I.

INTRODUCTION

Electronic shopping or e-shopping (shopping through Internet) concept first appeared since 1993 in the world. The Internet has become one of the most widely used non-store formats. Is the Internet changing the way we shop? The dramatically increase of Internet usage, as well as, the development of technology have transformed the way goods are bought and sold, resulting to the exponential growth in the number of online shoppers. Shopping online has become a real trend for people who are too busy to go to a retail store. Online shopping behavior refers to the process of purchasing products or services via the Internet. The capability of purchasing without leaving your place is of great interest to many consumers. Moreover, the use of Internet tools for price searching and comparison provides an additional advantage in consumers final decision, as they can purchase their desired products in the lowest available price. In Vietnam, this kind of shopping method seems very new and young. With an expanding economy and a large demographic of young population nearly sixty percent of Vietnams population is aged less than thirty years old, Vietnam has been the promising market for businesses to do e-commerce. According to a Ministry of Industry and Trades report on e-commerce, seventy five percent of the 1,600 Vietnamese companies that took part in a survey last year generated more than five percent of their total revenue from ecommerce. NinoMaxx is one of the leading firms doing e-commerce especially in fashion industry. NinoMaxx is a fashion brand name of Viet Fashion Corp. which is a company specializes in designing, manufacturing and marketing/distributing apparel fashion with three fashion brand names. With the distribution network of 123 retail stores nationwide, Viet Fashion Corp is the leading retail fashion company in Vietnam. It has invested nearly six percent of the total revenue in its online shopping channel. However, at the moment the online shopping channel of NinoMaxx has to face some several challenges. Although NinoMaxx provides the online shopping channel for customers to have more choices when they shop, this online shopping channel of NinoMaxx still not popular with the customers.

In practice, the real situation causes an unexpected result for NinoMaxx. Despite the fact that in recent years, Vietnams rate of Internet users achieved twenty five percent of the total population and it keeps increasing dramatically, only eight percent of twenty five percent shops online. The official online shopping channel is still not popular in the marketplace. Moreover, it is obvious that Vietnamese Internet users do not understand clearly about e-shopping. Many people have no idea about the process of transactions through Internet because the consumers is getting used to seeing, touching or even smelling products before buying those products. This is one of important points of consumer behavior that online shopping channels can not meet. Furthermore, many problems such as privacy concerned with credit card frauds, unwanted solicitation, and use of information for other purposes are taking into accounts. Therefore, the real situation forces a research to be conducted on the purpose of helping NinoMaxx find the way to improve the popularity of its online shopping channel. This research aims to answer two research questions: y Examine problems customer behavior facing when shopping online. y Identify customer's expectations for the better online shopping channel in the future. Based on the research questions above, the investigative questions which means questions the researcher must answer to satisfactorily answer the research question; what the marketer needs to know to conclude about the management dilemma are raised for the problem of this research to be identified clearly. Investigative questions: y What are problems that people facing when shopping online? y What are the characteristics of current online NiNoMaxx's shopping website that satisfy and dissatisfy customers? y What are expected services in the future that Nino should give to online shoppers? Management questions: y Can online shopping channel protect customers privacy? y How do those problems affect online shoppers choices in shopping?
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y Have people ever visit Nino online shopping website? y How did people get to know about the website? y How is the look of the website? y What are elements that people satisfy with NinoMaxxs online shopping channel? (color, pictures, user friendly, accessibility). y Which services people think should be attached at most with online shopping? Due to the resource limitation, the research is in the boundary of exploring and understanding problems and to what extent each problem affects customers buying decision; and future services that meet the customers expectation. The research does not investigate more about the causal relationship between those problems and expectations.

