No one can deny that internet and smartphone have changed our behavior. It can help to make our lives easier such as buying through online channel instead of going to physical store. Although the online shop gives benefit to customers, there is some drawback. So, the physical store still needs to solve the online problem.
The increase can be seen in online retail sales worldwide from 5.9% to 8.2% between 2014 and 2017 (Invespcro, 2017). However, many businesses are interested to change their role within the online platform to build their businesses up to date and to be more engaged with customers. Do you agree with this?
The trend of opening an online store could be rising, however, there are still some businesses who are willing to take the reverse trend by investing in physical stores instead. The business believes that customers familiar with online channel can motivate themselves to engage with offline store. According to Weng and Zhang (2015) stated that the integration of marketing activities on online channel developed with offline model can bring business achieve the highest profits. This operation is called O2O business that brings online shop to offline stores.
The example of O2O business is Matchbox store in Thailand. Matchbox store has become very popular due to the influence created by social media. This shop sells multi-brand of fashion items over 100 brands, which the shop selects popular Thai’s Instagram accounts with high followers as their influencers and marketing tool to build up brand recognition to their followers. For example, clothes, shoes, jewelries Instagram. All products’ concept is trendy for everyday’s look. There are two branches and will be opening the third branch on the 1st of December 2017.
one of Matchbox decorated in pink color and has three floors, ground floor and first floor sales sells fashion items. The second floor is café name pink planter.
Do the on shelves solve online purchasing problems?
Yes, it is. As the basic advantages of physical stores. For instance, clothes or shoes do not fit their body or the quality of goods is lower than expected because the image that posted in online are over modification. So, it is better for customers who want to try it on before purchasing.
Another aspect of Thai shops is the purchasing process from online channel may not be the most convenient for exchange or refund because many brands from Thai’s Instagram are not large as big store and the management system is not the same. Some of them may not have many employees so owners (or e-tailers) manage every process of their brands. Hence, e-tailers prefer to clear their stocks and receive money more than getting the products back.
Furthermore, price and products are the significant factors that customers will make the decision whether to buy or not. In this case, most of the products price in Matchbox store is reachable and some of the products are quite high which cost nearly the same with global brands such as Zara or H&M. Because the owner of each brand use make to order system (MTO) and their ability to produce in economies of scale are too far. Thus, the quality from Thai retailers is neat and high quality compared with mass production.
How Matchbox engage with customers?
(Harmeling et al., 2016)
From the framework, the customer engagement marketing is the first key to connect with customers. The link between online channel and offline channel can be seen by the Matchbox and individual Instagram shop online promotion announcement such as a discount when customers purchase in store. This means that Matchbox has already engaged with social channels, which creates customers empowerment in shopping in the store.
The number of follower from online platform (Instagram,2017& Facebook,2017)
Regarding customer engagement and customer-owned resources, both can be perceived when the business was promoted by customer review. For instance, when customers come to Matchbox, most of them have already selected the product in their mind from online store but they only want to see the real product or they might have a discount card from online store which they can only use in-store. This can attract customer to come to the shop and try the clothes, which they had expected to buy. Nevertheless, there is also a possibility that the customer will change their mind to another brand because of the availability, size or even design. This can create the shopping experiences for customers because Matchbox has lots of brands and choices. Moreover, this store has café on the top of the store which makes the store pretty unique from another clothes store. This café is also popular in social media which might be another key to bring customers to come and joy with lovely café.
Cafe’ (Instagram,2017)
The customers as a brand communicator to advertise for Matchbox when they post photos, review or word of mouth about the experience that they perceive from stores. They discuss through both online and offline channel. An interaction between offline store and customers can create a relationship between them.
The online advertisement such as discount to use in-store or new update items can bring them to physical store.
What the result of having the physical store?
Customers shopping at Matchbox
From all of the marketing engagement processes involve both online channels and offline store. The profit of physical store which created by the influence of social media can show as an increase purchasing rate and create meaningful interactions between store and customers. It is supported by Positioningmag.com (2017) that the sale of Multi-brand store increased by 30% than purchasing through the online shops. Additionally, customers have an opportunity to enhance their shopping experiences when they come to the store.
If the business wants higher profits in-store, they should carefully think what the way store engaging with their customer like Matchbox!
Harmeling, C., Moffett, J., Arnold, M. and Carlson, B. (2016). Toward a theory of customer engagement marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45, pp.312-335.
Invespcro. (2017). Global Online Retail Spending – Statistics and Trends [Infographic]. [online] Available at: https://www.invespcro.com/blog/global-online-retail-spending-statistics-and-trends/ [Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].
Lacy, L. (2017). How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost? Plus 8 Tips for Saving Money | WordStream. [online] Wordstream.com. Available at: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/06/05/instagram-ads-cost [Accessed 7 Oct. 2017].
If you bored of shopping only at department stores that meaning almost the same experiences, there is some hangout place that I recommend you go which is open-air market in Thailand named “Artbox Thailand”
What is Art box Thailand and why is so popular?
Art box Thailand is the night open-air market in Bangkok, which comes up with a theme of chic, relaxing, and trendy. This market has variety of creative food and beverages, free concert, fashion items, handmade home decorations and art zone. Therefore, Art box market seems to be a small community for teenagers to shop, eat, and relax in this newest hangout place. Moreover, the place where market located is very convenient to come but it does not have permanently located. When the event has exactly date, time and place will be announced through Facebook fan page and Instagram.
