ZALORA's Marketing Essay Boosts Singaporean Customer Shopping.

Factors that influence buying behavior of customers to purchase

Describe all the marketing efforts they make ( online and offline ) to encourage their customer to shop and buy in the Singapore market.?

ZALORA sells accessories, apparel, shoes and beauty products for men and women as an online fashion retailer. It’s headquarter is located in Singapore. ZALORA has its localized sites in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam. ZALORA sells both local and international brands in each country. In Australia and New Zealand ZALORA also operates as iconic (a Sydney based online, Australian fashion retailer). In Singapore it is a flagship investment of rocket internet. ZALORA launched in 2012. As a major player in Asian-Pacific region, it has been serving more than 2 million customers since 2012. It stepped its feet into market with the help of Tech incubator Rocket Internet and German venture fund. In 2013 ZALORA expanded the services by offering a delivery service to Brunei. In mid 2013 ZALORA expanded the offered service in Malaysia by offering a delivery service to the Brunei. In 2013’s last quarter, ZALORA launched its own private label. It has also come know that it had become the sole online distributor of River Island, UK based fashion brand in Southeast Asia. ZALORA has also announced about their successful completion of the second round of funding by raising a total amount of US$112 Million (Kim, 2012). ZALORA declared about the plans to set up a marketplace in the first quarter of a 2014.

There are two leading platform in social-commerce, which are Zalora.com and ZALORA face book.

Entrepreneurs, who wish to sell their craft, are able to set up their own online boutique through ZALORA marketplace and do customization accordingly

ZALORA opened in Singapore’s ION Orchard Shopping Center. ZALORA’s Singapore marketing director Dione Song emphasis upon the fact of dominance of the retail space is evident through customer behavior. Dione said “there is a significant share of overall retail in offline marketing, which is seen as a lot of potential to test out such a retail concept.

Drawing consumer insight, Dione said about shop’s physical space is fulfilling the aim of making the shopping experience less worrisome for the customers as it removed hindrances, which are found during online purchases on fashion merchandise. For example, shoppers are unable to feel the fabric or to try the items to get the perfect fit. Regional managing director of ZALORA called the store a great customer acquisition tool (Market Research Portal, 2006).

ZALORA is no doubt the best online boutique in Malaysia. ZALORA offers varieties of amazing online products for both women and men. As an online marketing strategy ZAROLA adopt Business-to-Consumer strategy, where the products are directly sold to end users through online. There are growing numbers of consumer, who are using internet enabled devices to find and compare best price-matching offers. In online exchange process, customers can initiate and control the contact. Hence online marketing requires new marketing approaches ZALORA is seen to apply them (Nawatta Kimwong, 2013). 

Results of including cross cultural strategy

The rapid development in IT (information technology) gives a great impact. There are lots of people who are using it and it is potential for organization and business to transform from a common B-to-C platform to a social commerce, which is more customer oriented. There are two leading platform in social-commerce, which are Zalora.com and ZALORA face book. There are some review papers, which show the e-commerce objectives for each designing principle layer to give focus for the identification of the user preferences, building community and to develop conversation- all these provide high quality websites, motivates users (Marsden, 2001).

According to Shein (2012), online footwear and fashion seller ZALORA has agreed upon both regional and domestic strategy, offering its fashion goods across Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as within the country. ZALORA offers many unique conditions, which attract customer to engage with them. ZALORA have more than 300 local and international brands with expensive catalogue of menswear, womenswear, beauty product, cosmetic with various styles and categories with different rice range. The most highlighted offer provided by ZALORA is the free shipping within Malaysia and 30 days return policy. Again, ZALORA is committed to provide a enjoyable shopping experience along with great customer service.

Sellers, who wish to build their own online fashionable wares, will find that it is easy enough to create their own online shop within ZALORA. They will even get help in setting up shop with free advice and consultations from ZALORA’s strategic marketplace expert (Rees and Park, 2013).

Strongest influence to purchase apparels on ZALORA based on six factors, such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, service and product quality, information security and privacy, role of experimental online shopping motives and social influences (Hassan, Zaman and Santosa, 2015).

• Perceived usefulness is considered as the degree to which someone can believe that his performance can be enhanced by the system (Solomon, 2006).
  
  
• Privacy refers to the condition, where based on individual identification, a condition of limited access is given. On the other aspect security can be described as the “state or quality of being secure and to be out of danger while online” (Noel, 2009).
  
  
• Good quality of product information helps to increase customer’s confidence and trust for the shopping in website. Better product information helps customers to be more confident on online purchases because consumers trust the website. Hence, they feel lower risk of information security. At the same time product prices are main concern as they affect purchase intention. With the rapid growth of the internet along with e-business technology, there is a rapid growth in internet exchange, where products are available at lower prices than in conventional outlets (Goworek, 2007).
  
