Whitevector Report: Consumer Conversations – Online Shopping Sites
Online discussion specialist Whitevector assesses the level of discussion around online shopping websites…
Online shopping has generated a great deal of discussion since becoming a mass activity around the beginning of the new millennium. However, after the initial excitement died down, many online retailers had to face reality: whatever the practical logic of shopping online, many people were not prepared to forego their traditional trips to the shops, and many online stores failed. Consequently, the new generation of online retailers had to start building consumers’ faith in their business from scratch.
As people have started to become familiar with online shopping, it has become apparent that there are two main factors that decide whether the store has the potential both to attract new customers and retain the current ones: trustworthiness and recommendations from their peers.
Trust is built around the key basic functionalities of any online store: easy browsing of the goods, good value for money, speedy and reliable delivery, and secure payment methods. Recommendations, on the other hand, are what bring customers to the site in the first place. Recommendations can be given face-to-face by a friend, can be seen in the media, or read about in an online forum or a blog. This last has become an increasingly important method of spreading word-of-mouth – there are thousands of weekly discussions at different UK-based discussion forums and blogs about buying goods online. Here we focus on one sector, fashion, and explore how some of the key retailers fare within online consumer conversations.
When people talk about shopping on the internet, there are certain topics that always generate discussion. Naturally, stores are often mentioned when people talk about what they have recently bought, where they bought it, and what it cost. Not surprisingly these discussions are often concerned more with the purchase itself, and don’t necessarily touch on the online shop or its features. But when the shops themselves are discussed, the main topics are:
1. General experiences with different sites (eg which online shops other contributors use, what are the pros and cons of shopping with them)
2. Specific features of a particular site (eg are the sizes of the clothes generous or slim, what is the store’s policy on returns, what payment methods are acceptable)
3. Questions about specific products and where to find them (eg maternity wear, more valuable purchases, less common sizes)
For this article, we explored a small sample of some of the biggest UK fashion online shops, Marks and Spencer, ASOS, Topshop, Net-a-Porter and Boohoo. The data indicates (see Chart below) that the traditional and well-known names Marks & Spencer and Topshop feature in many generic shopping-related discussions but when it came to the specific of online shopping-related discussions, ASOS and Boohoo – purely online retailers with no physical stores – received more discussions. ASOS, for instance, is each month discussed in over 300 different conversations spread across about 40 different UK-based sites.
When it comes to recommendations and their importance to an online store, it is worth analysing, which stores are associated with which attributes in online discussions. According to Whitevector’s Topic Association Analysis (see Chart below), price and delivery are associated almost as frequently with ASOS, M&S, Topshop, and Net-A-Porter. As for value for money, recommendation, and convenience, the associations differ in relation to individual retailers.
In the quote from a Netmums.com conversation below, the association between a degree of personal recommendation, ASOS, Topshop, and Net-A-Porter (of the analysed retailers) can be seen:
Online Shopping
Hi all, just wondering what online shopping sites you use for clothes, bags etc etc. Finding it harder and harder to actually get to the shops so am favouring online shopping more and more! I currently shop on asos and bunnyhug and also new look and topshop. any other recommendations? 🙂 At the moment I am using ASOS, net-a-porter, Peacocks (for casual things), Dorothy Perkins, New Look and Oli. I like that it is hassle free to shop online, no people barging past you, people in front pinching the last one of your size, only have rubbish left in the sale part etc!!
Associations can of course be a consequence of a marketing effort focused on those aspects of the service, but mostly they are a reflection of customers’ overall shopping experience. Thus, certain factors appear to be related more frequently with certain retailers. The relationship between these attributes and the stores (as defined by the conversations between consumers) can be used to understand better customers’ opinions and preferences, and thus to design more targeted and relevant marketing communications.
As online word-of-mouth communication becomes more and more important for online fashion retailers, the analysing of relevant discussion sites and the content of what is discussed there becomes key to understanding who are the critical word-of-mouth communicators, which sites are the most important, and what are the key reasons behind recommending (or criticising) a retailer’s service.
References:
http://www.posti.fi/english/current/2009/20090305_ecommerce_study.html