Month: September 2022

Secondary data refers to data that is collected by someone other than the primary user.  Common sources of secondary data for social science include censuses, information collected by government departments, organizational records and data that was originally collected for other research purposes. Primary data, by contrast, are collected by the investigator conducting the research.

Secondary data analysis can save time that would otherwise be spent collecting data and, particularly in the case of quantitative data, can provide larger and higher-quality databases that would be unfeasible for any individual researcher to collect on their own. In addition, analysts of social and economic change consider secondary data essential, since it is impossible to conduct a new survey that can adequately capture past change and/or developments. However, secondary data analysis can be less useful in marketing research, as data may be outdated or inaccurate.

Sources of secondary data

Secondary data can be obtained from many sources:

• Censuses and government departments like housing, social security, electoral statistics, tax records
• internet searches and libraries
• gps and remote sensing
• km progress reports
• journals, newspapers and magazines

Administrative data and census

Government departments and agencies routinely collect information when registering people or carrying out transactions, or for record keeping usually when delivering a service. This information is called administrative data.

It can include:

• Personal information such as names, dates of birth, addresses
• information about schools and educational achievements
• information about health
• information about criminal convictions or prison sentences
• tax records, such as income

Nature of Secondary Data

1) Data reliability

The secondary data that is to be used should be reliable. The data connection analysis should be done and questions like who collected the data, what were the sources of the collected data, when was the data collected and what were the methods used to collect it, what’s the desired level of accuracy achieved and if there any bias by the compiler.

These are the primary questions that need to be answered before using any data. Answering these questions will help to establish reliability on the secondary data.

2) Suitability of the data

The data should be suitable for the research that is to be conducted because the data that is suitable for one research may not be necessary is suitable for other research. This is why the data that is found should be scrutinized properly and should not be used by the researcher directly.

The researcher should carefully see the terms and units of collection and the time at which the data is collected from the primary source. Careful analysis will reveal the scope and the object along with the nature of the original query for which the research was conducted.

3) Data sufficiency

If the present problem of the researcher is not answered by the data then it should be considered as inadequate and should be refrained from using by the researcher. The data will not be considered sufficient if the scope of the researcher is narrower or wider than the secondary data that is collected.

It would be very risky to use the data if it simply matches some part of the query posed by the researcher because of chances of error in the present research increasing drastically.

Advantages of Secondary data

• It is economical. It saves efforts and expenses.
• It is time saving.
• It helps to make primary data collection more specific since with the help of secondary data, we are able to make out what are the gaps and deficiencies and what additional information needs to be collected.
• It helps to improve the understanding of the problem.
• It provides a basis for comparison for the data that is collected by the researcher.

Market research is viable process of determining the value or demand of the product in the marketplace in addition to the position of the enterprise in the industry. Theorists described Market research as the systematic and objective process of collecting, generating, evaluating and interpreting information and communicating the judgments in order to take marketing decisions. Market research work on DECIDE model which means define the market problems, enumerate the controllable and uncontrollable decision factors, collect relevant information, develop and implement a marketing plan and evaluate the decision and decision process. John Graham in American Salesman (2004) note down that marketer has vital role in launching of a product and the long-term triumph of organization in competitive business environment. It provides all the pertinent information about the active products in the market and assists the company to recognize and solve issues associated with launching of new products. It also assists companies to assess the marketing opportunities and use them for the success of firms.

Market research has been recognized as major activity of marketing. Market research can be used as a means to achieve agreements of consumers on the market structure and involve sincerely in supporting the business. Market research assists the organisations to acquire the data of customers and competitors to develop their products, devise marketing strategies, and resourcefully segment the market. In order to understand customer demands and test the conditions of market, well-designed surveys are conducted and companies can obtain real information of their marketing opportunities, tendencies, and intimidations. Therefore, questions in surveys must be developed cautiously to gain useful data that benefit product positioning and marketing to fulfil the needs of customers in the market. Market research that makes the most powerful contribution to decision making in the firm can influence the environment and entire thoughts of a company. It can be illustrious that market research is very important to help companies to make strong position in the market, regulate marketing strategies, plan product pricing, and watch customer purchasing behaviours.

A market research project may usually have 3 different types of objectives.

• Administrative: Help a company or business development, through proper planning, organization, and both human and material resources control, and thus satisfy all specific needs within the market, at the right time.
• Social: Satisfy customer’s specific needs through a required product or service. The product or service should comply with the requirements and preferences of a customer when it’s consumed.
• Economical: Determine the economical degree of success or failure a company can have while being new to the market, or otherwise introducing new products or services, and thus providing certainty to all actions to be implemented.

