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This master thesis explores the divergent consumer preferences within e-commerce sales funnels in China and Germany, two of the world's leading e-commerce markets. This comparative study explores the complexities of website design preferences, the influence of cultural elements on consumer decision-making, and the drivers of consumer loyalty and repeat purchases, with China's rapid adoption of digital technology and innovative marketing strategies set against Germany's mature market and consumer trust.
A mixed-methods approach is used in the research, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. Insights into consumer behaviors and preferences influenced by cultural, economic, and technical aspects are provided by a thorough analysis of scholarly literature, case studies, and consumer surveys from both nations. The report highlights the distinctive features of each market by examining important elements such as digital innovation, sustainability, social integration, data protection, and mobile commerce in e-commerce practices.
Remarkably, the thesis seeks to provide practical insights to German e-commerce practitioners. German businesses can learn more about properly aligning their marketing and operational goals with consumer expectations by studying the successful techniques employed in China. This research contributes to academic understanding while also having implications for marketers and e-commerce platforms looking to improve user engagement, conversion rates, and the overall online shopping experience in the dynamic global e-commerce world.
Abstract
In today's business world, it is evident how, thanks to digital transformation, new business models have emerged, especially in the retail industry. Changes in customer preferences have been one of the main reasons why the vast majority of companies within the retail industry have accelerated their digital transformation processes. Evidence has also been found that this change in consumer thinking is related to one of the side effects left by the Covid-19 pandemic, where digital channels gained more strength due to the limitations of physical contact between product providers and their customers. Therefore, changes in consumer thinking and the use of new digital platforms have brought new challenges for companies transforming their businesses from offline to online. The biggest challenges for those companies are not only related to implementing new business models such as online sales or so-called E-commerce platforms but also attributed to the creation of unique and invaluable experiences for the customer, allowing the companies to retain their consumers and create loyalty.
Creating an outstanding customer experience is not an easy task on these platforms since the reach of digital channels is almost infinite, which makes the new entrepreneurs in this industry rethink over and over again the best strategy to approach their customers so that they feel delighted in their customer journey. The present work seeks to provide a solution to the challenge evidenced in the E-commerce platforms, where the main objective is to recognize, through the customer journey, all the critical touchpoints and elements to add value to the shopping experience and to raise levels of customer satisfaction. With the help of tools that measure the levels of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, such as the Kano model, and through a recommendation system, the current paper provides com- panies that trade their products online with a detail of what services should be improved in the shopping experience to be highly attractive. In addition, a guide is provided where its application in each company will show in a quantitative way what the customer satis- faction levels are like. This work, through exhaustive research in academia, concludes that the factors that most stimulate customer satisfaction are those related to e-services quality and highlights the importance of “Personalized information”, “Online sales agent”, and “Website reviews and rating” services to add value to customers in one of the most competitive markets, such as E-commerce.
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.
The study explores the factors relevant to enticing consumers to purchase goods online at German drugstores and the measures the drugstores can take to address these factors. Based on the Online Shopping Acceptance Model and sector characteristics, enticing factors are derived and corresponding measures relevant to B2C e-commerce are identified. Qualitative research to support the validity is done in the form of in-depth and expert interviews, and of a case study on a company successful in e-commerce, Zalando SE. Results show that currently few factors are enticing and measures to target these are limited, and that only certain aspects of Zalando’s success can be transferred to drugstores. Given the current situation drugstores are advised not to aim at shifting large parts of their business to online channel. Nevertheless, the study provides drugstores a number of measures to improve their online offering in the context of their multi-channel strategy.
Purchasing products form the online-shops has become part of the daily live and more and more traditional shops shift their business to the e-commerce, which leads to a growing global competition among online traders. This clarifies the necessary differentiation of the online-shop to survive or improve the success. Making use of the expertise of Neuromarketing when it comes to the design and usability can represent a promising solution for it. Neuromarketing is based on the unconsciously perception through all senses and because of that, the emotional binding of customers to the product or brand. Its implementation on online-shops could be difficult due to the limited possibilities of perception, compared to traditional stores. The use of new technologies, such as those which enable to enter in virtual spaces, could expand the possibilities of perception and improve the use of Neuromarketing. This investigation, based on actual literature, should ideally represent an incentive and a groundwork for further research. The aim is to discover if it is possible to use virtual reality on onlineshops and by using it, if it represents an improvement for the implementation of Neuromarketing. Therefore, the investigation gives an overview about the theory behind Neuromarketing, to justify its use for the differentiation of online-shops. A description of the e-commerce helps to identify current errors of the design and usability and to define the borders, which inhibit the optimal implementation of Neuromarketing. A closer look of the technologies of virtual reality allows to find out if it can be considered as a solution. The improvement of online-shops by offering virtual spaces could represent a big potential to differentiate in the e-commerce. But due to the non-proliferation of the necessary devices and by that, the missing access to virtual spaces for customers, it actually would not fulfil its purpose. In the future, by the advance of the devices and the assumption that virtual reality will be part of everyday life, it could represent an optimal solution. This depends also from health and ethical aspects accompanied with the use of the mentioned technologies, which has been examined as well as part of this investigation. The answer to it by further investigation and by the observation of the development of virtual reality could be of great importance for the field of online marketing