week4 The navigation design of Levi’s

There’s an art to effectively guiding your readers around your site, so that they know how much content is available, and where to find things when they want them. The easiest way to make a site easy to navigate is simply to not surprise the reader: put things where you would expect them to be positioned. This tutorial will review the best practices that have resulted from years of practice.(Ross,2010)

According to(Helen McCormick,2009),navigation contains two aspects: Search classification and interactive viewing. I am going to use her theory to analyze how Levi’s works in this area.

Search classification:

Website navigation-Ease of use, Too simplistic, Direct route, Different search options

Merchandise classification-Detailed categorise, Utilitarian categorise. hedonic categorise

Interactive viewing:

Viewing function/purpose, viewing rules/responsibility, none purchase opinion

(Helen McCormick,2009)

Search classification

There are several “navigation cues” used on Levi’s UK, such as the search engine. Levi’s has collection, news&events, media center, online shop and store location,5 paths on the homepage to browse merchandise., which are clear and direct routs for customers to use. Consumers might become tired and stressed by examining information on hundreds of products(Ha et al.,2007.Alba et al.,1997)But I found that it is not easy to use, there is no sitemaps and the search engine is so limited. If I want to search the jean, and I input “jean” in the product search blank. The result comes out with more than 17 pages of jean. Then I have to watch 17 pages of pictures to find out on jean that I like. There is no more options for me to do to narrow down my collection. If they could be specified with styles, colors, price, it would be more easy for users.

But as for the categorise, It is detailed and utilitarian. Customers could look for products by specific item as bottom or top, T-shirts or jackets, blacks or blues  Customers could gain Efficiency and achievement from the functional navigation design, as well as an hedonic shopping experience.

Interactive viewing:

Viewing apparel products in a variety of ways can help customers visualize how the items might look when worn(Ha et al.,2007)

Customers gain product details and products information through pictures, video , magazines.

Online retailer depend on image interactivity functions producing photo-realistic rendered images,3D images that rotate, and close-up images, these images enrich the information available to customers and help them estimate the visual and tactile qualities of the product(Inter Corp.,1999,cited in Fiore and Jin,2003)

On the Levi’s website. they use different ways to provide all the information about the product. Photo images, videos, music, ads are fully used in Levi’s media center and news&events to explain the product, to enlarge the brand image and to spread the sprite of Levi’s. It is a fantastic way of the online interactive viewing.

But there is some limited aspects in the web design.

This is a picture that Levi’s show the jean. They only have the front and back view of their product.3D image is not used to “create and manipulate visual images”. Customers could not even know how will it looks like on person. No hedonic sense they gained, no purchase decision they made.

To sum up, these little tips are all my personal opinion and I think all the retailers have their advantages and disadvantages.I am learning and gaining a lot from them.

Week3.Case study--Zara: Taking the Lead in Fast-Fashion

I am going to talk about ZARA, one of the largest international fashion companies, which has built a mature and effective online shop system. It belongs to Inditex, one of the world’s largest distribution groups(zara.com), who also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti. ZARA, as a flagship, is represented in Europe, America, Africa and Asia with 1412 stores in 69 countries, 500 of them in Spain. During 2007 it opened 560 stores across the group.

Medium Zara clothing offers quality trend at the female, teen, men and kids. In this same line comes a housewares brand (Zara Home) began selling online in October 2007.
In the period of 2009 the turnover was of 3.123 million, assuming an increase over the previous period of 3%. (zara background)

Zara’s turnover between 1986-2007

From the datas,it is certain to say that zara has been a leader both online and offline in fashion retailing.In my opinion,there are 2 main aspects that contributed zara’s success.

1.Unique Selling Proposition-fast fashion

Targeting on young consumers, Zara is not selling goods but fashion. It is claimed that Zara needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it to stores, compared with a six-month industry average, and launches around 10,000 new designs each year(BusinessWeek, 4 April 2006).

I went to Zara in the city center of Manchester every week in the past month and I found the clothes changed so quickly that made my desire of purchasing even stronger. The same issue happens in the ZARA ONLINE. If you go to zara.com, you can easily find out the latest product in the plate of new this week. It update the new fashion with new styles and new element every week. It is a period of changing both for the youth and for the world. People are likely to accept new product than ever before, especially for the young person such as me. I don’t really concern about what I need (like I don’t have a cold in winter so I have to buy one) but for what is in fashion and what makes me feel fantastic. Another effect for fast fashion is that the limited time and quantity would largely encourage people to buy the goods. Because if you don’t buy in a certain time of period, the clothe you are interested in would be sold out in a short time and would never be produced again.