Let’s look at the main concept of Artbox Thailand. It is the creative market. So, the great, strange and excellent ideas have been seen in every shop in this market, which approximately 200 shops have been on a display. According to Tripadvisor (2017), the famous travel page, recommends Artbox Thailand under the vote for 165 out of 573. The page has recommended this market as one of the top things to do in Bangkok when visiting Thailand. There are many categories of shop which can be divided into 4 groups.
Foods and beverages
Creative Thai and international foods with the color, packaging, and positioning of foods
Fashion items and home decorations
Street clothes, glasses, shoes, watches, handmade mobile cases and home decoration items
Free concerts
Mini concert makes market lively and energetic
Art zone
An opportunity for young artists to show their talents
From all the features, the pop-up market has given a unique shopping experience to customers unlike the normal shopping experience in the department store. Artbox uses social media as tools to connect with sellers and buyers. Many sellers who come from online channels can expand their shops to offline store.
Who loves open-air market?
The target customers are teenagers because Artbox has been known by using social media promoted. In this online platform, people who were born between 1980 to 2001 are millennials or generation Y that are familiar with the use of technology (McCarron, 2016). Furthermore, the products in this market are creative and unique. Therefore, groups of people who come to the market have the same interest and may create community together.
Focusing on the behavior of millennials generation, this generation and the technology are growing up at the same time. Technology seems to be the main factor of their lives which almost everyone from this generations has individual space on online platform, and they often search and share their personal information to others through this platform (Bolton et al., 2013). This means that the target group of Artbox market has online behavior and leads to use individual space for sharing their shopping experiences.
According to Christofides et al. (2009), cited in Bolton et al. (2013), most of personal story of millennials have been posted and shared on social media. This expresses that this generation wants to communicate to others of how they live their own lifestyle. Similarly, the stage three of hierarchy of need theory by Maslow (2013); people want to be accepted, loved and respected by external factors. Therefore, people who share their personal information such as their experience through social media perceive online support (Boonlue et al.,2016). Moreover, as they are the consumers, they will be the communicators and badge identity.
Thailand was ranked 7th among the Asia pacific countries in using online platform (Boonlue et al., 2016). This argument is supported by Pornsakulvanich (2017) who stated that Thai people especially 49% of age between 18 and 25 usually use social network system in daily life such as Facebook (6.10 hours/day) and Instagram (4.02 hours/day). Additionally, the behavior of Thai people was influenced by Thai culture which communities are significant than individuals. This led people to become social media addict in order to connect to their society.
The way of millennials uses Artbox as tools for showing trendy
Customers mostly do
Come to the market for exploration (Hoping to find something new). For example, creative food, live concert shopping, meet someone, etc.
Most of Gen Y use feature ‘check-in’ in social media to mark the place name ‘Artbox market’.
Take photos (with food, selfie or market’s atmosphere).
Post photos though personal online space.
Sit for eating, chatting or listening at the concert.
Go back with good experience.
On IG :The number of follower about 79k in Oct 2017 (Instagram.com, 2017)
On Facebook: The number of page like about 200k in Oct 2017 (Facebook.com, 2017)
Artbox understands their target customers who are often used social media that will help the market to gain recognition and lead to further sell channels. For instance, decorate market with beautiful light and big banner to be the iconic image for millennials to take photos and post.
What millennials get from going to Artbox Thailand market?
Coming to Artbox market can enhance the shopping experience of generation Y in terms of seeing new kind of market event, creative products and also posting attractive photos on social media. Artbox creates value from changing perception of traditional market to trendy market. Millennials treat trend the important factor in their lives, they can share and give opinion about the newest market expressed through their personal accounts to their online friends and show that they mean trendy people (Ordun. G, 2015). Thus, the market communicates by using online platform to help customers feel more interact with their society. Thereby, millennials can use Artbox Thailand to be the place they can express to their online communities that they are trendy people and the individual experience can be perceived.
Reference lists
Bolton, R., Parasuraman, A., Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N., Kabadayi, S., Gruber, T., Komarova Loureiro, Y. and Solnet, D. (2013). Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a review and research agenda. Journal of Service Management, 24(3), pp.245-267.
Boonlue, T., Briggs, P. and Sillence, E. (2016). Self-Compassion, Psychological Resilience and Social Media Use in Thai Students. Proceedings of the 30th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference, (4), pp.1-8.
Instagram.com. (2017). ARTBOX THAILAND (@artbox_th) • Instagram photos and videos. [online] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/artbox_th/?hl=en [Accessed 17 Oct. 2017].
Maslow, A. (2013). Toward a psychology of being. Start Publishing LLC.
McCarron, K. (2016). ‘Managing millennials’, Tire Business, vol. 33, no. 26, pp. 0010.
Ordun. G. (2015). Millennial (Gen Y) Consumer Behavior, Their Shopping Preferences and Perceptual Maps Associated With Brand Loyalty. Canadian Social Science, 11 (4), pp.40-55.
Pornsakulvanich, V. (2017). Personality, attitudes, social influences, and social networking site usage predicting online social support. Computers in Human Behavior, 76, pp.255-262.
Tripadvisor.com. (2017). Art Box Thailand (Bangkok): Visiting Art Box Thailand (with Photos) – TripAdvisor. [online] Available at: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293916-d8762310-Reviews-Art_Box_Thailand-Bangkok.html#LIGHTBOXVIEW [Accessed 16 Oct. 2017].
