Web Analytics of E-Commerce

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Introduction
The Website: www.argos.co.uk
List of References

Executive Summary

E-commerce has become very popular over the recent past. This has seen the rise of new methods of conducting market research. Market research is important because the market is dynamic and there is need to adjust to the changes that take place in it. Web analytic tools have come up to help in tracking down customers’ movement in the market. One of the web analytic tool that is currently in use is the JavaScript.

With its tracking cookies, it is able to record the behavior of a browser on the internet. This tool has various applications and it can be very useful to a firm like Argos. This firm can use this tool to understand customer behavior. It can also be used to enhance the firm’s performance. This tool also helps the management in making decision.

Introduction

Use of JavaScript as a web analytic tool has gained popularity over the recent past. Wittner (2003, p. 67) defines web analytic as a comprehensive process of collecting, analyzing, measuring and reporting data on the internet in order to facilitate increased web usage.

Web analytic is an instrument for market research that can be utilized to assess web traffic, verify the efficiency of the website, and build up ways through which a particular online corporation can advance its website. Web analyst can choose the two approaches that is, on-site and off-site web analytics.

On-site web analytics concerns itself with tracking down customer actions once he or she gets into the website (Amable 2003, p. 12). Off-line web analytics involves on line buying irrespective of the site. All this should aim at ensuring that the firm gains footage in marketing.

Marketing has completely changed from what it used to be in the past. As Peteraf (1993, p. 180) observes, Many companies in the early nineteenth century were more concerned with production of goods and services. The market was readily available. Marketing took an inward out approach.

The market had to take what was availed to it. Competition was very limited and many large corporations operated in a near monopoly market. By then, marketing was a small department within the production unit. Casper and Matraves (2003, 1882) say that sales were a more important functional unit than marketing.

This changed sharply in the mid of nineteenth century due to a number of reasons. More firms came into existence, as the market was available. Duplication of products became rampant, a fact that saw many firms face stiff competition as more firms found themselves in the same markets with similar products.

Strategy had to be changed. Firms had to develop new methods to ensure that they remained competitive in order to survive. Marketing gained relevance as a way of ensuring that firms maintained a positive outlook in the market. This saw a shift of marketing from inside out to outside in. Currently, firms produce what the market demands. With emerging technologies, marketing is taking a completely new face.

Electronic marketing, popularly known as e marketing, is one of the most fascinating inventions in the field of marketing that has seen the rise and fall of various companies across the world. Competition has gone a notch higher. Companies are determined to reach out to various customers in various regions in a bid to increase their market share.

E marketing has proven to be the new marketing tool that any organization cannot afford to assume. This has seen many companies develop websites that are interactive with the customers. In Porter’s and McGahan’s (2007, p. 20) words, websites have created markets for customers within their living rooms. Websites have been used as a means of ensuring that a company’s product is made known to potential customers.

On-line retailers have emerged in many countries as a means of reaching out to the customer. One such online retailer is Argos. Having realized the potential in this field of marketing, this company has keenly embraced the emerging technologies to enhance its sales.

Operating in the United Kingdom where most of the population is computer literate, Argos has found internet marketing one of the best ways that it can gain a competitive edge over other companies. Through its website, the company is able to sell to customers who are within United Kingdom and even beyond.

With great advancement in the forum where such huge companies such as Amazon.com have been keen to assert their authority, Argos has realized that it has to be at its best to manage market competition.

The Website: www.argos.co.uk

An Overview of the Site

Argos website is what Ghemawat (1999, p.11) would call a standard website for an international online store. The site www.argos.co.uk/- leads the online stores of Argos stores. The website has six broad categories of products. The first category is home and furniture. This section has several products that are meant to furnish a house. The next category of products is for home entertainment.

This includes all electronic appliances that are meant for entertainment. The other category is for kitchen and laundry. Furthermore, there is a section for sports. Lastly, the sixth section is for clearance, which has massive products from home healthcare facilities to clothing, jewelry and many more.

The site is very interactive. It directs customers on what to do. The site has a variety of products per section. Proper graphics have been used to enhance customer selection. To make shopping easier for on-line shoppers, the company has ensured that most of their products have price tags that would make the experience easier.

The website is well designed, as a customer is able to access clarifications from the site. Although the huge demand overwhelms the system sometimes, the company has always strove to ensure that it is always operating as per the expectation

Linking Argos Business Intelligence to its Web Analytics Data

Argos Business intelligence acts as its weapons in the market. It is through this that this business unit can make decision about the market. Ghemawat (35) says that business intelligence provides the past, current and predictive operational views of the business. It would be important to link Argos’ business intelligence to its web analytics data.

