Additional Interview Insights

Our interviews not only provided answers for our Value Proposition Canvas, but also additional insights on how consumers felt about online shopping. Interviewees were asked whether they still went to Brick-and-Mortar stores after having been introduced to online shopping. A mix bag of answers were obtained but everyone felt that for items such as clothing, they still preferred to try them on for size and sometimes the actual stores were indispensable.

C: "For buying shoes and clothes, I still prefer to go to try the size, even if online shops provide the measurement charts, this way I can really be sure of the fitting, unless it is something I really like. I know some people will try at the store and then buy online, but I don't do that.

Y: "I would still go to the store, especially for more expensive items or for clothing. Since it is important to try on the size at the shop. If purchasing from overseas then I have no choice"

There were also other comments that offered a slightly different take about the trying on size at the physical stores.

L: "I am confident of the sizes especially when I have done sufficient homework and purchased online previously. When you read the reviews and do enough homework then you don't really need the physical store where you can try the size anymore, you're confident of being a frequent shopper online and you will know the quality and size you will get online. But I still enjoy the experience of walking around the physical stores."

Our interviewees were fairly frequent shoppers, buying online regularly at least once or twice a month. It was possible that consumers were increasing their online shopping frequency with the increase in available products being sold online.

Y: "Some things that I can’t find elsewhere, for example a hair care shampoo that you can’t find in Taiwan, Bluetooth earpiece, clothes and other small items.

Recently bought a swimsuit thanks to Facebook Ads”

L: “I get some cooking ingredients or utensils or tools that are very specific and it is sometimes difficult to go out and look for it. I browse many online catalogues for clothes, and household stuff.”

H: "I can find almost anything online now, so I guess if I am looking for something I could just buy it online, even toilet rolls. I don't have a fixed pattern.

Some things are cheaper in the actual store so I won't buy them online. But mostly I purchase small items. Unless is something for the home"

Each person had different habits based on their backgrounds, but a common point was that shopping online was no longer constrained to apparel, it now encompassed things ranging from household items, kitchen or daily necessities, to digital electronics.

Different online stores sell different items and the availability of products is also reflective of the earlier point on consumers having an easier job searching for something online and purchasing it.

In Taiwan, various delivery and payment options are available and with a strong network of infrastructure in place, it has helped push the online retail industry forward.

Not surprising that payment by credit cards were the go-to option, but we realized that choosing to collect their purchases at either a 7-eleven or Family Mart was highly correlated to the convenience factor.

C: "I am often not at home, so one of the things I always look out for when purchasing is the delivery options. For me collection and payment at the convenience store is the best, if they deliver to my house then I always have to re-arrange another time to collect."

The pain points mentioned for both platforms are definitely concerns for the online shopping industry here in Taiwan, but more importantly it gives us certain ideas as to why websites are still the current choice for a large proportion of local consumers. Our respondents echoed these sentiments, saying that their preferred choice would be websites and were adamant that they wouldn’t change their preferences in the near future. This however was mainly due to their belief that they would not change their current style of shopping and their shopping habits.

C: “No, I think it is still hard to change, I don’t like to be doing online shopping in little pockets of time or just randomly browsing phone apps, and people who use mobile apps are usually doing so in little breaks of time, so in the short term don’t foresee myself changing.”

Y: “No. I don’t really like buying 2nd hand stuff so I don’t usually browse those mobile apps, and I really like to open many tabs or pages to do comparisons, something you can’t do using the mobile app. Using apps I feel is more for impulse buys and clothes - which I prefer to shop at the actual stores.”

L: "Not really. Maybe it’s hard to imagine change. I will still use mobile apps for browsing like a magazine, but websites are more for actual purchasing”

Many people are often glued to their connected devices, and the slur of advertising that one is exposed to on a daily basis does make a change to how marketing is carried out today. In fact, one such place is Facebook, where users are daily bombarded by various updates from their peers, brands and groups that they follow. Wondering if Facebook had played any part in influencing our audience, interviewees were asked if social media or their social circle had an effect on their online shopping.

