Emilles Godnice Hampp
20/457879/SP/29591
Integrated Marketing Communication
Online Consumer Behavior
I. Introduction: Online Store’s Consumer Behavior
There are various definitions of consumer behavior if we were to define it. Generally, people will
understand consumer behavior as a term that encompasses all of a consumer's decisions about the
acquisition, consumption, and disposal of things, services, activities, experiences, people, and
ideas.1 In addition, consumer behavior is every decision the consumer makes, in politics,
choosing what movies or TV shows for a certain actor, music bands they listen to and as simple
as buying a book. These decisions are consumption decisions and consumers take these decisions
physiologically or mentally.2
Since the development of technology, online stores have been around. But due to the pandemic, a
lot of people are limited to go outside and more businesses have moved online. The goal of
analyze online consumer behavior would be to see how people adopt and use internet shopping.
The focus was on the factors that influence customer online purchase intention and adoption.
Companies have begun to recognize, however, that within the digital market, competitors are
only a mouse click away. Consumer adoption is simply the first step to overall success, and
organizations who are successful in their e-business operations are adept at developing and
maintaining long-term sustainable relationships with devoted customers. As a result, consumer
retention research (repurchase) is becoming increasingly important (Chan et al., 2003). There are
so many tools for online stores to utilize in order to analyze their consumer’s behavior,
unfortunately, not all online stores take advantage of it. There are a couple reasons for this being,
one of them is not understanding how to use those tools.
2. Analyzing Online Consumer Behavior
1 Rosenzweig, M. R., & Porter, L. W. (1976). In Annual Review of Psychology (pp. 331–358). essay, Annual
Reviews Inc.
2 Hoyer, W. D., MacInnis, D. J., & Pieters, R. (2013). Understanding Consumer Behavior. In Consumer behavior
(pp. 5–8). essay, South Western Cengage Learning.
2.1 Factors on Online Consumers
Marketing is essential for a business, let alone an online business. Many would argue that it is an
important key to success of a business. In correlation to the increasing number of online stores,
nowadays effective marketing is also mostly done through the online realm. Marketing agents
acquire their work on the internet, television, and radio, as well as newspaper and magazine
space, for their customers' advertisements (Finoti et al., 2017). The general public usually looks
to marketing for news on political, social, and entertainment concerns, as well as pop culture
coverage. Through mass marketing, information, principles, and ideas are communicated to both
general and targeted audiences (Dangelico & Vocalelli, 2017).
To understand the behavior of our consumers, we have to understand what affects them and
understand their patterns. The most important influence on consumer behavior is the marketing
campaigns. If a marketing campaign is well thought out, it can lead to consumers changing
brands. There are many online tools that can help with marketing campaigns, Facebook ads for
eCommerce for instance, it is a great way as a reminder of our products to consumers. Another
influence on consumer behavior is the economic condition and personal preferences.
Understanding consumer’s wants and needs can help segment an online businesses’ target
market. Consumer behavior is also affected by group influence, their decisions are also
influenced by their family member’s, co-workers’, and other acquaintances’’ decisions. Last but
not least, purchasing power, by segmenting consumers to different buying capacities, marketers
can easily determine their targeted consumers (Radu & Panaitescu, 2021).
2.2 How to Analyze Online Consumer
Consumer behavior analysis is to understand how consumers feel about other alternatives of
brands, and how they choose between them. It is also to understand their behavior in shipping and
what influences their behavior. Last but not least it is also to help marketing campaigns to
improve in order to effectively affect their consumer behaviors. There are multiple questions
marketers need to answer in order to understand their online consumer behaviors.
Marketers need to understand who their target audience is. Though consumers are the ones who
decide what they purchase, a lot of times there are external influences in these decisions. For
instance, a child would want to purchase a toy, hence they would ask their parents for permission.
