Customer Perspective is a new series we are starting today. We plan to talk to typical customers and get them to write their experience buying online. The goal is to collect these case studies which can help merchants gain insights into customer behavior. These should prove useful in validating some of the existing and future marketing strategies you deploy. These will be written as first person account with minimal editing to preserve the customer inputs as much as possible. If you want more details about any case study, please contact us.
When my second child started sitting comfortably at the age of 5 months, my husband and I decided to buy a baby stroller. Now, we live in a typical tier 3 city that has fewer options when it comes to shopping as compared to bigger cities. We had faced lots of difficulty in the same purchase 5 years ago with our first child, so we decided to buy online this time.
About Me
- Location: Typical Tier 3 city
- Looking for: Stroller for a 0-2 yrs. baby
- Buying for: younger daughter
- Buying criteria: Reasonable price, Good brand
Researching the Product
When we googled “strollers,” the first thing that we noted about the results was interesting; none of the generic shopping sites like eBay, Junglee, Amazon, etc. were on the first page. We zeroed in on two sites – Firstcry and Babyoye – for detailed research after skimming through the sites on search page. We also researched eBay and Junglee for strollers in detail to see if there was any difference between sites dedicated to baby products and the general shopping ones. Some of the parameters we based our research on were:
- Search Results: We wanted to be sure we get very relevant search results
- Product Details: Full product description including good photographs because we were not comfortable buying online and wanted to be very sure what we would get
- Return Policy: We wanted easy and transparent return policy, because we were not sure whether we will get what we needed
Differences among the websites
Most of the options like refining research experience, payment options, checkout page were similar but still there were some differences that impacted our decision-making:
- Search Results: eBay search result listed spare parts as well, so it was tiresome glancing through all the pages (almost 250!!) and we never reached the last page.
- Search Result Filtering: Only Babyoye filtered based on age, which we found useful. All sites gave us option to filter the products based on the general criterion like brand, price, type, etc.
- Register before purchase: It was necessary to be registered on eBay and Junglee to make a purchase. On the other two, I could proceed to the “Make Payments” page with just a valid email ID.
- Cash on Delivery (COD): COD was given on all locations by Firstcry but not Babyoye.
- Product Recommendations: Firstcry was the only site that had suggestions about other products that could be bought together with strollers. And they were relevant!!
The Final Purchase
After much research and soul searching we decided to buy from Babyoye as they were offering the best discount on the brand we had zeroed in. Other details of our purchase:
- Purchase Criteria: Best discount on selected brand
- Payment Option: Netbanking
- Delivery Time: 10 days
- Delivered By: Speed Post facility of Indian Postal Department (This was very interesting!)
- Overall Experience: Very good, we will buy online again
If you want us to cover specific product or category by a particular demographic, contact us here.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
