Customer Journeys in ASOS and WH Smith Companies

This article compares the customer journeys and online experiences of ASOS and WH Smith companies. It discusses the success of ASOS in providing a seamless and user-friendly website, while highlighting the challenges faced by WH Smith in maintaining inventory and marketing their products. The analysis emphasizes the importance of online presence and customer satisfaction in the 21st century business landscape.

Customer Journey 1
CUSTOMER JOURNEYS IN ASOS AND WH SMITH COMPANIES
Name
Institution
Date
Course
Tutor
City/Sate

Customer Journey 2
Introduction
Customer journey is a way of trying to understand various ways through which customers
behave once they visit a website. It is therefore o truck down of a customer’s step by step
behavior in a business website. ASOS is an online platform that sells latest fashion clothes. It’s
aimed at young people and more than 800 brands are sold locally and more than 180 shipped to
other countries. WH Smith is also an online store that sells stationary and entertainment
materials. it was founded in the late 1780s and has been the first retail seller worldwide. The two
companies are suitable due to the fact that ASOS is more than two centuries younger than WH
Smith hence the impact of technology can easily be felt.
Comparison between ASOS and W H Smith companies
ASOS has been a very successful online business because it gives its customers the best and
what they exactly want. This is achieved through retailers who constantly report higher sales
than the store itself. Customer experiences have been constantly improved technologically due to
building up pressure from customers to the retailers (Daily Mail 2018 P. 77). This pressure has
been constructive since development of easily usable mobile applications have been developed
an aspect that has led to a remarkable increase of online shoppers and customers. The
functionality of ASOS website is ranked the top worldwide to its navigation and purchase which
is exceptionally strategized for customer ease to use. Its digital experience is very high because
its search box is clutter free (MarketLine Company Profile: ASOS plc, 2018 P. 57). This means
it has no distractions that can hampers functional ability across all digital related devices. The
behavior of customers is tracked down to narrow down their continuously and unanimously

Customer Journey 3
growing search range. This is achieved by saving each and every search history that has been
keyed in by their customers.
ASOS has also developed excellent ways of guiding their shoppers through their site both those
who use phones and those who use desktop computers. According to McDonald and Wilson
2016, a wide range of categories has been developed and specified such that a customer does not
struggle to look for information. On landing on the pages, one is able to easily identify what they
are looking for with prices, images and short tutorial videos attached so as to attract customers to
make orders and purchases. Shoppers are mostly interested with the ability to narrow down into
details of what they want to purchase. For instance a customer is able to know the brand, the
color and the size of a particular clothe they want to buy (Joanna 2019, P. 34) Since ASOS is
linked to producers of each and every latest fashion, their customers are always able to get any
trending fashion in the market.
On the contrary
W H Smith has a wide range of products ranging from magazines, stationary, books, cards,
newspapers and CDs. These products have contributed to the company’s difficulty in
maintaining inventory and have also led to complication of the companies brand image (WH
Smith PLC 2019 P10-18). The company hence is forced to pay attention to a few products which
they have more shares and neglect products of lower value and shares. The company’s location
remains streets and major train stations which pose a difficulty of piling products in the stores.
The wide range of products poses a difficulty in displaying the products for customers to choose.
This has significantly brought down the business due inability to market a single product. The
company also allocates too little amount of money on advertisement an aspect that has continued

Customer Journey 4
to depopularize it among the locals and has significantly lost ground in the beginning of this
century though old since inception was in 1792. The company has failed to develop any mobile
applications to foster its strategies but continues to rely on social media handles such as face
book, twitter and some television channels to market it. Constantly it’s relying of the
unconscious promotion of its brand by users of these social media hubs who at times may fail to
advertise (MarketLine Company 2017, P.12). Disassociation between the brand of the company
and the colors used has also been another major fault since individuals who are sensitive to the
use of colors purely get bored and start avoiding the site.
The failure of the company to initiate an aggressive online working staff to be involved in the
selling process has led to deterioration of the company. Moreover, lack of a corporate ambition
and working towards the ambition has led to lose of taste by customers even those who were
glued to the company at the start of its failure. The company has over the years been considering
ways of retaining large sums of money rather than concentrating on customer satisfaction which
would increase the income of the company (Hosking 2014, P.31). To improve the development
of a company its urgent that revisions of the existing principles is done from time to time as
advancements in technology are increasing each day. The blow to W H Smith has of late been
facilitated by national retailers, local retailers and internet shops which sell the same products in
ways that are easily accessible to the customers. Customer behavior has never been tracked down
an aspect that has also led to easy loss of customers thus the woes facing the company have
increased.