2. Logistics:

“Inditex invested €90 million in 2002 to start Plataforma Europa, which exceeds 125,000 square meters (1.3 million square feet) of building surface area and is equipped with the last technologies that are specifically adapted for Inditex's activities. The combined activity of the centers in Zaragoza and Arteixo allows Zara to distribute products sold in more than 990 stores across 63 countries in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. "(http://www.inditex.com/)

The distribution takes place twice a week and each delivery always includes new models, so that the stores(both online and offline) are constantly refreshing their offer and the delivery from online store to customers is also very effective.

ALL IN ALL, I LOVE ZARA AND ITS FAST FASHION,AND I AM GOING TO FALLOW THE FASHION  THAT ZARA BROUGHT TO US.

Week2♬Web 2.0 The E-retailing tipping point

What are on this picture?

Atuos,entertainment,finance,games,geocities,groups,horoscopes,hotjobs,personals,real estates, kids, photos, shopping , sports ,travel...It is the whole life there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Business Week: ”Upwards of 430,000
people in the U.S. alone -- more than are
employed worldwide by General Electric Co.
and Procter & Gamble combined -- earn a
full- or part-time living on eBay"

 

we are in the web 2.0 era!

what is web 2.0?

The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wild Web.A Web 2.0 site gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumer) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. (From Wikipedia)

Web 2.0 ,in my mind, is facebook where I can meet my friends and share personal life ;is ebay where i can find some fantastic goods with low price; is youtube where I can watch movies, videos and my favorite singer's mtv.Web2  are the blogs, wikis, social-networking sites and other online communities, and virtual worlds all round my life. I want my life to be filled with happiness, joys, communications, information, and activities. So I go the my facebook everyday to keep in touch with my best friends, to tell them what has just happened in my life and to share my feelings and moods to the community; I go to the groupon to find out the latest discount and I go to the rail website to book a ticket to London. All these personal needs drives me to go online everyday.

As for fashion consumers, they are also derived online by Web 2.0.

 I am going to use ASOS online as an example to explain what factors make and encourage people to go to the website and to purchase online (based on the the feature :interaction , experience and entertainment).

The interaction on ASOS online store really impressed me. I clicked the bottom "life".

Blogs, Forums, Ideas, People, Groups, Help ,there are 6 pathways that I could after.

You could tell them what is on your fashion radar and post your pictures of your latest looks on asos blogs or just create your own asos blog.

You don't know what to wear to today? Then, go to the asos forums to discuss. People share the offer tips, problems, and tips on how to become beautiful. It is also a good platform to make friends, to wax lyrical about all other stuff and to get live help from the customer care center.

Customers' idea are encouraged to be given in the ideas plates.“I would love ANINNA VOGEL jewelry to be on ASOS as it's worn by SO many famous people” posted by stephanie.People make them involved in this business,they speak out what they really need and want and the most active people are ranked in the people plate to drive more customers to participate in.

It is a fantastic way to

Customers feel as a host when purchase the expected good and they may gain a lot of fun from the website.This kind of  happy experience makes the customer loyalty and encourages people shopping online.

Week1♬The Online Market Place

The traditional retailing operations have been perceived a localized or national operations, with limited market power and limited managerial skills and sophistication.(Nicholas Alexander)

However, the advent of Internet retailing has transformed the market- place. E-retailing has changed quickly from an unreachable behaviour to an essential  for everyone.

What is E-retailing?

"a form of shopping in which some form of electronic communications technology is used at the offering,ordering and/or payment stage"-McGoldrick.

But e-retailing is not that all

 E-retailing is through the Internet or other electronic channels, to provide the goods and services for personal or family.It is a new commmerce action which using a variety of different technologies or media to provide high levels of service to value-conscious consumers.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of e-retailing for e-retailers？


Advantages：

1.  Save cost

 For e-retailers, place is no longer an important elements. That is to say, they do not have to pay the high rent of the stores in an famous shopping center or in the city center.

2. Fast  market respons to up date goods and service

3.Save wages and human resources

4.order could be made 24 hours a day

5.more informations and reviews could be delivered

Disadvantages：

1.high cost in adequate preparation, investment and operating

2.logistics problems

3.payment system

4.purchase security

5.the difficulties of after-sales service

Different Areas and Countries for some high street fashion retailers

                          1.Zara online is in 5 Areas and 74Countries

                                                                                                                              

2.H&M online is in 9 Countries

                           3.Topshop has two region from UK to US

        4.River Island has nearly 300 stores across the UK, Ireland and internationally throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe,but no specific website for different countries.

Different retailers may use various strategis and undoubtedly the e-retailing will become tremendous marketing strategic in the future.