This would ensure that current information that is gathered from the website research is included in the business intelligence to help in decision making. Because business intelligence is computer-based, it would be easier to link directly, web analytic data to Argos’ business intelligence

Using Web Analytic Tools to Understand Customer Behavior

As stated above, Argos is one of the leading online stores in the United Kingdom. It has managed to occupy a niche in the country as one of the leading provider of household items. The company’s website has been very reliable in helping the management to understand customer behavior.

According to Kanniainen and Keuschnigg (2005, p. 90), understanding customer behavior is one of the most important duties of a marketer. It is important for the marketer to understand that market competition can only be managed if a company is in a position to ensure that it understands the market requirements.

It is only through understanding market dynamics that the company can provide quality services that satisfy the customer. However, since customers are human beings, each one of them is unique. The behavior of one customer may not be identical to that of another. Their levels of satisfaction also differ. However, there are broad categories in which they can be grouped so that a generalization about them can be made.

Gompers and Lerner (2004, p. 23) say that understanding customer behavior in an online store may be a little more difficult than in a brick and moter store.

This scholar says that in a click shop, it would demand that the marketer draws conclusion about the behavior of the customer by simply studying the behavior on the site. Hollingsworth (2000, p. 45) says that it would require that a marketer lays proper procedures and employs proper web analytic tools that would enable him or her to manage and conduct a proper analysis.

Individuals are likely to visit the Argos website because of several reasons. It may be because a friend recommended the site or through the commercials done by the company in its bid to market itself. It could also be by chance when such a customer was navigating the site. Irrespective of the reason that leads an individual to the site, his or her behavior while at the site would be of interest to the analyst.

The analyst should first determine the time taken by the individual at the site in general. Some visitors of the site may find it very irrelevant and may take less than a minute and navigate away from the site. Such a visitor should be treated as a guest who came across the site by chance, not choice and finds the site irrelevant. The second group would be those that would be called window shoppers in a brick and moter stores.

They are individuals who visit the site to admire some of the products that the company stocks. Hall and Soskice (2001, p. 54) say that window-shopping is always the first stage in a customer’s decision-making process. When a customer goes window-shopping, he or she develops the desire to own such products after seeing some of the admirable features of the product.

This scholar explains that most large stores in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world embraced glass windows in their stores in the mid 1980s onwards after a realization that it can facilitate sales of goods and services. The last group, which is very important to this organization, is the shoppers.

These customers come to the site with a sole purpose of making purchases. These individuals know what they want and how to get it through the website

Web Analytics Techniques and Tools that can be Used to Understand Visitors’ Behavior and the Site’s Click Stream

In order to understand the visitors behavior and the sites click stream, it would require a special tool that would enhance the same. Gompers and Lerner (2004, p. 56) say that click stream analysis is very useful when analyzing web activities, market research, software testing and analysis of employee activity.

To help in this analysis, JavaScript technologies have been developed that comes with tracking cookies that are able to generate signal series from browsers.

They enable the analyst to track the path of the customer from one site to another. The signals can then be presented graphically in a report format for further inferences. Although it has raised many questions concerning privacy, it has proven to be a very effective way of analyzing customer’s behavior.

Using Web Analytic Tools to Improve Performance

JavaScript has gained popularity as web analytic tool that can be used to enhance performance of a business like Argos. After successful tracking down customer behavior using the tracking cookies, the marketing team can enhance the performance of the firm in various fronts. Argos is a large company that is trading in a highly competitive industry.

In the furniture sector, it would meet stiff competition from firms such as IKEA, which have developed a large base of loyal customers. The competitors have websites that are very interactive and known widely. The JavaScript can play an important role in ensuring that Argos gains competitive edge over some of the strong competitors in this sector.

The website provides customers with the best opportunity to attract new customers. Wittner (2003, p. 71) says that a good website should provide new visitors with unique experience the moment they click on the site. This scholar says that graphics is very important. In the website, just like in superstores found within the city of London, display is very important.

A captivating sight would attract a customer. Using tracking cookies, a researcher is able to generate customers’ market trend. Peteraf (1993, p. 35)says that an online marketer has a much difficult task because unlike in supermarkets where customers can have a touch of the product, online products can only be seen. A customer would be forced to deduce the quality of such products by sight.

Because of this, a marketer in an online store should go an extra mile in ensuring that customers are provided with the graphics that would help them discern and determine the quality of various products available for sale. By using the cookies, a researcher is able to determine the pattern of behavior of the browsers on the site. The researcher can determine attractive sites to visitors and improve on those that are less attractive.

