Comparing The Iconic And Catch: A Study Of Online Retail In Australia

Objective

The Iconic and Catch are two online business stores for fashion, sports, kidswear and etc. In this study the comparision and evaluation of both the businesses will be considered.

The Sydney based company “The Iconic” was established in 2011. Presently The Iconic is one the most popular and largest sports and fashion retailer in Australia (Rao 2020). The Iconic works with more than 1000 brands with over 60,000 items. Some of the labels of australia working with The Iconic are Sass & Bide, Running Bare and international Brand like Nike, Calvin Klein, Levi’s and etc. The Iconic is also within the Global Fashion Group and has been governed by Erica Berchtold the CEO of The Iconic since 2011.

Catch is also an Australian platform of online retail since 2006. It is more popular because of the reasonable price in which the products are sold. The price chart for branded products are much lower here than in the other online platforms .

The aim in this paper is to evaluate and compare the online platforms The Iconic and Catch on the basis of some functions like business models, business process, related processes, data gathering and etc.

Business Model

 Business models refer to the plan that a company has in order to make profit. The services or products that will be sold by the business, the target audience, and the expected expenses are identified in a business model.

Catch group Pty Ltd is a local company owned by a private firm that generates the revenue via e-commerce and online retailing in Australia (McLean and Wilson 2019). The approximate number or staff employed in the company is 480. The Catch Group Pty Ltd head office is located at Bentleigh East, Victoria.

The Iconic is a retail company based in an online platform. The Iconic develops partnerships with the brands they work with. The headquarter is situated in Australia. The average web sale that The Iconic experiences is of around $500M-$1B.

The Iconic

Every business posses  broadly two type of stakeholders, internal and external stakeholders. Employees falls under the internal stakeholders and customers and suppliers falls under external.

Employees:-

• Developers: The online platforms is developed in digital platforms, hence software developers are required to built such platforms where the business can run. The Iconic and Catch both being digital markets hire developers in order to structure the websites.
• Operators: The websites after being developed needs to be operated on a regular basis to manage the businesses (Yadav 2020). Technically sound employees are required for this job profile to maintain and operate The Iconic and Catch websites.
• Security team: Digital platforms are highly prone to data leakage therefore strong security is to be maintained by the websites. In businesses like The Iconic and Catch, employees only focusd to the security domain are hence needed.
• Models: As because both The Iconic and Catch are websites based on online marketing hence visual display is a vital factor in these industries (Ma 2021). Products are displayed with the help of models for better understanding, which makes models important part or employees of this industry.
• Tester customer: In order to verify the products being sold in these businesses like The Iconic and Catch, dummy customers are hired who does the testing of the products. The tester customers are used to identify problems if any and evaluate the products.

Suppliers:-

The Iconic and Catch works with various brands globally who supplies them with the products that they sell in their platforms.

Customers:-

Customers are the most important stakeholder for any industry. The Iconic sells clothings, accessories, sprots, kidswear primarily hence the target audience arefashion enthusiasts, sports person etc (Bacik et al. 2020). The Catch along with fashion accessories and sports items sells electronic goods and home décor items thus the target audience is broader for Catch.

Functional Requirements

The Iconic:

In online markets like The Iconic, in order to buy any product the first requirement is the availability of good internet connection and a device that supports browsing (Frishammar et al. 2018). The business process here is to first register and create an acoount in The Iconic apps or web sites respectively. After an account is created one can search for the products in the following websites and go through the items available there. If the customers finds an item of their own choice they can select the same and put it in the basket. In the similar way when three items are to be purchased in The Iconic, the customer is supposed to choose and pick the items from the website and add it to the basket. After the items are selected the customer must proceed with the payment procedure. In the procedure the customer has to select the mode of payment like Visa, gift vouchers, mastercard or cash (Tupikovskaja-Omovie and Tyler 2021). After selection of the payment methods a confirmation is sent to the customers from the company’s side. The customer is supposed to go through the confirmation message or mail thoroughly. The acoount in The Iconic also shows the deilvery status of a product, the customer can follow the same for better knowledge of the products that has been ordered by them. Hence after going through the payment methods, confirmation message and delivery status the customer can check out from the portals of The Iconic. Till the products gets delivered the customers can keep a track of the products from the delivery status page. Eventually when the product gets delivered the customer again receives a confirmation message from the business The Iconic. If the customers are satisfied with the product they can share a positive feedback with the businesses and if the customers face any issue with the products they can proceed with the refund and return procedures which are againg applicable only under certain terms and conditions.