Importance:

• Valuable information: It provides information and opportunities about the value of existing and new products, thus, helping businesses plan and strategizes accordingly.
• Customer-centric: It helps to determine what the customers need and want. Marketing is customer-centric and understanding the customers and their needs will help businesses design products or services that best suit them. Remember that tracing your customer journey is a great way to gain valuable insights into your customers’ sentiments toward your brand.
• Forecasts: By understanding the needs of customers, businesses can also forecast their production and sales. Market research also helps in determining optimum inventory stock.
• Competitive advantage: To stay ahead of competitor’s market research is a vital tool to carry out comparative studies. Businesses can devise business strategies that can help them stay ahead of their competitors.

Methods of Market Research

• Exploratory research
• Descriptive research
• Causal research

Exploratory Research: Exploratory research facilitates businesses to find out new ideas and find prospective market opportunities. It is used to discover a situation or search for a problem. This research process is unstructured. Product managers need not go through all the stages of the market research process from the “defining stage” to the “analysis stage”. The results from exploratory research are typically based on secondary data, open ended questions, similar case studies, a pilot study, or even results from previous research. It is found that the results obtain from exploratory research may not be appropriate for Product Managers to decide to enter a new market. The result is sometimes generalised information about probable markets and the related products or services. It is conducted with anticipation that there is need for more complete research.

Descriptive Research: This type of market research deals with queries such as who, what, when, where and how type questions. It is structured research in which Product managers use all steps in research process. Descriptive research discovers more detail about a market.

Causal Research: This type of research assists Product Managers to know the cause and effect of a relationship such as Causality can be derived by the use of “if x, then y”. Causal research is considered formal research and facilitates product managers to recognize problems and the causes of the problem.

Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.

This involves specifying the data required to address these issues, then designing the method for collecting information, managing and implementing the data collection process. After analyzing the data collected, these results and findings, including their implications, are forwarded to those empowered to act on them.

Market research, marketing research, and marketing are a sequence of business activities; sometimes these are handled informally.

The field of marketing research is much older than that of market research. Although both involve consumers, Marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes, such as advertising effectiveness and salesforce effectiveness, while market research is concerned specifically with markets and distribution. Two explanations given for confusing Market research with Marketing research are the similarity of the terms and also that Market Research is a subset of Marketing Research. Further confusion exists because of major companies with expertise and practices in both areas.

Characteristics

First, marketing research is systematic. Thus systematic planning is required at all the stages of the marketing research process. The procedures followed at each stage are methodologically sound, well documented, and, as much as possible, planned in advance. Marketing research uses the scientific method in that data are collected and analyzed to test prior notions or hypotheses. Experts in marketing research have shown that studies featuring multiple and often competing hypotheses yield more meaningful results than those featuring only one dominant hypothesis.

Marketing research is objective. It attempts to provide accurate information that reflects a true state of affairs. It should be conducted impartially. While research is always influenced by the researcher’s research philosophy, it should be free from the personal or political biases of the researcher or the management. Research which is motivated by personal or political gain involves a breach of professional standards. Such research is deliberately biased so as to result in predetermined findings. The objective nature of marketing research underscores the importance of ethical considerations. Also, researchers should always be objective with regard to the selection of information to be featured in reference texts because such literature should offer a comprehensive view on marketing. Research has shown, however, that many marketing textbooks do not feature important principles in marketing research.

Marketing is art of developing, advertising and distributing goods and services to consumer as well as business. However, marketing is not just limited to goods and services it is extended to everything from places to ideas and in between. This brings forth many challenges within which marketing people have to take strategy decisions. And answer to these challenges depends on the market the company is catering to, for consumer market decision are with respect to product, packaging and distribution channel.

For business market, knowledge and awareness of product is very essential for marketing people as businesses are on the lookout to maintain or establish a credential in their respective market.

For global market, marketing people have to consider not only culture diversity but also be careful with respect to international trade laws, trade agreement, and regulatory requirements of individual market. For non for profit organization with limited budgets, importance is related to pricing of products, so companies have to design and sell products accordingly.

Marketing philosophy employed by any given company has to be mix of organization interest, consumer interest and societal interest. In production philosophy, companies focus is on numbers, high production count, which reduces cost per unit and along with mass distribution. This kind of concept is usually making sense in a developing market where there is the need of product in large numbers.

The product philosophy talks about consumers who are willing to pay an extra premium for high quality and reliable performance, so companies focus on producing well made products.

