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Optimization of an omni-channel strategy in fashion retail – the case of Hunkemöller International
(2018)
In fashion retail, omni-channel management has become an important strategy to offer the customer a seamless shopping experience across various channels. Customers want to shop from anywhere and at any time. Therefore, retailers integrate their operations among all channels and manage them simultaneously. The customer´s interaction with the brand along various touchpoints is thereby an important factor, since the number of touchpoints along a customer´s journey is increasing. This work analyzes a fashion retailer that is already executing an omni-channel strategy, to find challenges that the company is facing and thus an approach for optimization. This is done for the example of Hunkemöller International B.V., a Dutch lingerie retailer, which is dedicated to consistently improve its omni-channel strategy.
The following work examines current literature of omni-channel management in fashion retail and sets up a framework of success factors. These are compared to the current state of the company´s omni-channel strategy through qualitative research in form of an expert interview. This research is followed by more inter-views, which give insights to the challenges that stores are facing while execut-ing omni-channel activities. In addition, the work focuses on the purchasing phase of a customer´s journey and builds a framework to investigate customer touchpoints in the respective phase. Quantitative research is carried out through an in-store customer survey that gives insights on challenges from customer´s side and on customer´s attitude towards omni-channel. Thereby a customer touchpoint analysis is conducted. The conclusion presents recommendations for Hunkemöller on how to face the challenges and optimize the current omni-channel strategy. Limitations of the research and points for future research are discussed in the end.
The topic of traditional fashion retailers fighting for their position against growing e-commerce suppliers has been omnipresent in recent years. Therefore, it is important to understand what possibilities modern technology and innovation has to offer, and how these innovative technologies can be leveraged to achieve traditional brick-and-mortar-retailer’s goal of staying relevant and competitive.
The objective of this thesis is to examine and compare the effectiveness of different in-store digitalization concepts and technologies in retail organisations, analyzing different challenges such as the practical implementation in stores, customer adoption and acceptance factors in context of socio-demographic, and measuring the success of the concepts. Also, the current situation will be explored to see what is already being done today and where there is more potential using different approaches and technologies. For this purpose, a variety of studies, papers and other literature will be analyzed and put into context with the research topic.
Concluding the thesis, we find that all technologies and its practical applications affect relevant variables in different models such as TAM, the convenience/social presence model, and the customer decision-making process. Besides that, the socio-demographic variables geography, age and gender all influence adoption and readiness towards technology to a certain extent. Finally, we give examples on how the technologies can influence classic fashion retail KPIs.