Catch :

The business process in the catch is similar to that of The iconic except that in catch the delivery address and payment details are wanted on the same page with the login details.  Also the age criteria for registration in catch is 18 years and also the refund and return policies are different for both the organizations

The Iconic and Catch are bounded by certain limitations when doing business with their customers (Galhotra and Dewan 2020).

Exceptions

Catch :

• Catch allows to purchase without creation of an account with the help of guest check out
• Generally orders are delivered but at times in certain items pick up from Kmart option is available.
• There are certain policies for return and refund but the products which do not fall under those policies that is the exceptional cases are cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fooditems, swimwear etc.

The Iconic:

• If the items which are delivered have issues such as they are defective, not the correct item or size or colors are not suitable then exchange, refund or return are allowed depending on the situation.
• Not all Final sale items or hygiene related items are allowed for return, refund or exchange.
• Generally Orders cannot be cancelled once they are made, maximum the customers are asked to go for another product under the same budget range (Etumnu and Widmar 2020). But if the card that the customers are providing gets declined or a problem arises with the card which is not in the customer’s reach then the orders made against that card can be canacelled.

The Iconic:

• The offers that the the Iconic provide like 15% off with fresh waves or mid season sale for their customers are not compulsory but still it attrackts the customers to shop from The Iconic.
• Availability of gift vouchers are not compulsory for online markets but still having this facility makes The Iconic popular (Hayes 2021).

Catch:

• Social media accounts of catch in order to promote is a related process which helps the business to spread (Ayuni 2019).
• The coin system can also be referred as a related process as the business can be runned also without that facility but having it makes the platform of Catch innovative.

Catch:

• All the products that are sold under Catch.com.au has guarantee which is included in the Australian consumer law (2022). Refund or replacement is supposed to happen if any major fault is identified also if the provided good does not fall under acceptable state then it is supposed to be repaired or if required replaced.
• Warranty provided by Catch will also fall under remedies and rights that is there under the Australian consumer law. Again many products contains warranty provided by the manufacturer and Catch, for such products Catch cannot be held responisible entirely. The manufacturer is supposed to be contacted in that case for detailed information.
• If at anytime a dispute is raised between the Catch and the external party the dispute will be investigated following the dispute resolutions that are published.

The Iconic:

• Force majeure: The iconic is not responsible of any damage that takes place from the organizations side due to issues that are out of control like, pandemic, flood, lightning, strike, riot, malicious damage, technical issues like system failure, accident.
• Rights to third party: all the terms and conditions are applicable to the iconic , the subsidiaries of the iconic, affiliates of the iconic (Clothes & Shoes | Sports, Beauty & More Online | THE ICONIC, 2022). All shall have the authority to apply and assert such provisions.
• Notices: Any information out side the written or given terms or conditions are to be communicated officially that is either via mail or via writing at the registered office.

The set of data that is required for buying an item from an online store are as follows:

• Full name of the buyer
• Date of birth of the buyer (Febiyola 2019)
• Mail id of the buyer
• Mobile number of the buyer
• Items selected by the buyer
• Specifications of the items which are selected from the buyer
• Delivery address of the buyer
• Specific code provided by the company against to the purchase
• Process of payment
• Online platform that is to be used by the buyer
• Details of the specific platform
• Any gift coupon or voucher that is being used while purchasing.
• If a gift card is being purchased then the amount that must be available in the gift card.

Some of the important differences between The Iconic and  Catch are discussed below.

• The Iconic sells products only based on clothing, sports, accessories, kidswear whereas Catch sells products like electronic goods, home décor, food products along with fashion, accessories, kidswear as well as sports (Selaiyur and Nadu 2021). So catch has a wider target audience than that of The Iconic.
• The payment methods that are followed by The Iconic and Catch are different in certain ways. Like the iconic accepts some foreign currency and where as catch does not.
• To register in Catch one needs to be above 18 years, The Iconic has no such age criteria.

Conclusion

In this study The Iconic and Catch the two online markets are considered. Both The Iconic and Catch are austraian based marketing platforms. Though the primary objectives for the companies are almost similar still there are quite a number of differences between both the companies. The business models for both the organizations are different in a way which generates separate graphs of profit. The stakeholders of both the companies have separate responsibilities. Some variations are there in the business process of The Iconic and Catch which are discussed here. Like every company The Iconic and Catch both has few exceptions which are also considered in this study (Heidenstrøm and Hebrok 2022). The business rules are very much different for all organizations including the iconic and catch making separate list of protocols. The related or innovative process are ofcourse different for both the companies creating a competitive atmosphere for both. The types of data and their collection process for both the organization are also discussed in this report. Basically a brief discussion regarding the similarities and differences between both the companies are considerd in this study.

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