The selling concept believes in pushing consumers into buying of products, which under normal circumstance, they would be resistant. The marketing concept believes consumer satisfaction, thereby developing and selling products keeping focus solely on customer needs and wants.

The customer philosophy believes in the creation of customized products, where in products is design looking at historical transaction of consumers.

The last philosophy is the societal concept which believes in developing products, which not only generate consumer satisfaction but also take into account well being of society or environment.

Digital revolution and 21st century have made companies fine tune the way they conduct their business. One major trend observed is the need of stream lining processes and systems with the focus on cost reduction through outsourcing.

Another trend observed in companies is, encouragement to entrepreneur style of work environment with glocal (global-local) approach. At the same time, marketers of companies are looking forward to building long term relationship with consumers. This relationship establishes platform understanding consumer needs and preference.

Marketers are looking at distribution channels as partners in business and not as the customer. Companies and marketers are making decisions using various computers simulated models.

Rise of Digital Marketing

Marketing in the 21st century combines both traditional and digital channels to promote products and services. Before the 21st century, organizations had no advertising options other than conventional channels such as newspapers, television, flyers and radio to reach their target customers. They focused on mass marketing campaigns to create awareness in the target market and influence potential customers to make purchasing decisions.

The arrival of the internet transformed the concept of promotion into inbound marketing from outbound marketing. Inbound marketing facilitates two-way interactive communication between organizations and customers through search engines and social media platforms, emails and content strategies.

Social Media Marketing

Organizations use social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram extensively to engage target audiences in interaction and influence their behavior. Social media has become a platform for people to share opinions and purchase experiences. With appropriate marketing efforts to channel these opinions and purchase experiences, organizations spread positive word-of-mouth through social media platforms and increase conversion rates. The benefits of social media marketing for organizations are low cost and high response rate.

Personalized Email Marketing

Marketing in the 21st century focuses on adding value to customers by educating and entertaining them through digital platforms. Email marketing is a widely used tool for sending personalized messages to customers and persuading them to make purchases. Organizations in the 21st century have created opt-in email lists to execute an email marketing campaign. An opt-in email list comprises email addresses of individuals who have shown an interest in services or products offered by an organization.

As reported by the Data and Marketing Association in 2019, organizations earn an average of $42 on every $1 they spend on email marketing. The Content Marketing Institute in 2019 reported that nearly 87 percent of organizations use emails to disseminate a personalized promotional message to clients.

Content Marketing Strategy

Content is king when it comes to marketing in the 21st century. Small and medium-scale organizations extensively use search engine marketing techniques to reach target customers online. High-quality, unique and value-added content is essential for websites to achieve high ranks on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. The Google search engine, in particular, emphasizes quality content when ranking websites. The content marketing strategy in the 21st century is to help organizations achieve objectives such as engaging customers, persuading them to make purchase decisions, and developing brand identity.

Traditional Marketing in the 21st Century

Though organizations have shifted to digital marketing in the 21st century, traditional marketing is not dead. Large-scale organizations are still highly dependent on television and print advertising to attract customers. The marketers of large-scale organizations integrate traditional and digital marketing strategies to create a suitable brand image for their products. Meanwhile, small-scale organizations with a lower marketing budget leverage digital marketing tools to bring more clients on board.

Marketing in the 21st century is a mix of both traditional and digital marketing. Depending on the type of products, marketing budget, size of the target market, and spending habits of potential customers, organizations alter their marketing strategies accordingly.

Value of information (VOI or VoI) is the amount a decision maker would be willing to pay for information prior to making a decision.

Decisions of this type are made every day in a business. Companies will often pay market research firms to establish the likelihood that a new product will be well received. If the stakes are high, and the cost of product development is counted in the millions of dollars, then a firm may be willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the information they need to reduce their uncertainty. Businesses place a value on information every time they buy competitive intelligence, hire a consultant, invest in information systems, and hire a knowledge worker and so on. Most business managers will not talk in terms of information value, but this is essentially the value judgement they are making.

Now in the example given above we assumed that our information source could be trusted 100%. In real life we don’t know for certain that a source of information can be wholly trusted, and so we have to modify our estimations of information value based on this uncertainty it reduces the value of the information.

The art and science of the cost and value of information is to make sure that the costs are less than the value. Some attempt is made to do this when we are talking of investments in information systems, but no such exercise is undertaken when someone undertakes a search for information on a casual basis. Common sense does come into play we wouldn’t sanction a three month project to establish exactly how much stationery a department was using, and how it was being used, if the potential cost savings were $100, and the three month project cost $10,000. However, many activities are not as clear cut, and for sure, the proliferation of information systems (and particularly social technologies) mean people are spending much more time dealing with information, and typically no one is counting the cost or even the value. This will change as firms struggle to become more competitive and efficient, but information productivity is still a missing science in most businesses.

