Impact of Retail Digitization on Customer Point of Contacts and Retail Experience

This professional project focuses on the impact of retail digitization on increasing customer point of contacts and improving retail experience for luxury brands like Chanel in Australia. The research methodology includes research philosophy, approach, design, data collection, sampling technique, data analysis, limitations, and ethics.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL PROJECT
Professional project
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.0 Research background.........................................................................................................................3
1.1 Research rationale..............................................................................................................................3
1.2 Research aim.....................................................................................................................................4
1.3 Research objectives...........................................................................................................................4
1.4 Research questions............................................................................................................................4
Chapter 2: Literature review........................................................................................................................5
2.0 Retail digitization..............................................................................................................................5
2.1 Establishing contacts with the customers and improving consumer experience................................6
2.2 Conceptual framework.......................................................................................................................8
3.0 Research philosophy..........................................................................................................................8
3.1 Research approach.............................................................................................................................9
3.2 Research design.................................................................................................................................9
3.3 Data collection.................................................................................................................................10
3.4 Sampling technique.........................................................................................................................10
3.5 Data analysis....................................................................................................................................10
3.6 Limitations.......................................................................................................................................11
3.7 Ethics...............................................................................................................................................11
Research timeline......................................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................13

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Impact of retail digitization on increasing customer point of contacts and improving retail
experience
Chapter 1: Introduction
The research is done to focus on the impact created due to digitization on increasing the
customer point of contact and improve the retail experience for making the customers find
convenience while shopping the luxury brand products.
1.0 Research background
The research background demonstrates how the use of internet and implementation of
information technology have enhanced the ways businesses are managed and created
convenience for the customers to purchase products and services. The company considered here
as the case study is Chanel in Australia, which has multiple stores and manages an online
website too for improving the customers’ online shopping experiences (chanel.com, 2018). It has
not only influenced maintaining good contacts with the customers, but also has enhanced the
retail experience to ensure customer satisfaction as a whole.
1.1 Research rationale
The research rationale is the research problem associated with the topic. Without
digitization, the luxury brands will not be able to keep proper contacts with the customers and
this may even lead to decline in sales and profit for the companies (Verhoef, Kannan & Inman,
2015). To overcome these kinds of issues, it is important for the luxury brands like Chanel to
make sure that digitization is facilitated to manage connections with the customers and make
them informed about the new products and services that have been launched in the market.

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Without the use of internet and implementation of information technology, it will be difficult to
provide the customers with better customers’ services regarding their response to queries and
providing them proper solutions to the questions asked by them (Rapp et al., 2013).
1.2 Research aim
The aim of the research is to determine the impact of retail digitization on increasing the
customer point of contact and improve the retail experience at Chanel, Australia (Cao & Li,
2015).
1.3 Research objectives
 To identify the impact of retail digitization on the customer point of contacts and
improving retail experience for Chanel, Australia
 To evaluate the various approaches undertaken to digitalize the retail experience for the
customers at Chanel, Australia
 To assess the probable effects created by digitizing the retail sector and providing
convenience for the customers while making purchases of the luxury brand products
 To recommend necessary measures for enhancing the luxury retail experience and
creating convenience for the customers to make purchases
1.4 Research questions
What is the impact of digitizing the retail sector on the retail experience of the customers at
Chanel, Australia?
How could the various approaches undertaken by Chanel improve the retail experience for the
customers?

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What could be the probable effects created through digitization of the retail luxury brand on the
management of customer contacts and improving online shopping experience?
What are the various measures recommended to improve the luxury retail experience and making
it easy for the customers to make purchases of the luxury brand products and services from
Chanel, Australia?
Chapter 2: Literature review
Nowadays, with the advancement in technology and communication, the luxury brands have
gained advantages through the retail digitization. It could not only enhance the contacts with the
customers, but would also result in measuring the loyalty of customers towards the brand. It
would improve the staffing decisions as well as reduce the waiting time in checkout lines,
furthermore make the products and services easily accessible to the customers. The retail
digitization would even engage the experiences of customers across channels and create a good
experience for the customers to remain connected with the luxury brand (Lemon & Verhoef,
2016).
2.0 Retail digitization
The digitization of luxury retail sector is managed with the implementation of
information technology and with the use of smart phones, it has become easy for the customers
to access the online website of the luxury brand and access the products and services properly.
The retail digitization requires proper design and product management, which can not only
enhance the marketing efficiency, but will also result in enhancing the communication managed
with the customers to make them know about the kinds of products and services delivered by the

