciting space. So the main challenge is to convert people into online shoppers.

ZALORA’s market place is a unique hub for those who look out for one-of-a-kind fashion pieces and independent to sell to the individual test of buyers. Entrepreneurs, who wish to sell their craft, are able to set up their own online boutique through ZALORA marketplace and do customization accordingly (Cline, 2012).

Sellers, who wish to build their own online fashionable wares, will find that it is easy enough to create their own online shop within ZALORA. They will even get help in setting up shop with free advice and consultations from ZALORA’s strategic marketplace expert (Rees and Park, 2013).

Marketers can benefit by making more effective marketing mix and target on the perception of the ease of use aspect, which can expand customer base and customer retention.

ZALORA’s this strategy can be considered as both the local and global strategy. As it is giving chances to entrepreneurs to customize their boutique according to their local strategy and the entrepreneurs are allowed get participation from any location across the globe. This scenario gives ZALORA to explore their cross cultural strategy (Cant, Brink and Brijball, 2006).

There are some review papers, which show the e-commerce objective of this cross cultural strategies to give focus for the identification of the user preferences, building community and developing conversation provides high quality websites, motivates users.

C)answer:

Conclusion:

With all the discussion done above, all factors and perceived usefulness has been found most significant to affect customer’s purchasing intention towards ZALORA apparels. Even customers find it easy to have online shopping and also more time saving. From the above study it is evident that the perceived ease of use needs to be considered by marketers, so that increment in sales and consumption of their products can take place by advancing their ease of navigation. Marketers can benefit by making more effective marketing mix and target on the perception of the ease of use aspect, which can expand customer base and customer retention. Entrepreneurs, who wish to sell their craft, are able to set up their own online boutique through ZALORA marketplace and do customization accordingly. ZALORA offers many unique conditions, which attract customer to engage with them. ZALORA have more than 300 local and international brands with expensive catalogue of menswear, womenswear, beauty product, cosmetic with various styles and categories with different price range. The most highlighted offer provided by ZALORA is the free shipping within Malaysia and 30 days return policy. Again, ZALORA is committed to provide an enjoyable shopping experience along with great customer service. There are some review papers, which shows the e-commerce objectives for each designing principle layer give focus for the identification of the user preferences, building community and to develop conversation, provides high quality websites, motivates users.

Hope you got your answer ..thank you