Characteristics

There are four extremely important characteristics of VoI that always hold for any decision situation:

• The value of information can never be less than zero since the decision-maker can always ignore the additional information and makes decision as if such information is not available.
• No other information gathering/sharing activities can be more valuable than that quantified by value of clairvoyance.
• Observing multiple new evidences yields the same gain in maximum expected utility regardless of the order of observation.
• The VOI of observing two new evidence variables is not additive. Instead it is equivalent to observing one, incorporating it into our current evidence, and then observing the other.

Indirect Human Costs

Indirect human cost is more significant than direct cost and it is very illusive in nature.

Following is the taxonomy of indirect human costs:

• Management Time
• Management effort and dedication
• Employee Training
• Management Resources
• Personnel Issues
• Cost of ownership
• Employee Time
• Employee Motivation

Indirect Organizational Costs

• Losses in productivity
• Organizational Productivity
• Strains on Organizational Resources
• Opportunity Cost and Risk
• Business Process Reengineering
• Covert Resistance

Identification of Benefits

The following are the potential benefits of an IT system. In an implementation, some of the benefits may get realized and some may not get realized.

• Reduced Head Count
• Reduced manufacturing cost
• Reduced inventory cost
• Reduced down time
• Better quality control
• Additional new customers
• Increased sales from existing customers
• Better image of the Organization
• Higher employee morale
• Reduced attrition rate
• The ability to recruit better employees

Market Share

Similar to earning growth one can also evaluate value of IS in terms of increased market share.

Customer Awareness and Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is one of the most valued intangible benefits of an information system. For instance, an information system may help customer track status of their orders. Customer may check the stock status before he places an order. The information may be available online or through an operation who has access to information system of the company. There are many companies that conduct survey on behalf of their client company’s to determine the satisfaction level of their customers.

Customer satisfaction is an essential aspect of any business. It is vital to keep customers happy and satisfied with your product or service. If you fail to do so, you risk losing them as customers.

Consumer dissatisfaction can arise from various sources, and understanding these sources is crucial for businesses to address issues and improve the overall customer experience. Businesses need to actively monitor and address these sources of consumer dissatisfaction to maintain a positive brand image, foster customer loyalty, and drive long-term success. Regularly seeking customer feedback, analyzing customer interactions, and implementing improvements based on insights are essential steps in minimizing dissatisfaction and enhancing the overall customer experience.

Service-based dissatisfaction

As customers, we are twice as likely to share a negative service experience over a negative product experience. This is because we don’t seek out customer support, but rather it’s foisted upon us.

Atomic customer service

While we choose to buy products, we only engage with customer support to complain about a product or service or ask about something that is unclear. If we have to endure long waiting times or repeated escalations to get our issue resolved, these only add salt to injury.

Poor customer service can be defined as the breaking of these principles which have been summarized here:

1. Slowness. No one likes to be put on hold, especially for time-sensitive problems. Yet, according to research, the average customer can expect to spend 43 days of their life waiting on hold.

The agony is further prolonged when a customer is ping-ponged from one department to another with no agent taking ownership of the case, because of lack of knowledge or empowerment to make decisions.

2. Inaccuracy. It doesn’t matter how fast you answer phones or emails if you’re giving your customers incorrect information about your product or service.

As a minimum, customers expect the information provided to them to be accurate, useful and applicable.

3. Inaccessibility. Have you ever had a complaint but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t find the company’s phone number or email on their website? Instead, you’re asked to fill in a contact form where more often than not, you don’t receive a response.

Offering limited contact options means more effort for the customer. When we have a problem, we usually want it resolved quickly rather than complete numerous actions to talk to a human.

4. Opacity. Transparency in a business context is the open sharing of information from a business to its customers. Who hasn’t waited anxiously in a queue, not knowing how long the wait will be or the reason for the wait?

Product-based dissatisfaction

Most purchasing decisions aren’t entirely rational. You may think you’re buying a new iPhone because of its new camera and features, but subconsciously it’s largely about showing off your status to the world.

Purchases of everyday products are also subject to our emotions. We may like to think that we’re choosing a product based on price, but ultimately our decisions are made because the brand resonates with our real or desired identity.