Customer Journey 5
Evaluation
From the analysis concerning ASOS and WH smith companies, it is clearly evident that online
work is the actual business of the 21st century. Having started in the year 2000 ASOS has been
able to make significant impact in the marketing of fashion clothes through online purchase.
Advertisement is one of the major milestones that enhances purchase and selling of items. It can
be done on television channels, use of posters, use of banners, use of road shows and use of
customers (Dellaert 2019, P.47). This was the most effective method of advertisement that WH
Smith Company has continued to rely on. The disadvantage with this advertisement method is
that it is quickly fading away with the invention of newer technologies. Face book and twitter are
also being used as marketing locations though its disadvantage is that a company relies on the
users to promote the brand which may fail to happen.
Recently the development of mobile applications has greatly contributed to effective
advertisement of company brands that have chosen to invest in the applications. Some
customized features are used to enhance a website management of a company an aspect that has
made possible for customers to quickly access what they want without wasting time on irrelevant
information (Kietzmann Paschen and Treen 2018, P.268) ASOS business has been able to top
worldwide in the selling of fashion clothes because it has constantly invented on this kind of
customization hence faster and very efficient. For instance in the ASOS website portal fashion is
classified according to gender and children hence a female customer will not waste time
checking on men’s wear unless she intend to purchase. This development brought pressure to the
retailers hence the company had to further the invention such that in a click of a button all the
necessary items in that category would appears then one chooses the appropriate.

Customer Journey 6
Furthermore on the actual website, each items image is uploaded thus a customer will look at the
image and decide whether the commodity suits them or not. In addition to this some tutorial
videos on how one will look in the attire are also provided to enable a customer chooses fashion
wear that are appropriate to their body shape. A customer is therefore able to track down to all
the details of the fabric he/ she requires i.e. color and size. This development has therefore
attracted so many customers who continuously shop online and get deliveries at their place of
convenience. Many of them have then resulted to active advertisers over social media hence
attracting more customers to try the services.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it then appears that in the 21st century, business is taking totally a
different direction from what it has always been in the past. This is because people used to travel
long distances to acquire products from shops, supermarkets and malls. Today it is exactly the
opposite since businesses are doing deliveries of their products without necessarily considering
distances. This happens with reasonable charges on the delivery and in some instances it is
absolutely free.

Customer Journey 7
List of References
Daily Mail (2018) ‘Asos Fashion Flies but Its Shares Are a Flop’, 13 July, p. 77. Available at:
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=130644212&site=ehost-live
(Accessed: 26 March 2019).
Dellaert, B. G. C. (2019) ‘The consumer production journey: marketing to consumers as co-
producers in the sharing economy’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(2), pp.
238–254. doi: 10.1007/s11747-018-0607-4.
Hosking, P. (2004) ‘W H Smith, whose money-making magic endured for two centuries, is today
“strategically challenged” by a pincer movement of supermarkets and bookshops such as
Waterstone’s’, New Statesman, 133(4686), p. 31. Available at:
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=12969018&site=ehost-live
(Accessed: 26 March 2019). Pride, D. (1994) ‘W H Smith merges Virgin & Our Price’,
Billboard, 106(11), p. 1. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=aph&AN=9404140835&site=ehost-live (Accessed: 26 March 2019).
Joanna Bourke (2019) ‘Asos stumbles as supply snags hit American push’, Evening Standard, 19
March, p. 47. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=bwh&AN=135407594&site=ehost-live (Accessed: 26 March 2019).
Kietzmann, J., Paschen, J. And Treen, E. (2018) ‘Artificial Intelligence in Advertising: How
Marketers Can Leverage Artificial Intelligence Along the Consumer Journey’, Journal of
Advertising Research, 58(3), pp. 263–267. doi: 10.2501/JAR-2018-035.

Customer Journey 8
MarketLine Company Profile: ASOS plc (2018) ASOS plc MarketLine Company Profile.
MarketLine, a Progressive Digital Media business, p. N.PAG. Available at:
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=134180477&site=ehost-live
(Accessed: 26 March 2019).
MarketLine Company Profile: WH Smith PLC (2017) WH Smith PLC MarketLine Company
Profile, pp. 1–28. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=buh&AN=124125906&site=ehost-live (Accessed: 26 March 2019).
McDonald, M. and Wilson, H. (2016) Marketing Plans : How to Prepare Them, How to Profit
From Them. Hoboken: Wiley. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1360406&site=ehost-live (Accessed: 26 March 2019).
WH Smith PLC (2019) WH Smith PLC MarketLine Company Profile. MarketLine, a Progressive
Digital Media business, p. N.PAG. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=buh&AN=134962071&site=ehost-live (Accessed: 26 March 2019).