In the current state of affair, the company’s website has the required graphics. However, an improvement would be needed if it were to attract more customers. Taking the furniture section for example, the marketing team should add more varieties of the products in this section because those that are put on the display are limited. Most furniture is expensive and therefore their purchase is highly involving.

The website should therefore provide them with more varieties that are available in the stores. It should consider having modern designs put in this website. Amable (2003, 41) says that unlike in brick and moter stores where shop assistants would be available to offer more information concerning the usage of items in the store, online stores do not have this option.

Customers who are interested in home entertainment products may need clarification on how various electronics function. Such a customer would need to be informed about the positive differential features that such a product has over other products.

Casper and Matraves holds that online products need to be self-explanatory. Customers should be in a position to acquire all the information about the product from the website. Argos website should improve on this in order to remain competitive in the market.

The site should also be used as a research tool. JavaScript has made this possible through the usage of tracking cookies. Gompers and Lerner (2004, 64)say that the current market is highly competitive. Marketers are always left at loss because the business environment is very dynamic. What is considered attractive today may not be attractive after a few days.

Products’ life cycles have gotten shorter and the only way to remain competitive is to be in a position to detect change as early as possible and act upon it in a manner that would put the company at a better position to manage competition in the market. Hall and Soskice (2001, p. 85) say that online stores are better placed to track down the behavior of customers concerning changing tastes and preferences.

The marketing team of Argos should track down all the activities of customers and develop a database that can be analyzed later to determine the trends of the market. It is important that such data is analyzed and an action plan developed on how to manage emerging trends in the market.

Using the Website to Enhance Decision Making

Decision making process for a company such as Argos may need a deep understanding of all the factors that play off in the market. Gompers and Lerner (2004, p. 96) say that in making decision, a firm is supposed to define a path that it intends to take, and commit itself to any consequences that may come with such a decision. Argos is trading in an industry that is highly competitive, with players that are well developed in the market.

It must make an effort to ensure that it is able to manage this competition in order to remain in this market. Decisions made should be based on factors that have been studied and their patterns known. By using JavaScript, a web-based market research can be conducted with the help of tracking cookies. The research results can then form basis of decision-making.

The website can be used to ensure that the decisions made are within the context. As stated above, the marketing team of this firm should use tracking cookies that would allow it record the rate of customer visits to the site. The record should have all categories of visitors to the site. The first category would be new visitors. Of interest would be to monitor the time taken by the new visitor.

A decision can be made on how to ensure that such visitors are turned into potential customers. The website should not only provide them with beautiful graphics but also a justification that the product is uniquely good. In order to do this, it would require the management to monitor behavior of such customers in order to predict what could be their best motivator in the purchase decisions.

To the existing customers, decision should be based on how to retain them. As Gompers and Lerner note, although it is much easier to retain existing customers than acquiring new ones, it is very demanding to ensure that customers are kept in close touch not to make them look for alternative products.

Ghemawat (1999, p. 19)says that in making decisions on how to retain current customers, a marketer should ensure that customers are satisfied always. It is only through this that a firm may ensure that its current base of customers is not tempted to consider other options of purchasing the current products.

The website would help identify factors that make customers satisfied. The decision should be based on how to improve the current rate of satisfaction.

JavaScript as the Core of Business Research

JavaScript as the Core of Business Research

As shown in the above diagram, JavaScript has enhanced market research hence helps in determination of customer behavior, improvement of performance and in decision-making.

List of References

Amable, B 2003, The Diversity of Modern Capitalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Casper, S & Matraves, C 2003, “Institutional Frameworks and Innovation in the German and UK Pharmaceutical Industry”, Research Policy, Vol. 32, no. 1, pp 1865–1879.

Ghemawat, P 1999, Games Businesses Play: Cases and Models, MIT Press, Cambridge.

Gompers, P & Lerner, J 2004, The Venture Capital Cycle, MIT Press, Cambridge.

Hall, PA & Soskice, W 2001, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Hollingsworth, RJ 2000, “Doing Institutional Analysis: Implications for the Study of Innovations”, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 7, no. 1, pp 595–644.

Kanniainen, V & Keuschnigg, C 2005, Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Public Policy, MIT Press, Cambridge.

Peteraf, MA 1993, “The Cornerstone of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-Based View”, Strategic Management Journal, Issue.14, no.1, pp 179-191.

Porter, M & McGahan, MA 2007, “An Interview with Michael Porter”, The Academy of Management Executive, Issue 16, no. 1, pp 2-44.

Wittner, P 2003, The European Generics Outlook: A Country-by-Country Analysis of Developing Market Opportunities and Revenue Defense Strategies, Datamonitor, London.

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