If a product doesn’t perform as expected, e.g. iPhone’s degenerating battery, we not only question our decision-making methods and the brand we’ve chosen, but also our identity.

Loyal consumers of a brand may forgive a perceived defect here and there, but this depends on the type of defect. The Kano model assigns three types attributes to products and services:

Threshold attributes (basics). These are the baseline expectations that a product or service should fulfill, e.g. the phone has a battery which lasts a good few hours.

Performance attributes (satisfiers). These increase a customer’s enjoyment of the product, but are not absolutely necessary, e.g. you can take high-quality pictures with your phone.

Excitement attributes (delighters). These features are in no way necessary but delight the customer when they come across them, e.g. the phone can be submerged three feet in water for thirty minutes without lasting damage.

A product which fails to meet threshold expectations will cause even loyal customers to switch brands.

Communication-based dissatisfaction

In an attempt “to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding”, Pepsi released a controversial ad which appeared to trivialize protests against police violence toward minorities. Due to worldwide outrage, the ad was pulled merely one day after its release.

Another example is when language or culture isn’t taken into account when releasing a product to global markets. American Motors made this mistake when naming one of its models, the Matador, which translates to “killer” in Spanish. Although the name intended to convey strength and power, it felt unsurprisingly aggressive and dangerous to Spanish speakers.

Communication failures happen when brands don’t think clearly about how a marketing message or product will come across to their customers, because they chase viral videos rather than focus on the target audience.

Ultimately, the meaning of a message lies with the receiver. If a brand’s messaging fails to address its customers’ needs, wants, beliefs and values, it doesn’t matter how many views the ad gets.

Values-based dissatisfaction

According to a survey by Sprout Social, most customers want brands to take a stand on social and ethical issues. Shared values create trust because we are drawn to people who are similar to ourselves.

In a world of choice, it’s not enough for brands to lead with features and benefits. They also need to communicate clear values.

What happens when a brand violates these values? When Nestlé aggressively marketed baby milk in under-developed countries which inadvertently led to the deaths of infants, it was the target of worldwide boycotts.

Whether customers stand for behaviour that goes against their ethics depends on what the brand stands for. Amazon, for instance, is notorious for treating employees badly. But this does not seem to be affecting customer loyalty all that much because the core of Amazon’s business isn’t built on social values. On the other hand, if the Body Shop would behave in a similar way, their customers would likely be less forgiving.

What’s more, honesty in a relationship increases trust. Dishonesty, on the other hand, leaves the other party wondering what else you’ve lied about.

In the digital age, consumers can look up product/service reviews and discover a company’s history. Yet, the Internet is awash with stories of companies who lied to their customers for personal gain.

Customer satisfaction is a moving target. What makes the customer happy today may not make them happy tomorrow. As discussed in the introduction, it doesn’t drive loyalty behaviour. But the causes of customer dissatisfaction are timeless. They’re a much more solid foundation to build your customer interactions on.

Things to do when you have a dissatisfied customer

If you are dealing with an unhappy customer, here are some things you should do to improve the customer experience.

• Discover what the customer is unhappy about and why? Listen carefully to the complaint. This helps you understand the problem better. Their wants and needs first must be uncovered and defined to see if the features and benefits of your company’s product or services can satisfy those wants and needs.
• Ask questions to clarify the situation. Ask whether we perform to the customer expectations or not?
• Analysis, find the root cause and then improve it.

How to avoid customer dissatisfaction

• Be pro-active. Don’t wait until the customer complains. Surveys and meetings are a great way to understand the customer’s needs.
• Be responsive. When there’s an issue, resolve it immediately. By waiting to resolve an issue can turn minor problems into bigger ones.
• Be honest. Telling customers the truth usually goes over better than lying to them. It will eventually help gain the customer’s respect.
• Be realistic. Not every sale is worth the cost involved in obtaining it. Some customers have expectations that aren’t attainable. In that case, it may be necessary to try to reset the customer’s expectations, or, if that isn’t possible, to suggest that they may be happier by taking their business elsewhere.

Types

Product or Service Quality Issues:

• Defective Products:

Consumers are dissatisfied when they receive products that are defective or do not meet quality standards.

• Poor Service Quality:

In the case of services, dissatisfaction may stem from poor service delivery, errors, or subpar performance.

Customer Service Problems:

• Unresponsive Support:

Lack of responsiveness or slow resolution to customer inquiries or complaints can lead to dissatisfaction.

• Unhelpful Staff:

If customer service representatives are unhelpful, rude, or lack the necessary knowledge, it negatively impacts the customer experience.