II.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Over a decade of booming Internet, Internet has had a profound impact on retailing, enabling businesses to sell and shoppers to buy product from anywhere in the world at any time. By presenting a new paradigm for conducting business relations and developing advertising strategies, Internet shopping is bringing huge benefits to millions of consumers and thousands of businesses. As noted by Joines, Scherer and Scheufele (2003, p. 2) No other mass medium possesses all these characteristics. The Internet combines the entire purchasing process, from product exposure to product purchase, into one easily accessible medium. In the recent years, there have been intensive studies to identify factors influencing online consuming decisions. They are taken from different perspectives to focus on different fields. As Lai, Shin, Chiang and Chen (2010) cited there are positive relationships between online shopping behavior and five categories of factors, including e-stores logistical support, product characteristics, websites technological characteristics, information characteristics, and homepage presentation (Ho and Wu, 1999). Although this theory is quite general, it builds the common understanding about the importance of techniques in motivating online purchasing, besides the information about the product. In fact, the design and quality of the Website play an important role in attracting and
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keeping customers with the Website. In addition to the first impression customers have with the Websites interface, marketers should concern what contents to be provided for customers. Joines, et al. (2003) divided consumer Web users by two distinct activities product/service searching and online purchasing to investigate the consumers underlying motivations. Their investigated motivations were based on the seven motivation factors mentioned by Korgaonkar and Wolin (1999), including: social escapism motivation, transaction-based security and privacy concerns, information motivation, interactive control motivation, socialization motivation, non-transactional privacy concerns and economic motivation. They concluded that there were distinctive differences between the two kinds of Web users. For product/service informational searchers, economic motivations and transactional privacy concerns mattered most. However, actually engaging in online shopping activity is predicted by a wider range of motivations: information motivations, interactive control motivations and socialization motivations. These findings imply that under different motivations, different users will react differently. Moreover, it also noted that different types of online purchasers (i.e., trial, occasional, frequent and regular online buyers) have different evaluations of website design and website reliability/fulfillment (Shergill and Chen, 2005). To provide the appropriate information to consumers, we must notice which type of consumers we are targeting and discover their underlying motivations to develop appropriate strategies. For specific, to increase consumers concerns, the Website should be clear, open and honest about the price, the information databases and the confidentiality statements. In addition, to stimulating the transactions, Website should give consumers greater control over their purchasing decision, such as individualizing recommendations or reviewing articles based on previous purchases, instead of following the typical paper catalogue format. Moreover, it is very important for an online shopping channel to determine its Unique Selling Point (USP) what sets this business apart from its competitors to gain customers trust. In order to create suitable USP, marketers need an in-depth understanding on consumers perception and behavior. Questions such as: why customers interested in this product, why they decide to buy from this brand but not the others, etc,
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should be answered as detailed as possible to help us build an understanding theme about our customers. The USP can include customer service, low prices, products that cant be bought elsewhere, free delivery, great support, etc. provided that both the company and customers are aware of it. Providing customers with an impressive Website is necessary but still not sufficient. Marketers should learn more to keep customers and make them become loyalty to their online shopping channel. It is suggested that consumers satisfaction is a key factor to remain customers in online shopping. According to definition of Lamb, Hair and McDaniel (2005, p.9), customer satisfaction is the feeling that a product has met or exceeded the customers expectation. Other factors such as vender/service/product characteristics, website quality, attitude towards online shopping, intention to online shopping decision making, and online purchasing, may influence consumer satisfaction (Lai, et al., 2010). Customers satisfaction is one of the main elements which lead Internet searchers to purchasers and then loyal consumers. Then, the question which factors consumers are concerning about and how to satisfy them becomes one of the popular topic for many researchers. Delafrooz, Paim and Khatibi (2010) concluded that utilitarian orientations, convenience, price and wider selection are prominent determinants which have positive impact on users attitude toward online shopping; whilst price is the most dominant factor to motivate customers to shop online. Another study indicated that website security/privacy, website design, website reliability/ fulfillment and website customer service are the four important factors which cause consumer satisfaction and mainly influence their perceptions of online purchasing experiences (Shergill and Chen, 2005). According to a study of Tonita, Benedict and Ko de (2004), beside the factors like ease of use, usefulness, and enjoyment, exogenous factors such as consumer traits, situational factors, product characteristics, previous online shopping experiences, and trust in online shopping also affects online shopping behaviors. As in many studies, privacy concerns and fear of insecure transactions have been the biggest inhibitors to shopping online. It was estimated that 3.4 million people were prepared to use the Internet, but not willing to shop online because of a lack of trust
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or fears about personal security (Office of Fair Trading, Internet Shopping, p.44). These findings are very helpful for marketers. Based on a great numbers of various factors, marketers can combine and establish a framework of appropriate factors to investigate. Depending on the purpose and nature of the research, the situation analysis, some elements are necessary and essential to investigate than the others. Dividing them as tangible factors (such as Websites interface, security, privacy, products information, characteristics, price, selections, etc.) and intangible factors (such as customers satisfaction, enjoyment, previous online shopping experiences, trust, etc.), we need to study them seriously to discover how they affect to customers attitude toward online shopping and intention to shop online. It is often not easy to decide which action should be kept, which should be eliminated and which should be improved in order to create an efficient Internet shopping channel. As the number of online shopping website increases, many studies are conducted to help marketers to do that. Making customers feel confident in Internet purchasing becomes one of the most difficulties to marketers. Even those people willing to shop online still have concerns about doing so. The research in Internet Shopping (p. 35) showed that 79 percent of internet users were concerned about having financial details divulged, while 31 percent were concerned about divulging personal details. In comparison, product delivery, quality product and lack of interaction was a concern for 23, 16, and less than 10 percent of these respondents, respectively. Thus, business should focus on methods to improve customers confidence in online shopping such as improving security of payment systems; the awareness of online security; and the security of stored data. Also providing more information about the company, consumer awareness of their rights, or harsher penalties for fraud may also be suitable ways to create customer confidence. According to the study The best way to attract customers to your online business or Ecommerce store, it is suggested that connecting to customer and impressing companys personality are important and necessary to attract and create a good connection to customers as well. For instance, marketers can send email or notification to introduce about sales promotion programs or new product lines to potential customers to build and
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remain relationship with them. Moreover, showing the personality of the company is also necessary way to reduce space between customer and the online purchasing channel. The purpose of this method is to make customers understand about the products clearly. For example, in addition to product introduction, messages can contain the meaning of them or to whom this product is intended for. As the author said in the study, in order to be successful, simply listing your products online is just not going to cut it especially when you are just a small niche store with no reputation. Strive to make your business stand out! Let customers know what you are good at and pound that idea home. Another suggestion in remaining loyal customers is to consult the attitude of other customers towards the quality of the products and the reliability of the shops. The way to give comments should be flexible such as consumers can leave their thoughts when they receive products or they can write down on the website. Moreover, before ordering any product, shoppers need to confirm its code, price and size carefully to avoid some undesirable incidents and mistakes which sometimes cause them to return products to the sellers. Also the website should have function of displaying the information of past purchase and advice for future purchase for each customer. Discussing about website display, Conard J. asks, What if the thing that gets online shoppers to buy a product is also the thing that makes them dissatisfied with the product when it arrives? Indeed, the problem raised is how to balance between pictures on website and quality of product in reality. To solve it, marketers can take photos of real products and post them in website to make sure that customers can see real picture of product. It also means marketer should make sure that quality of product is the same to what is showed in picture. By doing this, we can gain more of customers trust. In the other words, customers will believe that online shopping is not bad as they think. In addition, it makes them save time without going to real store but still make sure quality is the same. In addition, after sales service is also a key factor influencing an Internet purchasing channels success. Company should be willing to receive products back and return money to customers if product is not same with the picture on website. According to those suggestions, marketers can create a framework of actions need to be done in future to meet customer expectation on online
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purchasing and services. We can predict the necessary and unnecessary actions in website improving, investigate them in the research so that we can create an effective online purchasing channel which satisfies all the concerning customers. These studies have greatly contributed to our study of dynamic online shopping behavior. We review and create the theoretical framework based on the conclusion and combination of the motivation of each type of customers, the variables affecting attitude towards online shopping and intention to shop online, the factors influencing customers satisfaction, as well as suggestions for better services to meet customers expectation. Based on the theoretical framework, this study attempts to evaluate those factors to identify the issues in specific fashion market. Therefore we can apply it in real situation of NinoMaxx a famous fashion brand name in Vietnam to investigate the real problems and determine recommendations to improve its online shopping channel.

