Business is the process of exchanging goods and services for monetary benefits with the primary goal of making profits. Commerce in itself is a subset of business, involving all the activities that are aid to conducting business such as banking, finance and insurance. Business does not just involve exchange of money but also essential activities such as management, market research, customer satisfaction and corporate social responsibilities such as environmental protection and community support. Market research holds the key to the success or failure of a business. With the sky-rocketing advancement in technology and mushrooming of different businesses and models offering similar goods and services, market research is imperative for business houses to acquire big data on service and good delivery, scope of activities, customer satisfaction and e-commerce, according to AlGhamdi and Drew (2012).
Marketing research or generally research in business provides important functions to the business and commerce industry in the following ways; provides insight on the consumers, customer behavior patterns useful to the business house thus helping in advertisement and market target through Segmentation-Targeting-Positioning, determination of customer/ consumer satisfaction, competitor analysis and market forecasting (AlGhamdi & Drew, 2012). These advantages help the business house to foster best decisions and achieve greater financial performance, corporate social sustainability, consumer satisfaction and proper end to end communication with government and community thus reducing risks and losses by a large margin. Therefore, the authenticities of business today require enterprises such as Bunnings Group Australia to do systematic, continuous and thorough research into business environments to assess market opportunities and consumer satisfaction (Campbell 2017). This means that business should operate and provide services using the current trends in business in order to meet the customers’ satisfaction. To achieve this, the business need to know what their customers want in terms of value and experience of their goods and services to avoid any chances of falling out of business due to lack of current technology know how in providing the best services that will be appreciated by customers. With the current need for easy access and delivery of goods and services, according to Carlson, O’Cass and Ahrholdt (2015) e-commerce and online retail markets are on the rise. As a result, large commercial companies such as Bunnings Australia need to undertake business research to determine levels of consumer satisfaction and define the strategies best suited to develop a proper organizational profit and financial performance for realization of the financial theory through a different managerial perspective of their business model (Chen, 2012).
The primary objective of this research project is to determine the importance of online retailing for customer satisfaction and organizational benefits for the Bunnings Group Australia, a warehouse business offering home appliances.
The need for online retailing for customer satisfaction and Bunnings Group Australia corporate financial performance justifies this research project. The project covers the advantages of online retailing in meeting the consumers’ non-monetary interests and satisfaction and how that improves the organizational benefit in terms of competition and profits.
Wesfarmers is an Australian conglomerate operating in diversified businesses such as supermarkets, departmental stores, home and office appliances, chemicals and industrial equipment. Wes has been predominant as a conglomerate in Australia, with a focus in retail business since 2007 (Campbell, 2017). Wesfarmers are the full owners of Bunnings Group since January 1994. Bunnings warehouse is a warehouse retail chain store operating internationally with specialization in home appliances. Online retailing and e-commerce has not reached its full capacity in the Australian consumption markets. However, studies indicate that more consumers will shift to online shopping due to the ease and convenience of browsing while able to access the goods and services provided remotely (Heinemann & Schwarzl, 2010). Internet retailing compliments physical warehouses and showrooms as brick and motor stores are growing to enable the consumers’ access the products from the physical stores for purchase or online purchase and home/ office delivery. According to AlGhamdi & Drew (2012), high speed internet cheaply, bricks and clicks models and secure online payment options compliment the entry of Amazon, the largest global online retailer, into the Australian market to be catalysts for growth of online retailing with warehouse businesses such as Bunnings and WES being forced to set up brick and motor store for both physical and online retail shopping to adapt to the changing Australians’ shopping patterns and behaviors (Clemes, Gan and Ren 2011).
Customer satisfaction in business and marketing is the measure of how much the goods and services provided by an organization meets the expectations of the consumer, both in monetary and non-monetary aspects of the interests (Farris et al. 2010). The satisfaction of customers can be measured through various means to help the business meet their customers’ expectation. In most cases, customers want value for their money, when the goods and services provided by the business are of high value then definitely there will be high number of sales due to impulse buying. The disconfirmation model is used to compare the consumers’ perceived performance of a purchased product to their expectations. In this model, a negative or positive outcome is formulated depending on the product performance against the consumers’ expectations. A product that performs exceedingly high is confirmed positive while another that does not the consumers’ expectations is confirmed as negative (Eid, 2011). In their literature, satisfaction is described as the results of purchase and use, measured by the incurred costs, predicted rewards and projected consequences. Therefore, the disconfirmation model of consumer satisfaction is constructed from the appliances’ performance and the buyer’s expectations, disconfirmation and satisfaction (Fang et al. 2014). In market research, customer satisfaction is determined and calculated from the number of consumers or customers of the total consumers whose satisfaction expectations of the goods and services provided has been exceeded. The customer satisfaction ratings and metrics impact highly on the sustainability and financial benefits of any organization, thus used as key components in strategic management. According to Farris et al. (2010), customer satisfaction is a key requirement for business houses to outscore their competitors and gain market dominance. Analysis of consumer satisfaction from the organization’s point of view, is through big data analysis of the user rating on the goods and services provided. A user rating of 5 out of a possible 5 indicates a very high possibility of consumer loyalty and even evangelizing for the firm to friends and family. Customer satisfaction is the primary indicator of the future position of the organizations in the market in terms of competition and customer loyalty. Therefore, customer satisfaction is the mostly used indicator of market perceptions, as determined by Kucukosmanoglu, Nuri & Ertan (2010).