Misleading Advertising and Marketing:

• False Claims:

When marketing messages make promises that the product or service cannot fulfill, consumers feel deceived and dissatisfied.

• Misrepresentation:

Misleading product descriptions, images, or pricing can lead to dissatisfaction when the actual experience does not match expectations.

Delivery and Logistics Issues:

• Delayed Deliveries:

Late deliveries, whether for products or services, can result in dissatisfaction, especially if the delay impacts the customer’s plans or expectations.

• Poor Packaging:

Inadequate packaging leading to damaged products upon delivery can contribute to dissatisfaction.

Billing and Pricing Problems:

• Hidden Fees:

Unexpected fees that were not clearly communicated during the purchase process can lead to frustration and dissatisfaction.

• Incorrect Billing:

Billing errors or discrepancies in pricing can erode trust and result in dissatisfaction.

Communication Breakdowns:

• Lack of Communication:

Inadequate communication about order status, changes in policies, or important updates can leave customers feeling uninformed and dissatisfied.

• Poor Transparency:

Lack of transparency in business practices, such as undisclosed terms and conditions, can contribute to dissatisfaction.

Unmet Expectations:

• Failure to Meet Expectations:

When a product or service falls short of what was promised or expected, consumers experience disappointment and dissatisfaction.

• Overpromising and Underdelivering:

Businesses that consistently overpromise and underdeliver may create a pattern of dissatisfaction among customers.

Difficulty in Returns and Refunds:

• Complicated Return Processes:

Cumbersome or unclear return processes can frustrate customers, particularly when trying to return or exchange a product.

• Delayed Refunds:

Delays in processing refunds after returns can lead to dissatisfaction, especially when customers are waiting for their money.

Lack of Personalization:

• Generic Interactions:

Customers may feel dissatisfied if interactions with the business lack personalization and fail to recognize their individual preferences or history.

• Irrelevant Recommendations:

Offering irrelevant products or services based on customer data can lead to dissatisfaction.

Security and Privacy Concerns:

• Data Breaches:

Security breaches that compromise customer information can erode trust and lead to dissatisfaction.

Inadequate Privacy Protection:

Consumers may be dissatisfied if they feel their privacy is not adequately protected, especially in the digital age.

Inconsistent Experiences:

• Inconsistency Across Channels:

Discrepancies in the customer experience across different channels (online, offline, mobile) can result in dissatisfaction.

• Varying Service Quality:

If service quality varies widely across different locations or time periods, customers may experience dissatisfaction.

Unresolved Issues:

• Lack of Resolution:

When customer issues or complaints are not effectively addressed or resolved, dissatisfaction can linger and escalate.

• Poor Handling of Complaints:

Insufficient efforts to address and resolve customer complaints can contribute to ongoing dissatisfaction.

Limited Accessibility:

• Inaccessible Customer Support:

Difficulty reaching customer support, whether due to long wait times, limited channels, or complex automated systems, can lead to dissatisfaction.

• Limited Availability:

Businesses with restricted operating hours or limited availability may frustrate customers seeking assistance.

Cultural Insensitivity:

• Insensitive Marketing:

Marketing messages or campaigns that lack cultural sensitivity can offend certain demographics and result in dissatisfaction.

• Discriminatory Practices:

Any form of discrimination in business practices can lead to dissatisfaction and damage the brand’s reputation.

Competitor Offerings:

• Comparison with Competitors:

If customers find that competitor offerings are more attractive, affordable, or of higher quality, it can lead to dissatisfaction with the current business.

• Lack of Innovation:

Failure to keep up with industry trends or offer innovative solutions may result in customer dissatisfaction.

Need Recognition

In an E-commerce environment, the starting point of the consumer buying decision process is to arouse demand. In addition to the internal and external stimulus in the traditional market, the stimulus of Internet consumers is more from the Internet, which is mainly reflected in the following aspects. One is the network media, which releases a variety of information directly or indirectly affecting the consumer’s demand confirmation.

The second is an online community, where Internet users share their shopping experience in virtual communities such as forums and post bars, as well as product placement in some communities. The third one is the marketing activities of online enterprises, such as online advertising, online bidding and auction and online public relations activities, which are stimulating the desire of consumers to buy. After being stimulated by internal and external factors, consumers will feel that there is a certain gap between their desired and actual needs. If they have a certain purchasing power, they will have a corresponding consumption demand, and in the Ecommerce environment, consumers will have some new demands. The first demand is the interest, which refers to the tendency of people to engage in online activities out of curiosity and the satisfaction of being successful.

