Consumer Behavior Report: ASOS Customer Profile and Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of consumer behavior, focusing on the online fashion retailer ASOS. It begins with an introduction to consumer behavior, defining its key aspects and highlighting its importance for organizations. The report then delves into the concept of consumer behavior, exploring the factors that influence purchasing decisions, both internal and external. The core of the report is a case study of ASOS, examining its customer profile, including demographics, lifestyle, and online behavior. The report explores the primary and secondary target markets of ASOS, detailing their goals, challenges, and purchase motivations. The analysis includes the company's use of machine learning to understand customer behavior and personalize offerings. Finally, the report concludes by emphasizing the significance of understanding consumer behavior for successful marketing and business operations, providing evidence of how ASOS applies these principles to its business model.

Running head: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Definition and conception:.....................................................................................................2
Importance of consumer behavior for organizations:............................................................4
Evidence:................................................................................................................................5
Consumer Behavior- ASOS:..................................................................................................6
Customer profile of ASOS-................................................................................................6
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The study focussed on selecting, buying, using and disposing of process or behaviour
of organization for satisfying wants and needs of the customers is known as consumer
behaviour. The study aims at the actions and practices of consumers for understanding the
rationale and motive behind a purchasing decision. Consumer behaviour assesses the
behavioural, emotional and mental responses of customers, which are involved in the buying
process of consumers (East et al., 2016). Consumer behaviour demonstrates the impact or
influence of various factors, which can be externally or internally existent. The purpose of the
paper is to reflect the significance of consumer behaviour for the product offerings of target
customers of ASOS. The paper will stress on the conception of consumer behaviour by
involving the significance of its implication on the buying process of the consumers (Szmigin
& Piacentini, 2018). The British ASOS Plc. was established in the year 2000 for selling
clothes targeted at young adults. ASOS as a fashion company is expanding its routes to
multiple countries, Australia is one of the major hubs. Australia is considered to be the
second-largest market after the U.K. The features and offerings of ASOS have made the
clothing company popular amongst the local shoppers of the region. The Australian site of
the fashion company includes both the Marketplace and the Fashion Finder, as well as the
local returning centre of the company, was set up at Sydney.
Discussion
Definition and conception:
Consumer Behaviour deals with the understanding of consumers in the extensive
process of researching, selecting, buying and using a good or service with the associated
motivation or rationale behind the decision. The understanding and assessment of the process
involving the buying and selection amongst organizations and individuals are covered in

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consumer behaviour. The study of consumer behaviour is mainly concerned with behaviour,
psychology and motivations of selecting and buying a good or service or both. The field of
consumer study includes the understanding of the emotion consumers feel about a brand,
services or products and retailers. Consumer behaviour also identifies the process that
consumers go through amongst different existent alternatives with the rationale behind a
purchase decision (Szmigin & Piacentini, 2018). This field of study also involves the
discovery of external and internal environment such as culture, media and social groups,
which can play a major role in deciding a specific emotion towards a product or a brand. Due
to the nature of the field to identify and assess the rationale behind stimulating a buying
decision, the study of consumer behaviour can enable the construction of strategic
recommendations for the improvement of marketing campaigns.
The field of consumer behaviour also involves the standard procedure for consumer
decision making the process. The first step of the consumers’ purchase decision making
process is the recognition of the needs and wants. After recognizing needs, customers start
searching for information and data that can contribute to satisfying the recognized needs.
After gaining the knowledge about the existent offerings that are aligned with the needs,
customers undergo an extensive evaluation of the existent alternatives (East et al., 2016). The
best alternatives deduced from the evaluation will be lead to the purchase decision. The last
step determines the suitability or viability of selecting a particular product for satisfying the
needs.
The purchase decision of consumers of the target group is impacted by both external
and internal influencers. Consumer awareness reflects the understanding of the consumers
with respect to the product offerings and shopping environment. The internal influencers that
contribute to the consumer buying decision making include social identity, personal identity,
interests, capabilities, lifestyle, social reference groups in the alignment of the identified

