Understanding and improving the customer’s online shopping process - cosmetics

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

URL

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Business | Bachelor's thesis
Electronic archive copy is available locally at the Harald Herlin Learning Centre. The staff of Aalto University has access to the electronic bachelor's theses by logging into Aaltodoc with their personal Aalto user ID. Read more about the availability of the bachelor's theses.

Date

2016

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Business Technology

Language

en

Pages

30

Series

Abstract

The focus of this bachelor’s thesis is the customer’s experience when shopping cosmetics online. The thesis aims to understand the different stages and factors that the shopping process has and based on them, come up with solutions to improve the process and customer experience. The research questions of this bachelor’s thesis are “Which factors have an influence on the customer’s online shopping process?” and “How to improve the experience in cosmetics online shopping?”. The study aims to answer these questions in this order – first the previous one, then the latter. The methodology used in this bachelor’s thesis are literature review and a survey. The literature review focuses on the different stages in first the customer’s decision making process and then on customer’s online shopping experience. When examining the customer’s decision making process, the focus is on the factors that influence the decision between the shopping mode choice – whether the customer decides to shop online or in a traditional store. The scrutinizing of customer’s online shopping experience has a strong focus on customer satisfaction. The survey is conducted to support the finding of the literature review and also, on the other hand, to challenge them. The survey’s focus is on cosmetics online shopping, so the finding can not be generalized into online shopping in general. The results of this study include the factors that have the most influence on the customer’s online shopping process and experience when purchasing cosmetics. The most visible factors, that came up both in the literature and survey results, are according to my research (1) attracting the customers, (2) providing specific information on the products and (3) easiness of the process. Based on these three categories, I will make concrete suggestions on how the online retailer can improve the customer’s online shopping experience and thus increase customer satisfaction. The suggestions in the first category, attracting the customer’s, include marketing and visibility and low prices. Cosmetics online shopping is not yet very common and in order to achieve a wide client base, great visibility is needed. The customers who shop online expect the prices to be lower online and the online retailer should definitely meet these expectations. The second category’s suggestions are on the different ways to provide as descriptive information as possible. My suggestions include videos, the possibility to order samples to the customer’s home and the possibility to 3D print samples in the future. The third category, easiness of the process, is a wide subject. My suggestions to make the purchasing process easier includes clearness of the web page, adding a customer service chat on the page and also an app that the customer could scan the products’ barcodes with anywhere and receive information on the availability and price at the online store.

Description

Thesis advisor

Wallenius, Jyrki

Keywords

internet retailing, online shopping, cosmetics, customer experience

Other note

Citation