REFERENCES y Conard J., Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to (X)HTML, StyleSheets, and Web Graphics (Paperback) (3rd edition), 2007. y Delafrooz N., Paim L.H. and Khatibi A., Students Online Shopping Behavior: An Empirical Study, Journal of American Science, 2010; 6(1). y Ho, C., and Wu, W., Antecedents of consumer satisfaction on the Internet: an empirical study of online shopping, Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 1999. y Joines, J. L., Schere C. W., and Scheufele, D. A., Exploring motivations for consumer Web use and their implications for e-commerce, Journal of Consumer Marketing , VOL . 20, NO.2, 2003. y Korgaonkar, Pradeep K., and Lori D. Wolin, A Multivariate Analysis of Web Usage, Journal of Advertising Research, 1999. y Lai C.Y, Shin D.H., Chiang H.S., Chen C.C, A Study of Interactive Qualitative, Wseas Transactions on Information Science and Applications, Issue 2, Volume 7, 2010. y Lamb W.C., Hair F.J, McDaniel C., Essentials of Marketing (4th edition), SouthWestern, 2005. y Office of fair trade, Internet Shopping, 2007. Pg 37, 135 y Shergill S. G., Chen Z., Web-based Shopping: Consumers Attitudes towards Online Shopping in New Zealand, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005. y Tonita P.M., Benedict G.C.D., Ko de R., What drive consumer to shop online: A literature review, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 15 No. 1, 2004, pp. 102-121. y Zhou, L., Dai L. and Zhang D., Explain consumer acceptance of online shopping, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, VOL 8, NO.1, 2007.

APPENDICES

Please be assured that the answers that you give me to this survey will be totally confidential. Your answers will be grouped together with those of others and used in the form of statistics. Please answer this question before doing the questionnaire. 1. Have you ever shopped online? Yes No If Yes, move to the next questions If No, stop doing the questionnaire. 2. Gender Female 3. Your age group? Under 18 19 23 24 30 Over 30 4. Why do you buy new clothes? Yes Seasonal changes My job requires a diversified of clothes Buying new clothes is my hobby For going to event/party Just in important day No Male

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5.

Which factors affecting your online shopping decision?

Strongly Affect Slightly Affect Somewhat Affect Slightly Not Affect Strongly Not affect

Security of private information Product price After sales service Product quality Convenience Save time Promotion and advertising Shorter delivery period Website provides sufficient product

6.

Have you ever visit Nino online shopping website? Yes No -> please move to the next questions -> terminate your response

7.

How did you get to know about the website? Yes Newspaper advertisement From NINO stores Friends From other websites No

8.

The look of website is attractive? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
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9.

Your satisfaction about Nino web design?

Strongly satisfied Fairly satisfied Neither Fairly dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied

y y y y y y 10.

Color Front letter Pictures Site map User friendly Accessibility Which services you think should be attached at most with online shopping? Delivery Allow to try clothes on your own Discount Sales promotion 11. Which payment services that you prefer? paying direct to the deliver when receiving product (apply for deliver to home) through bank payment pay by cards (debit cards, credit cards, Visa cards, ATM cards, Master cards...)

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