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needs. The internal influencers involve motivation and emotions, perception, personal or
prior experience with similar stimuli or offering. The external influences involve culture,
marketing campaigns, social media content and social reference groups.
Importance of consumer behaviour for organizations:
Understanding consumer behaviour is considered very crucial for organizations and
business practices. The rationale behind the significant impact of the study of consumer
behaviour on the purchase decision and organizational activities are as follows:
 Operationalizing the marketing concepts: The strategy of customer-oriented business
practices and marketing actions can only be facilitated with the understanding of the
needs, expectations and desires of consumers. An organization can only execute or
frame a marketing campaign or action if the organization understands the actual needs
or problem that it is aiming to address in the market (East et al., 2016).
 Market segmentation: In market segmentation strategy, organizations or marketer
divides the market into various smaller homogenous groups, which can be used as a
base for framing marketing campaigns (East et al., 2016). The marketing function of
segmentation strategy demands the stage of developing insight into the preferences
and consumption pattern of selected target market segments. Segmentation will need a
detailed assessment of the personality traits, preferences and needs of the customers.
 Production policies and process: The production process and policy implementation
also depend on the insights about consumer behavioural approach for instance; the
packaging of a product may influence the emotion or sentiments of a customer.
 Product Life Cycle: For maintaining a long-lasting and growing product life cycle of
an organization, the constant upgradation of the customer insights is very crucial for
ensuring the strategic position and lifecycle of the consumers. The evolution of the

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consumer preferences, emotional motives and lifestyle of the target groups demands
the alignment of the offerings.
 Price policies: Price of a product is considered to be one of the most significant
factors, which contributes to the buying decision of the consumers. A specific group
of customers may prioritize affordability for making a purchasing decision whereas
some products are bought only if they are old with higher prices, as these products are
considered to be the medium of reflecting status and prestige.
 Avoiding product failure: A well-informed organization or extensive assessment of
the consumer decision making process and preferences can help in securing the
execution plan of a business or in avoiding the potentiality of failure.
 Understanding about buying behaviour: Each consumer differs in their community
surrounding, age, occupation and sex, which can majorly influence the buying
behavioural process. The differentiation aspects can be understood by identifying the
priorities and preferences of the consumers.
 Adaptation to changes: The nature of consumer behaviour is dynamic and may adapt
to changes with respect to experiences, income, lifestyles, income and age. The
continual practice of assessment regarding consumer priorities helps in framing
distribution, promotion, price and product (Szmigin & Piacentini, 2018).
 Framing marketing and operational activities: The marketing activities like
promotional strategies and operational flow are dependent on the customers’ demand
and potential response to a particular product. The motive of the consumers is used as
the platform for deriving media communication approach.
Evidence:
The clothing company, ASOS has intentionally and strategically framed the company
website, where consumers need to feed information for logging in to the site. The personal

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details that the registration process asks the customers includes email address, gender and age
of the user. The Customer Lifetime Value is considered very crucial for the clothing
companies, specifically in online retail. An online shopping site requires building a strong
level of trust and value for the customers to be able to sell even a single article from the site.
A single bad review, return request or payment and the delivery option can lead to a negative
impression and bad worth of mouth amongst the target customers. ASOS as an online
clothing company has recognized the significance of developing the understanding of
consumer behaviour and have improved the calculation of CLTV by applying machine
learning. The system of machine learning incorporates the feature of automatic learning,
which when combined with the strategy of the handcrafted feature of the online website and
product values based on the preferences of each user (Aslam & Srivastav 2018). The machine
learning is solely based on learning the rich patterns regarding the raw data of customer
behavioural patter while making a purchase decision (Javornik, 2016). ASOS categorizes the
target groups into potentially valuable and valuable customers. The handcrafted features of
the offerings are developed with the information gained about the customers’ purchase
history, application session logs and demographics.
Consumer Behavior- ASOS:
Customer profile of ASOS-
ASOS aims at projecting confidence amongst the customers by their product
offerings. 2475 customer care officials from all across the world, marketing and operational
team focus on discovering the needs and preferences of the customers. The clothing company
stresses on considering the group of customers as individuals. The primary market for the
clothing brands are the young population or potential shoppers and the secondary target
market are kids as they are not the decision-makers (Asosplc.com, 2019)
Primary target market