The second is personality display, the need for people to use the Internet to show their unique ideas. The last one is gathering communication, and that is consumers want opportunities to come together and interact with others who have similar experiences.

Information Search

Once consumers are aware of a need and are motivated to purchase a particular product or service, they often start searching for the information they need to make decisions in a variety of ways. When shopping online, consumers can use search engines to make a comparison of shopping websites, shopping forums and other tools to effectively collect information, which is more convenient, fast and comprehensive than traditional information collection. Although E-commerce has greatly improved the efficiency of information search and changed the purchasing behavior of consumers, consumers still show high or low enthusiasm in collecting information under the influence of the following factors:

The first factor is product knowledge, which refers to consumers’ understanding of products. Generally speaking, consumers hardly need the information to search for the products they are familiar with or often buy. They make decisions mainly based on experience, and they have a strong search intention when they buy new products. The second factor is product value. Search intention of consumers usually with a positive relationship with the value of the purchased products. For products with low risk and low value, consumers make decisions mainly based on experience, and information search is rarely required. When consumers buy products of high value, information collection becomes particularly important because they are concerned about information asymmetry and greater risks. Therefore, information collection becomes particularly important. The third factor is time stress.

Because gathering information takes a lot of time and effort, consumers’ search intentions are lower when decisions need to be made quickly in a short period of time. The last factor is involvement degree, which refers to how much time and energy consumers are willing to spend in the purchase process. For some complex purchases, most consumers know little about them, so they will spend a certain amount of time collecting information and make multi-faceted selections and comparisons.

Evaluating of Alternative

When consumers get relevant information from different channels, they will analyze and compare various products to choose the most suitable products and services. When consumers choose goods, they will compare the functions, styles, and reliability, prices and aftersales services of similar goods according to a certain evaluation standard. The evaluation and comparison results are based on consumers’ utility value.

For online consumers, the use of the Internet not only greatly facilitates their search for commodity information, but also various comparison shopping websites provide detailed commodity information to help them make a choice as soon as possible.

Purchase Decision

Through choice and judgment, consumers will form their preference or purchase intention for a certain commodity. However, in the process of transformation into actual purchase behavior, it is also affected by the attitude of others and unexpected circumstances. In the E-commerce environment, the extensive and comprehensive commodity information on the Internet will guide consumers to make rational decisions, reduce the probability of impulse purchase, and make online decision-making faster. In addition, besides the traditional factors such as purchase time, purchase quantity, the way to buy is another important decisionmaking factor, that is, online or offline. Many consumers choose to buy their ideal products in the traditional market after collecting information and selecting and evaluating them through the network. The main reason is that consumers will take the following factors into consideration. First, price is still the most sensitive factor for consumers in online shopping. Only when online goods have a greater price advantage compared with the traditional market will consumers be inclined to choose online shopping. Second, risks are factors that need to be considered, mainly including payment risks and privacy risks. Because online shopping usually has to carry on the membership registration, and through online payment and other forms to buy goods. It usually needs to pay in advance to receive goods.

As a result, consumers will worry about their personal information being maliciously stolen, or the risk of account password theft due to Trojan horses and other viruses. Third, trust including the trust of product information on the network and the trust of various promises made by enterprises is another factor.

Post-purchase Behavior

After buying a product, online consumers often compare the actual properties of the product they feel with the expectation of the product to judge the correctness of their purchase decisions and guide the next purchase. If the product performance exceeds expectations, consumers will feel very satisfied; If the actual performance of the product is roughly in line with the expectations, the consumer will feel basically satisfied; If the performance of the product does not meet expectations, consumers will feel disappointed and dissatisfied. Moreover, consumers tend to talk about their feelings to their relatives and friends around them, which further expands the influence of online consumers’ postpurchase feelings. When consumers post relevant comments through various channels such as online forums, QQ groups, virtual communities, blogs, etc., it will even affect the purchase decision behavior of strangers. And the major factors that influence consumer post-purchase satisfaction can be attributed to the following four points. The first point is corporate image and commitment. Generally speaking, an enterprise with a good corporate image and commitment will have high expectations from customers. Therefore, online retailers must act according to their capabilities when making relevant promises, otherwise it is easy to make consumers feel disappointed and reduce their satisfaction. The second point is consumption experience, a kind of overall feeling of consumers in the process of online buying, including the perception of some services provided by network performance merchants, etc. A positive consumption experience will further enhance the satisfaction of consumers. The third point is after-sales service. Whether the return process is convenient, quick and thoughtful will affect customers’ evaluation of purchasing. The last point is safety and reliability. As mentioned above, customers’ consideration of website security performance is an important factor hindering consumers from online shopping. Therefore, most consumers do not have high requirements for it. When enterprises strengthen their security system to reduce customers’ risk perception, customer satisfaction will be greatly improved.

