Critical Evaluation of Digital Activity of John Lewis
Given the developments brought by the digital age, businesses such as John Lewis have to consider the added value they deliver to customers and to become more service oriented, if they wish to survive the competition of online retailing platforms such as Asos, Amazon and Ebay. Traditional retailers have to be proactive by being present where their customers are and to provide them with services that suit their particular needs in terms of product preference, place, time and form.
You are required to critically evaluate how the British retailer John Lewis uses digital technologies in its interaction with potential and existing customers. In addition, you are asked to suggest improvements to their digital business strategy, based on theory and best practices of web-page, mobile and social media use in the context of retailing. You are encouraged to highlight the customer journey while searching and purchasing products sold by John Lewis and its competitors. Consider the customers’ approach to browsing, navigation of websites, customers’ experiences of purchasing and perceptions of online and offline services offered by John Lewis and its competitors.
To help you with this task, next to attending lectures and tutorial sessions, you should visit the websites of John Lewis and its competitors. It is recommended that you read academic articles on digital transformation, digital marketing, and how to add value to the customer experience.
All individual critical evaluation reports must be word processed and the expected length is 2000 words (+/- 10%). Please use Calibri or Times New Roman, Font Size 12, black typeface on white paper. Double spacing should be used. Please insert page numbers. The first page of each assignment should contain your name, registration number, title, and word count.
Reports that exceed the 2200 words will be penalized (all word counts are excluding the bibliography at the end of the report).
Please use the Harvard referencing system throughout your essay.
Critical Evaluation of Digital Activity of John Lewis
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Word count: 2000
Critical Evaluation of Digital Activity of John Lewis
The John Lewis Partnership is the largest employee-owned business in the United Kingdom. It is also the parent company of the two essential retail brands; John Lewis &Partners and Waitrose & Partners. It's a retail icon that has been a reputation for the best practice in customer support and service. The company conducts its trade-in physical outlets and websites. The John Lewis Partnership is a company well known for its involvement in digital strategic business models, which has promoted its exponential goals (Zain, 2020). However, with the Covid-19 pandemic, their traditional business structure has been vulnerable and has experienced more pressure to stay updated in the disruptive turmoil. This essay will critically evaluate the digital activity of John Lewis Partnership, the potential improvements to their business strategies, and the customer experience while shopping products by John Lewis Partnership.
Many customers have turned online, and this has accelerated growth for the company. The retail group asserts that close to 60% of its sales are made online, increasing from the previous 40% (Zang et al., 2017). It's continuously investing for a digital-first future to make the shopping experience fast, convenient, easy, and more rewarding. Digital personal services will also be incorporated into the shopping websites. They plan on creating more usable apps and websites to increase their availability online and in stores. It will enhance the greater availability of collect services and click.
The retail giant has been actively involved in balancing their shop estate where they are slowly setting up their shops in the suitable locations where people want to shop. In these shops, they are brilliantly displaying their various products over a well-designed space. It is a unique business strategy. James Lewis partnership has embraced new technology and expertise from outside suppliers, and it has helped them reduce their head office costs.
The retail giant has found success in related opportunities such as food delivery. It is in response to the rising demand, mainly due to the pandemic. The partnership takes pride in the fact that it is born out of implementation and innovation. The retail giant also believes that it can conduct business and also be socially responsible by involving partners. The partners can deliver outstanding services for customers and each other. John Lewis contributes to environmental solutions by making a product packaging that is reusable and easy to recycle. John Lewis acknowledges that most of their customers visit their aged on a product page rather than the homepage. They tend to forego their offers and branding messages but instead include the customer's "anchor" when browsing their products.
The future of the John Lewis retail customer experience is inclusive of safety measures of shopping. With the rising number of Covid-19 cases, remote shoppers can choose to book a free appointment. The customers can provide details of what they are looking for, and they are guided around the department store by an in-shop adviser (Johnstone, 2020). Besides, the purchases made can be delivered at home or collected from the physical locations upon the customer’s request. The process is meant to provide the customer with a virtual extension of in-store customer service.
The firm is looking forward to consolidating customer's data from both Waitrose and John Lewis. A centralized data platform built on Google cloud. The consolidation will help target customers better. According to Giovannoni (2020), it will also help link the two companies from a technology perspective by breaking down their data silos and providing a more unique and customized approach towards customer interactions. The new business format will help create and design solutions that will help educate and respond to business demands. The partnership with Google is an enterprising relationship because the retailer has already partnered with the tech giant through an ad service side of the business. It also stocks a variety of Google products in its stores. The centralized system will also help give a single view of the customer.
John Lewis retail has set off on adjusting to the dynamic consumer behavior, especially in the post-Covid world. It aims to outsource some of its IT functions to IT specialist application services (Zain, 2021). These support services will range from the supply chain, personnel systems, finances, and overall integration. The complete integration will ensure that the retail giant has access to up-to-date technologies and specialist expertise.
John Lewis has embraced various digital marketing transformation strategies such as search engine optimization, paid search, email marketing, and marketing automation. The company also looks forward to embracing social media advertisements, website optimization, paid search, and analytics. The firm will also embrace artificial intelligence in efforts to merge marketing and technology.
The Customer Experience, Overall Perception at John Lewis
A customer shopping at John Lewis, in a nutshell, is a series of steps worth looking into. A customer clicks into products, for example; when a customer wants to buy an iPod, the customer is bound to click on the most attractive result. The retail firm’s business strategy is where they have mechanisms to improve their product relevance and helpfulness to make each purchase easy and quick (Johnstone, 2020). This strategy helps the customer spend less time shopping and may initiate a sense of brand loyalty. John Lewis is able to deliver a successful paid search result which is a wise strategy. This strategy helps give organic listing for John Lewis in which all their product results fall far down the resulting age. John Lewis has been able to easily beating rivals such as Amazon and App...