Improving the customer buying experience in online fashion retail through content marketing: An empirical study among Finnish consumers
Lempinen, Tiina (2017-06-14)
Improving the customer buying experience in online fashion retail through content marketing: An empirical study among Finnish consumers
Lempinen, Tiina
(14.06.2017)
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Turun yliopisto. Turun kauppakorkeakoulu
Kuvaus
siirretty Doriasta
Tiivistelmä
The world of fashion retailing has undergone remarkable changes in the past two decades. Digitalisation has had its effects on both retail business models as well as on consumer behaviour. This has also had an impact on the fashion industry. Buying fashion online has moved from being a pure curiosity to being a mainstream retail channel, making online retailing one of the most rapidly growing fashion retail channels. In this kind of a highly competitive market, where customers and competition are just one click away, concepts such as customer experience and content marketing have gained in importance. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate how to improve the customer buying experience in online fashion retail through content marketing.
Despite the growing interest in the domain, past research efforts have done very little in order to establish a relationship between online customer experience, content marketing and the customer buying process. The theoretical framework for the research demonstrates that by establishing a content marketing strategy and thus creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content that focuses on prospects or customers, online fashion retailers are able to create positive customer experiences. These customer experiences can be seen as a holistic way of ensuring that customers are treated in a correct way at all stages of the buying process.
The research objectives were studied by utilising a qualitative research approach. The empirical data was collected and analysed in two steps. In Step 1 the most popular online fashion retailers on the Finnish market were selected and a preliminary content analysis was conducted by systematically reviewing the content available on these websites. In Step 2, data was collected by conducting two focus group interviews after which a secondary content analysis on these was conducted.
The key empirical findings of this research suggest that customer experience is a crucial element when selecting between online fashion retailers. Furthermore, the customer buying experience should progress smoothly all the way from prepurchase until the very end of the postpurchase stage. The role of content in online customer buying experience is first of all to inform and second of all to inspire the customer. In both cases, content should be created in accordance with the needs and wants of its target audience. In addition to the content itself, specific content features are able to bring additional value to the customer’s online buying experience. Also user-generated content can be perceived as value-adding and it is often regarded as more trustworthy than company created content. However, some types of content can also be perceived as disturbing. Finally, the research findings suggest that consumers are ready for digital developments able to bring the sensory side of apparel shopping into the online environment.
Despite the growing interest in the domain, past research efforts have done very little in order to establish a relationship between online customer experience, content marketing and the customer buying process. The theoretical framework for the research demonstrates that by establishing a content marketing strategy and thus creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content that focuses on prospects or customers, online fashion retailers are able to create positive customer experiences. These customer experiences can be seen as a holistic way of ensuring that customers are treated in a correct way at all stages of the buying process.
The research objectives were studied by utilising a qualitative research approach. The empirical data was collected and analysed in two steps. In Step 1 the most popular online fashion retailers on the Finnish market were selected and a preliminary content analysis was conducted by systematically reviewing the content available on these websites. In Step 2, data was collected by conducting two focus group interviews after which a secondary content analysis on these was conducted.
The key empirical findings of this research suggest that customer experience is a crucial element when selecting between online fashion retailers. Furthermore, the customer buying experience should progress smoothly all the way from prepurchase until the very end of the postpurchase stage. The role of content in online customer buying experience is first of all to inform and second of all to inspire the customer. In both cases, content should be created in accordance with the needs and wants of its target audience. In addition to the content itself, specific content features are able to bring additional value to the customer’s online buying experience. Also user-generated content can be perceived as value-adding and it is often regarded as more trustworthy than company created content. However, some types of content can also be perceived as disturbing. Finally, the research findings suggest that consumers are ready for digital developments able to bring the sensory side of apparel shopping into the online environment.