Online retailing increases the levels of consumer satisfaction through determining the consumer perceptions of the ease and convenience of doing online purchases. In most cases, customers find online retailing to be reliable and fast at the same time, it gives them a wide variety of choices to choose from just with a click of a button at the comfort of their premises. The ease and convenience of online retailing are dependent on several factors such as product offering and information, website/page design, financial security including pricing, mode of payment and security of the online payment modality. As described by Fazal-e-Hasan et al. (2018) and Flint et al. (2011), customer satisfaction determines the web behavior and patterns in purchase in online retailing and e-commerce. According to Har Lee, Cyril Eze and Oly Ndubisi (2011), in their empirical and theoretical analysis, the authors concluded that the internet plays a significant role in the success or failure of online retailing and marketing. The internet provides key variables such as convenience, trust and satisfaction of customer relations offered on the e-retail webpage. The website impacts on the customer satisfaction through their experience from the perception of the website’s service quality characterized by product information provided, reliability, user interface and transaction value (Heinemann and Schwarzl. 2010). Therefore, if the customer negatively perceives the design, interface and security of the site, their satisfaction s lowered and the overall experience will be negative as proposed by Hill and Alexander (2017). From the postulated models, online retailing with a good design in terms of user interface, ease of navigation, security and trust increases the consumers’ satisfaction. Following the positive consumer satisfaction, purchases are made from remote areas without the need to visit the physical shop for the touch and feel of the commodity to be purchased like the show rooming design (Kucukosmanoglu, Ahmet Nuri and Sensoy Ertan 2010). In that instance, a larger consumer base is reached because the world has transformed into digital communication in the way of running business. Clients too are not left out since they constantly look for information and goods online. Additionally, the positive satisfaction increases customer base through higher rating on the performance and evangelical proponent of the online retail shop to friends and family (Saeidi et al.,2015). The online retail shops and brick and motor stores with a positive consumer satisfaction benefits the organization in achieving a larger customer base and additionally increasing the chances of a repeat purchase. Though the satisfaction index generated from the online retail store, the firms benefit with retaining customer loyalty and trust. The models are tied up and depicted in the table below.
In this millennia, changes in business models and environments in terms of customer satisfaction and competition has resulted in development of a creative online retail shopping. This has generated a need for maintenance of a positive customer satisfaction to increase the customer base, repeat purchases and customer retention (Heinemann & Schwarzl, 2010). As a current business requirement, customer retention in online retailing through the brick and motor stores offers a competitive managerial problem that requires objective market research.
According to Scarborough (2016), customer satisfaction affects the shareholder value through a theoretical framework that specifically outlines how the satisfaction of the customers would affect future behavior such as shopping timing, re-purchases, loyalty, cash flows and customer base. In the research, the authors find an empirical positive relationship between consumer satisfaction and organizational benefits. However, there is significant difference across the different aspects of business such as banking, warehousing and hotel and accommodation. Therefore, for Bunnings Group Australia, it’s imperative to conduct significance market research in order to define customer satisfaction from their online retailing for strategic management to achieve higher shareholder value (Heinemann & Schwarzl, 2010). In the move to increase consumer reach and base, online retailing provides an ease of access to the customers for the goods and services provided in their brick and motor stores from the comfort of their living rooms (Kucukosmanoglu & Ertan, 2010).
In business-to-business context, customer loyalty influences the final organizational benefits. Consumer loyalty is build using a positive relationship quality through dimensions such as trust, satisfaction and service quality (Williams and Naumann 2011). In the current online retailing environment, the impact of reaching the customer’s hopes and perceived expectations builds on the consumer-brand relationship. Such as proper consumer-brand relationship therefore develops the customer base and repurchase intentions, a call made by Fazal-e-Hasan et al. (2017)
Conclusion
E-retailing is the new frontier in business in this millennium. Online customer experiences play a key role in determining the overall customer satisfaction and the impact on loyalty and customer base on the online retailers such as Bunnings Group Australia (Kucukosmanoglu & Ertan, 2010). Several online customer experience factors such as website design, customer service, product information, return policy, security and modality of payment are revealed to either directly or indirectly impact on customer satisfaction and thus the organizational benefits of customer loyalty, increase consumer base and repeat purchases. The project facilitates the adaptation and implementation of the online customer experience dimensions in the Bunnings Group Australia online retail shops to achieve tremendous organizational benefits and compete effectively in the market with the entry of giant online retailer, Amazon.
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