In this scenario, parents are who decides the purchase and children are the ones who influence the
purchase. In this case, marketers are obliged to be aware of the process, for instance advertising
their toy products on cartoon channels. Other than focusing on the consumer, marketers need to
be focused on why consumers would want to purchase their products and their opinion on the
products. Is the product value worth the price? Why do consumers prefer this product over other
brands? Marketers should be aware of these questions. Lifestyle is also a big part of what
influences a consumer behavior. People who love sports would buy sport shoes and sport gear.
On the other hand, people who enjoy music would buy more instruments or subscribe to a music
streaming service ([Link], 2018).
Two other important elements to analyze is where and when consumers would buy a product.
Since we are talking about online consumers, it is obvious that the most effective way is to
market online. Social media is one of the most used applications and mediums for online stores.
Everyone, from any age and any social class are using social media. It is such an effective way of
mass broadcasting messages through advertisements. It is also important to know when
consumers are likely to purchase our products. With the tools in social media, such as Instagram
provides, it is easier to analyze when consumers are suitable to purchase a product.
2.3 Case Study: Instagram’s Online Shop Eaudevale Consumer Behavior Analysis
Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms today. Many tools and features have
been developed and provided by Instagram for online stores to be able to reach their target
markets and consumers easily. Two of which are Instagram Analytics and Instagram Promotions.
Instagram analytics is a tool for determining how well your Instagram profile and content are
performing overall. Instagram analytics tools track a variety of parameters and display them to
users as data. You can use Instagram analytics tools to find out information like location, gender,
age, and language. You may use this information to figure out who your target audience is and
what kind of material to share with them. With the use of Instagram analytic tools, you may track
your Instagram's success over time. This tool will generally inform you of what needs to be fixed
or maintained. That way, you can make the necessary tweaks to ensure that your Instagram
account performs well (Bagus,2021).
Eaudevale is an online store that my partner and I created on Instagram to sell women perfumes.
We are very fortunate to have created an online store in a time where Instagram features have
already developed. Instagram promotion is one of the features Eaudevale uses to reach more users
and consumers. Instagram promotions exist to increase visibility and interaction. A promotion
boosts the performance of a high-performing post. It boosts engagement by increasing likes,
views, and shares, among other things. Instagram advertising is an excellent tool for converting
new clients into recurring customers. Though at first, likes, views, and share did not increase, it
helped Eadevale in receiving more profile visits, which can be seen through the Instagram
Analytics tool.
3. Conclusion
Consumer behavior is everything to do with the decision they make in purchasing. With the
emergence of technology and the global pandemic, people and businesses are using social media
as an alternative to sell their products and services. It is important to understand how we can
analyze consumer behavior in creating business. There are many factors to be aware of in
analyzing consumers including outside influences, product influences, and also the process of
marketing. Having an online business, it is also important to understand the tools we are able to
utilize for marketing our brand. Utilizing these tools and maximizing its advantage can really help
the engagement between the brand and the consumers.
References
Books
Hoyer, W. D., MacInnis, D. J., & Pieters, R. (2013). Understanding Consumer Behavior. In Consumer
behavior (pp. 5–8). essay, South Western Cengage Learning.
Journals
Chan, G., Cheung, C., Kwong, T., Limayem, M., & Zhu, L. (2003). Online Consumer Behavior: A
Review and Agenda for Future Research. BLED 2003 Proceedings.
Ali, B. J., & Anwar, G. (2021). Marketing strategy: Pricing strategies and its influence on consumer
purchasing decision. International Journal of Rural Development, Environment and Health
Research, 5(2), 26–39. [Link]
Websites
Radu, V., & Panaitescu, A. (2021, October 7). Consumer behavior in marketing - patterns, types,
segmentation - Omniconvert blog. Omniconvert Ecommerce Growth Blog. Retrieved October 22,
2021, from [Link]
segmentation/.
How to analyse consumer behaviour. LSBF. (2018, December 12). Retrieved October 22, 2021, from
[Link]
Bagus, I. (2021, October 7). 10+ Instagram Analytics Yang Wajib Anda Coba di 2021. Niagahoster Blog.
Retrieved October 22, 2021, from [Link]