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luxury brand. The retail digitization could also be facilitated by involving the social networks to
respond to customers’ feedbacks and queries and even providing them with relevant solutions to
the questions regarding any products or services used by the company (Pappas et al., 2014). To
maintain customer contacts is needed to understand what the customers actually want and how
they can be kept satisfied. The retail digitization could not only allow the luxury brand to
establish good relationship with the customers and make them loyal customers but would also
allow for creating an online website where the customers would be able to access the products
and services available and purchase those with much convenience. It could even position the
products and services properly in the market place and make the customers gain positive mindset
about the company too (Hagberg, Sundstrom & Egels-Zandén, 2016).
The retail sector has not left any stones unturned to enhance the in-store consumer
experience too by using new technologies to ensure seamless shopping experience. The sales
staffs were equipped with iPads to provide the stores with an updated and create lasting impact
too. The retail digitization would not only enhance the luxury brand’s focus towards the
customers, but could also manage a proper infrastructure and provide customer value to survive
in the competitive business environment (Peltola, Vainio & Nieminen, 2015). The digitization of
the luxury retail brand could also attract new customers as well as retain the existing customers
by responding to the new trends in consumer behavior, furthermore ensure successful price
configuration, product designing, enhancing the quality of experience and even improving the
marketing and delivery processes. The luxury brands could gain more scopes, opportunities and
challenges as the tech savvy and on-the-go consumers would utilize various digital channels to
look for the products in the website before making purchases. This would enhance the brand
value and enhance the level of customer satisfaction too (Taylor, 2016).

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2.1 Establishing contacts with the customers and improving consumer experience
With the digitization of retail industry, the customers could access the online website and
purchase the items. The mobile responsive website could easily allow them to check for the
products and services online and look for the discounts on products via apps, which would be
much more convenient rather than visiting the stores during purchases. The luxury brands have
used mobile wearable to the physical for making the customers look the products and services
with the virtual reality goggles or VR kit without touching those physically. To increase
customer point of contacts and improve retail experience, it would be important to ensure that
smart beacons were used (Floyd et al., 2014). The smart beacons could function with the
Bluetooth device for keeping the retailers informed about the location of the store and allow
them to communicate with them within the targeted location.
The use of internet has brought rapid changes to the retail industry not only by creating
impact on the consumption data but also personalized the shopping experience by distributing
the right kinds of products in the market and making people aware of it. The use of artificial
intelligence further contributed to the retail digitization by data automation and allowing the
retail brands to understand the actual needs and preferences of the customers before making any
purchases (Escobar, 2016). The digitization in the luxury brand stores have redefined the entire
way of shopping for the consumers and even created convenience for them by not searching for
any time during purchase, rather find out exactly what they needed from the luxury brand.

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2.2 Conceptual framework
Chapt
er 3: Research methodology
The research methodology would be done by selecting the right research philosophy, approach,
design and strategy to ensure proper conduction of the research The research methods should
also include collecting and analyzing data and information, furthermore maintain proper ethical
standards and assess the limitations that should be overcome to conduct the research and bring
positive outcomes too (Prepletaný, 2013).
3.0 Research philosophy
The topic focused on the importance of retail digitization on customer point of contact
and improving the retail experience, so new theories, ideas and concepts should be generated for
managing data evaluation and analysis and gain in-depth knowledge for research conduction.
There are positivism, post positivism and interpretivism research philosophies. As the research is
primary, so both qualitative and quantitative data should be gathered. The information that could

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be obtained should be based on natural phenomenon according to the real events and situations
and must be interpreted through the logical reasoning techniques (Neuman, 2014). Thus, the
positivism research philosophy should be considered here as the most effective while conducting
the research efficiently.
3.1 Research approach
The two different types of research approaches are inductive and deductive research
approaches. The assumptions made during the research conduction could be validated by using
the deductive approach of research whereas the inductive research approach could be used for
formulating new ideas, theories and concepts as well as for the generalization of data and
information with ease. The research objectives and hypothesis could be done at the start of the
research whereas the research questions should be implemented by using the inductive approach.
As the research conduction could not require any new theories or concepts to be formulated, so
the deductive research approach should be considered here as the most suitable research
approach (Bryman & Bell, 2015).
3.2 Research design
The research designs are exploratory, explanatory and descriptive research designs. The
initial research is done with the use of theoretical data considering the exploratory research
design whereas the existing ideas, theories and concepts could be more beneficial for conducting
this kind of research at present and in future as well. The descriptive research design, as the
name suggested, could be suitable for filling the missing gaps in research as well as enable
collection of data and information by focusing on what kind of research should be done and how
it would be done. Exploratory and explanatory research designs could derive unpredictable