  
• Generally social circle of a person comprises of his peers constitute of family member, friends. Therefore online shopping is a socially desirable behavior. Beside all these, social media also contribute a strong impact towards buying things online through the exposure of the products online with the help of social networking sites or with the attractive advertisement (Paley, 2007).
  
  
• Online shopping experience comprises a present or past occurrence and results in two scenarios, such as outcome of desired fulfillment and outcome of desired conflict. Outcome of desired conflict occurs when a person fails to achieve goal or experiences an unpleasant incident, which develop negative emotional reaction (Cooke, Watkins and Moy, 2008).

ZALORA’s market place is a unique hub for those who look out for one-of-a-kind fashion pieces and independent to sell to the individual test of buyers. Entrepreneurs, who wish to sell their craft, are able to set up their own online boutique through ZALORA marketplace and do customization accordingly (Cline, 2012).

Sellers, who wish to build their own online fashionable wares, will find that it is easy enough to create their own online shop within ZALORA. They will even get help in setting up shop with free advice and consultations from ZALORA’s strategic marketplace expert (Rees and Park, 2013).

Marketers can benefit by making more effective marketing mix and target on the perception of the ease of use aspect, which can expand customer base and customer retention.

ZALORA’s this strategy can be considered as both the local and global strategy. As it is giving chances to entrepreneurs to customize their boutique according to their local strategy and the entrepreneurs are allowed get participation from any location across the globe. This scenario gives ZALORA to explore their cross cultural strategy (Cant, Brink and Brijball, 2006).

There are some review papers, which show the e-commerce objective of this cross cultural strategies to give focus for the identification of the user preferences, building community and developing conversation provides high quality websites, motivates users.

It is highly recommended for ZALORA to include more interactive interviews (offline) or the blogs (online) to go in-depth sight on ZALORA. Hence, respondents across Malaysia can get the opportunity to share their opinion regarding the brand (Wojcieszak, 2009).

Conclusion:

With all the discussion done above, all factors and perceived usefulness has been found most significant to affect customer’s purchasing intention towards ZALORA apparels. Even customers find it easy to have online shopping and also more time saving. From the above study it is evident that the perceived ease of use needs to be considered by marketers, so that increment in sales and consumption of their products can take place by advancing their ease of navigation. Marketers can benefit by making more effective marketing mix and target on the perception of the ease of use aspect, which can expand customer base and customer retention. Entrepreneurs, who wish to sell their craft, are able to set up their own online boutique through ZALORA marketplace and do customization accordingly. ZALORA offers many unique conditions, which attract customer to engage with them. ZALORA have more than 300 local and international brands with expensive catalogue of menswear, womenswear, beauty product, cosmetic with various styles and categories with different price range. The most highlighted offer provided by ZALORA is the free shipping within Malaysia and 30 days return policy. Again, ZALORA is committed to provide an enjoyable shopping experience along with great customer service. There are some review papers, which shows the e-commerce objectives for each designing principle layer give focus for the identification of the user preferences, building community and to develop conversation, provides high quality websites, motivates users.

References

Cant, M., Brink, A. and Brijball, S. (2006). Consumer behaviour. Cape Town, South Africa: Juta.

Cline, E. (2012). Overdressed. New York: Portfolio/Penguin.

Cooke, M., Watkins, N. and Moy, C. (2008). A hybrid online and offline approach to market measurement studies. International Journal of Market Research, 51(1), p.29.

Goworek, H. (2007). Fashion buying. Oxford: Blackwell Pub.

Hassan, H., Zaman, B. and Santosa, I. (2015). Tolerance of Islam: A Study on Fashion among Modern and Professional Malay Women in Malaysia. IJSSH, 5(5), pp.454-460.

Kim, M. (2012). The Relation of Fashion Image and Followership. Fashion business, 16(4), pp.64-74.

Market Research Portal. (2006). Choice Reviews Online, 44(02), pp.44-0707-44-0707.

Marsden, D. (2001). Deconstructing consumer behaviour: theory and practice. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 1(1), pp.9-21.

Nawatta Kimwong, (2013). The study of two international social commerce companies. [Bangkok, Thailand]: Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Thammasat University.

Noel, H. (2009). Consumer behaviour. Lausanne, Switzerland: AVA Academia.

Paley, N. (2007). The marketing strategy desktop guide. London: Thorogood.

Rees, K. and Park, E. (2013). Globalization and fashion marketing performance. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 4(1), pp.1-3.

Solomon, M. (2006). Consumer behaviour. Harlow, England: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

Wojcieszak, M. (2009). “Carrying Online Participation Offlineâ€Â-Mobilization by Radical Online Groups and Politically Dissimilar Offline Ties. Journal of Communication, 59(3), pp.564-586.