Online shopping behavior is the process by which consumers search for, select, purchase, use, and dispose of goods and services, over the internet. Online shopping has grown in popularity over the years, mainly because people find it convenient and easy to bargain shop from the comfort of their home or office.

There are two different types of perceived risk involved in determining consumer’s behavior during online shopping process. It is further described as the first category of perceived risk involved in online product and service i.e. financial risk, time risk, and product risk while the other category of perceived risk involved in e-transactions including privacy and security). Many researchers argued that perceived risk like financial risk, product risk, non-delivery risk, time risk, privacy risk, information risk, social risk, and personal risk have a negative and significant effect on consumer’s online shopping behavior. Another dimension of consumer’s behavior is trust and security on e-retailers, the positive shopping experience builds consumer’s trust on e-retailers and reduces the perceived risk.

Factors influencing Online Shopping Behavior

Online shopping behavior is a complicated sociotechnical phenomenon and because of this, it has been the focus of many researchers for the last decade. Speculations about the purchasing decisions made by the online shopper are quite vast and this is because it is elusively hard trying to judge the psychological state of consumers while they are making purchases. Due to this hard task of making generalized conclusions, there have been several studies that have come out hypothesizing different factors.

Apart from speculations, previous research has shown that online shopping behavior is affected by demographics, channel knowledge, and shopping orientation. However, there are many other factors that are observable which can lend to having higher transaction rates and having a glimpse into shopping behaviors. Some of these factors are listed below.

Financial Risk:

For online shoppers, financial risk is always a top concern. Financial risk refers to the perception that a certain amount of money that could be lost while making a purchase of goods or services online. The level of perceived risk differs between age groups, however. For instance, millennial are more likely to be less concerned than older generations, whose behavior is more skeptical when making purchases online.

Product Risk:

One of the benefits of shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store is being able to have the product in front of the customer. This allows for the retailer to manage the expectations that a customer has when they are purchasing a product. In e-commerce, online stores try to limit product risk by giving accurate descriptions of products and the ability to zoom in on the product pictures to give the client an accurate expectation of the product.

Delivery:

Another great factor that influences online shopping behavior is the common fear of not receiving products after making a purchase. Potential loss of a delivery is where goods are lost or damaged and this often creates a fear in customers that they would not receive their goods on the agreed time frame that the business stated. Online stores try and manage this perceived risk by easing customer’s minds on shipping and non-delivery by giving accurate updates on when they should expect the product they ordered.

Convenience:

For online shoppers, convenience is the best aspect of shopping online. In comparison to brick-and-mortar stores with fixed hours, online shopping venues are available to shoppers at any time of the day or night. There are also no lines to wait in or cashiers to track down to help purchases, and shopping can be done in minutes. Moreover, online shopping saves customers a lot of time. Instead of having to go out and take extra time shopping for a product, shoppers can save their time and spend it doing things they want to be doing.

Online Shopping Behavior analysis

To better understand online shopping behavior, an analytics tool is required. The goal of any business analytic tool is to analyze customer data and extract actionable and commercially relevant information that can be used to increase results or performance.

An example of an online shopping behavior analytics tool is Google Analytics. The Shopping Behavior Report within the tool allows online businesses to see visitors’ flow through the various stages of the shopping experience, beginning with the total number of sessions for a given date range, and including product views, cart adds, and checkouts.

Another great tool for analyzing online behavior is Eye Tracking technology. Eye Tracking is often used for website testing. It gives insight into how visitors view and experience a website. It helps gives businesses answers to questions such as “How do people attend to adverts, communication, and calls to action (CTAs)?”.

Online Shopping Behavior and facial recognition

With technology constantly evolving, so is the online shopping market. Websites are smarter, shipping is quicker, and expectations are higher. To keep up with the market, online stores have started to gravitate towards artificial intelligence.

Personalization

By analyzing users’ history, online retailers can offer products and services that a customer is more likely to be interested in, all while getting rid of excessive, and most likely unnecessary, options.

To take online shopping personalization one step further, companies are starting to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into the e-commerce experience. Facial recognition is a technology that uses AI and ML, helping businesses build a strong sense of loyalty between customers and brands.

By recognizing consumers faces through a webcam, the rest of the shopping experience can be customized to match their past needs and purchases.