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outcomes, though the descriptive research design could allow the independent variable, i.e., the
retail digitization create an impact on the dependent variable, i.e., the customer point of focus
and improvement of the retail experience (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). Thus, the descriptive
research design would be more favorable in the research conduction.
3.3 Data collection
The collection of data would include both primary and secondary data. The primary data
consisting of the qualitative and quantitative data could be gathered from interviewing the
managers of the luxury brands and providing survey questionnaires to the customers where they
need to provide their responses. The secondary data could be collected by assessing the various
articles, journals, documents and internet websites consisting of data and information relevant to
the research (Lindlof & Taylor, 2017).
3.4 Sampling technique
The sampling technique would be done by probability and non-probability sampling
technique. The probability sampling method would allow for random selection whereas the non-
probability sampling would include convenient sampling technique. The random selection
process would enable selecting a number of respondents from a large heterogeneous group of
people randomly while the convenient sampling could manage a suitable time schedule for the
managers to be present and provide their responses to the questions asked during the interview
(chanel.com, 2018).

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3.5 Data analysis
The analysis of data should be done with the use of SPSS tool and the data and
information should be analyzed by presenting those on table or graphical formats using the MS
excel spreadsheet.
3.6 Limitations
Few limitations could be time and cost constraints and even the lack of authentic and
accurate data and information found on the secondary sources of data. The internet websites,
journals and articles might not be authentic, which might contain wrong information that might
hinder the successful accomplishment of research and deriving of proper research outcomes too
(Rapp et al., 2013).
3.7 Ethics
The ethics should be maintained by managing the validity and accuracy of data along
with the use of research materials for academic purposes only and not for any kinds of
commercial benefits. The research data and information should be destroyed after the completion
of research, so that it does not fall in wrong hands and a similar kind of research could be
conducted by them, which could prevent authenticity and create copyright issues as well (Cao &
Li, 2015).
Research timeline
Main activities/ stages Month
February
Month
March
Month
April
Month
May
Month
June
Month
July
Selection of topic 

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Collecting data from
secondary sources
 
Constructing the research
layout

Literature review   
Development of research
Plan
 
Selection of Appropriate
Research Techniques
 
Primary data collection  
Analysis & Interpretation of
Data which are collected
 
Conclusion 
Development of Draft 
Final Work submission 

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References
Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2015). Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.
Cao, L., & Li, L. (2015). The impact of cross-channel integration on retailers’ sales growth.
Journal of Retailing, 91(2), 198-216.
chanel.com. (2018). CHANEL. Retrieved 14 April 2018, from http://www.chanel.com/en_AU/
Escobar, A. (2016). The Impact of the Digital Revolution in the Development of Market and
Communication Strategies for the Luxury Sector (Fashion Luxury). Central European
Business Review, 5(2), 17.
Floyd, K., Freling, R., Alhoqail, S., Cho, H. Y., & Freling, T. (2014). How online product
reviews affect retail sales: A meta-analysis. Journal of Retailing, 90(2), 217-232.
Hagberg, J., Sundstrom, M., & Egels-Zandén, N. (2016). The digitalization of retailing: an
exploratory framework. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management,
44(7), 694-712.
Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the
customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96.
Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2017). Qualitative communication research methods. Sage
publications.
Neuman, L. W. (2014). Social research methods. Pearson Education Limited.

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O. Pappas, I., G. Pateli, A., N. Giannakos, M., & Chrissikopoulos, V. (2014). Moderating effects
of online shopping experience on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions.
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 42(3), 187-204.
Peltola, S., Vainio, H., & Nieminen, M. (2015, August). Key factors in developing omnichannel
customer experience with finnish retailers. In International Conference on HCI in
Business (pp. 335-346). Springer, Cham.
Prepletaný, D. (2013). The Impact of Digital Technologies on Innovations in Retail Business
Models. Aalborg University.
Rapp, A., Beitelspacher, L. S., Grewal, D., & Hughes, D. E. (2013). Understanding social media
effects across seller, retailer, and consumer interactions. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 41(5), 547-566.
Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2016). Research methods for business: A skill building approach.
John Wiley & Sons.
Taylor, E. (2016). Mobile payment technologies in retail: a review of potential benefits and risks.
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 44(2), 159-177.
Verhoef, P. C., Kannan, P. K., & Inman, J. J. (2015). From multi-channel retailing to omni-
channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of
retailing, 91(2), 174-181.

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