L: “Yes, to some extent, but it depends on what people buy. I buy many things that

While carrying out the initial study on the industry, we also noticed that online retail is also slowly being transformed from just websites and apps to being integrated into other apps. Back in 2005 social media giant Facebook added a new shop tab function within its app (J. Boorstin, 2015) allowing brands or pages to now include direct shopping via a tab on their pages. This tab becomes a single place for consumers to easily discover, share and purchase products while browsing Facebook. Later on in 2016, Instagram (coincidentally also owned by Facebook) also started rolling out this new feature that allows you to buy what you see in a photo - without ever having to leave its iPhone app (N. Olivarez, 2016). Yet none have managed to create such a storm as WeChat in China. Instead of building standalone apps, its developers now build various services within WeChat. All of the chat app’s features are at their fingertips (E. Crouch, 2015) and this allows users to seamlessly make in-app purchases with WeChat’s wallet and users will influence each other’s purchasing decisions thanks to its social networking.

William Bao, Managing Director of Chinaccelerator, believes that this new direction taken by WeChat embodies the future of online retail: “In WeChat, everything’s in one

place. So it’s simply a matter of building a community - around your product or viral content - and then everything that you see in that community you can click and buy” (E.

Crouch, 2015). We wanted to explore how feasible it would be, and if such an integrated shopping experience would take off in Taiwan. Thus we asked our interviewees what they thought about having an online shopping marketplace built into the chat app they frequently use - LINE.

Y: “Oh that might be quite a cool idea, because some people might not want to download a new app, but if it is embedded in LINE then people can already start using it.”

C: “Probably not bad but for me personally I don’t use LINE much. It might work, I know WeChat has such a model but it might work only for people who are not used to shopping on a different platform. If they are used to shopping on certain places they might be reluctant to change i.e. high switching costs.”

Both points are valid, it might be able to attract a certain group of new users that otherwise would have been too lazy to start using something new. Having it built into a daily communication app allows them to have much lower risk to take, and can easily try out its functions. On the other hand, consumers who were already avid shoppers might feel there are high switching costs, as they might have been used to a particular system, or have accumulated points or they trust a platform due to all the ratings etc.

When asked on the focus or features such an integrated retail system should encompass, our interviewees pretty much mentioned similar points to the normal shopping platforms. One standout point was that there were plenty of other shopping apps/sites,

for a new marketplace to work it had to deliver unique value products and not just be a place for 2nd-hand unwanted stuff.

L: “In Taiwan now, people can buy new items for really cheap price so they may not want to buy 2nd hand items. So I guess the products that are on sale being more creative or handmade or with their own unique feel might work better.”

Y: “Discovery of new items or interesting products, not just cheap items.”

Lastly, some time was given for our interviewees to share their thoughts about the future of online shopping and any final comments that they had. Interestingly, 3 major directions were brought up. The end-to-end experience, smart shopping and the evolving of retail stores. Even though actual retail stores might suffer a little thanks to the availability of online avenues to buy items, the word shopping is still synonymous with experience. Both actual stores and online stores needed to reinvent the experience that it was providing to consumers. Just because they are the seemingly growing market, online stores must not forget that the experience should be an end-to-end one for the customer.

L: “Online shopping can also be an experience and that will make a difference to how people view you. Like the packaging, making you feel like you’re special - a little card inside or the item packaging. The experience doesn’t stop at the purchase - it includes the after sales service and that is important.”

The future is also starting to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) being embedded into various devices, and we can also expect it to slowly come into play within the online shopping industry.

C: “I think in the future smart shopping will be able to know when I need something, or if I’m running out of something at home and that will be the most convenient. It will also know my previous shopping habits and be able to give new flavors that are similar to what I bought but I’ve never tried before.”

We will also see the retail stores be it online or offline evolve with the shifting landscape. Actual stores will downsize, become storage & display centric, and some might be re-fitted to include more experiential elements. Whilst online stores might try to include more Augmented Reality (AR) functions as they try to mimic the brick-and-mortar shop experience.

H: “In the future, online store will try to include AR making the experience better, and as things move towards more convenience of online shopping, maybe actual stores might become more of warehouse and display experience concept.”