your opinion 50

Read each paragraph and give me your opinion if you agree or disagree with the paragraph

1.

• Which areas would satisfy the tracker—the person who knows exactly what he or she wants?

The area on the Amazon site that would satisfy the tracker would be the search option on the home page. The search option gives the tracker the option to search for the specific item they’re looking for.

• Which areas would satisfy the explorer—the person who doesn’t have a particular in mind, but rather a need?

The area that would satisfy the explorer on the Amazon site would be the “Departments” section. This section gives the explorer different categories and departments to look through and shop for what they may be looking for.

• What recommendation can you make to improve one or more of these areas to make them more “delightful” to customers?

The Departments section can be a little overwhelming for many customers. There are so many subcategories within the big categories. Maybe Amazon could make the subcategories a little less.

• While these behavior patterns are attributed to online shoppers, do you think that they can also be applied to traditional shoppers or are they differentiating patterns?

Yes. I believe all 3 can be applied for traditional shopping as well. Going into the store to know exactly what you are looking for, going into a home section in the store because you want to redecorate a room, and going into the toys aisle of the store because you need a gift for a child’s birthday.

2

The Hunter may want to do a department search seeing that they know the type of product but not which product in particular.

The tracker may want to shop using the search bar because they know exactly what they want. Pursuing the item by entering the exact product name in the search will bring a shopper straight to what they are looking for.

The explorer may be better off shopping using the ?shop all collections? section. Here you can find a variety of items not categorized. The customer can explore and get ideas for any type product from clothing to appliances.

Recommendations
Overall, the improvement I would be that they have a side bar that can drop down on the side with all the sections listed so that customers don?t have to scroll all the way down the page to see all of the sections. When shopping, it seems to be time consuming to have to scan the whole page, especially if there is something specific you are looking for.

Behavior Patterns
I think the behavior patterns can be applied to traditional shoppers. Not everyone goes in the store with a specific item in mind to buy. Some shoppers go in and walk around until they see something they like. Some shoppers go in knowing exactly what they want, and if it?s not found, the customer may leave with nothing.

3.

From a marketing standpoint, I understand why data mining and customer profiling can be beneficial. It cuts out the guess work for marketers. By advertising to each customers personal wants and needs, the customer is likely to be drawn in easier based off of information they have inputted themselves.

As a consumer I do not feel as comfortable with the idea. It does leave a sense of paranoia because we do not know exactly what information is being used to allow marketers to get the information for the personalized advertising?s. I think the only way for me to find reconcile in the two viewpoints is if I knew more about what and how the information is obtained by marketers. If I knew the extent of the privacy a customer actually had, it would probably be easier to understand from a consumer viewpoint.

4.

it IS the reality, and the future. Retail markets have become simply too competitive to leave things up to chance or old methods. I recently read a book by Charles Duhigg on the power of habits. In this book, it clearly highlights both the good and bad of drawing such powerful data-driven information from consumers. One of the biggest examples he cites is that of a man complaining of his 18-year-old daughter getting a flier specifically for baby carriages and other baby supplies. He argued that they were sending these ads to her specifically to entice her to get pregnant – when she was pregnant and based off her buying habits the computer had analyzed and identified this – and was sending her more relevant ads to what she was purchasing. When the father found out, he quickly apologized and everyone including the company was surprised at how the scenario had played out.

I feel that when my parents or older generations talk about things and automatically assume its Big Brother, and everyone is spying on them is a terrible thing! I disagree – or maybe that a product of my upbringing in this age. Privacy is a right that hasn’t existed in some time. If a hacker wants your information, no protection in the world will fully prevent them from getting said information. The more important thing is to have safeguards in place for when it does get stolen or your privacy heavily invaded due to no fault of your own. And personally, I ENJOY targeted advertising. Why would someone who is nowhere near the demographic care about something that’s completely irrelevant to them? In example, a Pandora commercial. For me, I’m a gamer – so there should be relevant gaming advertisements on there targeted to me specifically. The random ads from a business tool will have no significance and fall on deaf ears – a straight waste of money and time for myself.

I feel that these two can be merged, but it creates a sort-of gray area where privacy is known to have been destroyed years ago – and people will just have to liv with that. For example, when you enter information into Target’s buying systems, while you may not be intentionally volunteering information – that information is still gathered up to create patterns and trends for future use. It’s the same argument that Facebook used as a defense recently where people are inputting their data themselves. Why would Facebook be held liable for the data they collect when it is all freely available anyway?