B E N C H M A R K I N G J A B O N G. C O M

Transcription

1 B E N C H M A R K I N G J A B O N G. C O M -SURBHI S HARMA, I M T G HA ZIAB AD RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: To benchmark Jabong.com and list recommendations to improve the online fashion industry. Fashion industry here is limited to Apparel, Footwear and Accessories only. RESEARCH QUESTIONS: 1. What are the reasons why youth would buy online v/s offline? 2. Out of Apparel, Footwear and Accessories, for which one does Online work better and for which one does Offline and Why? 3. Which ecommerce website is famous for Apparel, Footwear and Accessories? Where does Jabong.com lag? RESEARCH: DEPTH INTERVIEWS: INSIGHTS: Respondents belonged to the age group 18 to 28 years. These interviews helped us answer the first research question. They gave various reasons to prefer online shopping: Fast Saves Time. Convenient Easy to reach, easy to pay, good return policies, Easy to choose (Gives a categorised variety). Saves Money Discount offers and Coupons, Better deals, Better prices, travel money saved. Huge Variety Easy to gift Scope of Customization. They gave various reasons for offline shopping: Quality Touch and Feel, Reliability. Trial Fitting No delay in shipment

2 RECOMMENDATIONS FROM DEPTH INTERVIEWS: Customers face problems with receiving the shipment. They feel that sometimes the shipment doesn t reach them on the desired time and date. This often leads to them asking somebody else to collect the shipment and results in them being unable to try the product that they had delivered. This could be resolved by: o Giving them a facility that shows specific delivery time windows and the convenient address specific to each window. For example: the buyer says that if the delivery is made between 10 AM to 6 PM, then it should be at their official address, else it should be at their home address. o The time of shipment with a range of plus-minus 2 hours should be specified along with the exact date of shipment. This will also help in cases where Cash on Delivery is chosen as an option. It would help the buyer to make arrangements for the shipment s payment. There are three factors which are not in favour of online shopping. They are: o Quality Touch and Feel, Reliability: This could be dealt with by having stringent quality checks at the website s end. There could be videos that show the product from all directions. o Trial and Fitting The buyers find it difficult to purchase online, because they are not actually able to understand how the product would look on them. Such an issue can be tackled to an extent through technology. What we can do is, ask the user to feed in their measurements and these measurements could be formulated into a mannequin which can be shown as wearing the item that the user plans to buy. This could give them a rough idea as to how the product would look on them and allow them to try things online (indirectly). o Delay in shipment The time of delivery varies from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Improved MIS and logistics management should help resolve this. This issue has to be handled technically. The supply chain and the fleet management system also have to be well sorted. This requires a lot of technical expertise and planning. The shipment timings provided should be made more realistic. SURVEY: PURPOSE OF THE SURVEY: To answer research question 2 and a part of research question 3. The survey was conducted with about 75 respondents. These respondents were in the age group of years. They were asked questions to understand there preferential mode of buying apparel, shoes and accessories and also which online store they prefer using in case of all three fashion goods. A LINK TO THE SURVEY:

3 INSIGHTS: The survey results are as follows: FIGURE 1: ACCESSORY SHOPPERS - ONLINE 1.35% 2.70% 0.00% 4.05% 8.11% 12.16% 1.35% 4.05% 1.35% 44.59% % % 10 more than 10 FIGURE 2 - CLOTHES SHOPPERS - ONLINE 1.35% 1.35% 2.70% 5.41% 2.70% 5.41% % 5.41% 47.30% % 9 more than %

4 FIGURE 3 - SHOE SHOPPER ONLINE 2.67% 5.33% 16.00% 17.33% 58.67% more than 3 It can be understood from the above pie-charts that the youth prefers offline shopping in comparison to online shopping. It can be seen that in case of o Clothes 47.30% of the respondents bought none of their clothes online. o Shoes 58.67% of the respondents bought none of their shoes online. o Accessories 44.59% of the respondents bought none of their accessories online. FIGURE 4

5 FIGURE 5 FIGURE 6

6 Figures 4, 5 and 6 show that Jabong.com is not the leading seller in the Fashion Industry and respondents prefer to buy from other online sellers such as Flipkart.com, Myntra.com, etc. Brainstorming and further analysis led to the answer of research question 3. The unpopularity could be attributed to the following: o Payment Insecurities Fear of theft of credit card details, fraud, etc. o Return Concerns The myth that returns will require extra money and extra effort. o Customer Service Issues. o Incomplete Positioning. Some ways to tackle the issues could be: RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE SURVEY: Payment Insecurities Positioning Jabong.com as the safest online store could help solve this issue. Advertisements that talk about the safety of paying online and position Jabong.com as the safest online fashion stores would help. Since a large part of the population is concerned about the payment issues, we should understand the requirement of repositioning and go ahead with the same. Return Concerns Recently, there have been huge inconsistencies and issues with returns. Customers are dissatisfied with the return policies. There have to be better logistics management systems to cater to this issue. Realistic return policies should be made. Customer satisfaction has to be in the DNA of every employee. Once this culture is established, the issue of Customer Service can also be resolved. Incomplete positioning Right now, Jabong.com is known only for fashion clothes. To be known for shoes and for accessories, there needs to be more variety in these domains. The accessories have to be guaranteed for their quality, because quality matters a lot here. Overall brand building can be done by opening stores, called Jabong.com, in various cities.