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Demographic
 Age- 18-35 years
 Gender- Female (major), Male
 Income- 33,300 to 88,700 (AUD)
 Occupation- High school students, university students and office-goers
 One family household- Single, Couples without children (Asosplc.com, 2019)
Culture
 Aspiring high social status
 Reflecting status through clothes
 Activities includes, partying, attending social gatherings, attending college and
college fests
Lifestyle
 Active social life
 Office-goers
 Busy schedule
 Interest in fashion, options and affordability
 Accustomed with social media and mobile applications
Background Story
 Australian University
 Australian born or residing due to education and/or career opportunity
Goals, Challenges and Pain Points
 Social acceptability and popularity amongst current social groups
 Peer-pressure

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 Social status
 High aspiration
 Management jobs demands presentable attire
 Work stress is a major challenge
 Major criteria of being acceptable by social groups
 High priced fashion
 No time for visiting physical stores
Personal Life
 Active social life- Parties and social gatherings (Weekends)
 Lack of time and demands convenience for every function of day-to-day life
 Prefers online shopping for saving time and for affordability
Personality
 Both extrovert and introvert
 Easy brand switchers
 Enthusiastic
Web/Purchase Behavior and motivation
 Frequent purchasing patter
 Browsing through websites and saving in shopping carts
 Impulse purchasing behavior
 Social media advertisements such as Instagram
 High degree of customization
 Quicker shopping experience, faster and free delivery
 Personalized offer notification and personal suggestions on product line

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Priorities
 Affordability
 Cost and time of delivery
 Options
 Easy website experience
 Engaging content and elements of the clothing company
 Easy response to the queries related to return and availability
 Faster stock-up
Secondary target market- Kids
Demographic
 Age- 6-12 years
 Gender- Both Female and Male
 Income- 33,300 to 88,700 (AUD) [Middle-class group earning parent (s)]
 Single and Multiple Family Household (couples with children and multiple couples
with children)
 Occupation- primary and middle school students
Culture
 Aspiring acceptance from peers
 Clothes by occasion- Festivals and birthdays
 Activities includes, attending social gatherings, attending school, co-curricular
activities and school programs
Lifestyle
 Active social life at school and co-curricular activities

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 School-goers
 Interested in wide range of options and occasion based clothing and accessories
 Accustomed with engaging content ads and print media
Background Story
 Australian schools or home schooled
 Australian born or residing due to education
Goals, Challenges and Pain Points
 Social acceptability and popularity amongst current social groups
 Peer-pressure
 Dependability for purchase decisions
 End users but not buyers
 Have a new clothing item for every occasion or with changing season
Personal Life
 Active social life- Birthday parties and social gatherings
 Sufficient time but experiences dependability
 Exposed to a wide range of data through Television, print ads and occasional use of
social media
Personality
 Both extrovert and introvert
 Enthusiast
 Quick learners and get easily influenced
 Adamant and lack of patience
Motivation

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 Acceptability or popularity amongst social groups (friends and teachers)
Priorities
 Options
 Easy browsing experience
 Engaging content
 Faster stock-up
Although, ASOS is known for the focus on improving customer service unit for
sustaining its position in the Australian markets and to be more acceptable and popular
amongst the Australian customer groups, who otherwise prefer shopping from local brands
rather than International websites but with increasing reach and influencer advertising
content, Australian online shopping rates are increasing (Roymorgan.com, 2019). However,
ASOS is facing various issues in managing customer engagement practices as well as facing
challenges due to declining profit. The main concerns causing the negative growth of the
company are the distribution concern in overseas operations and concluding the era of print
ads. Prints ads were free for the customers and comprised of other reading content with
promotional columns, which proved to be engaging for the customers of ASOS. Both the
customer profile reflected the need for a wide range of options and ease in availability.
Moreover, both the target customer groups prefer to experience engaging content by the
company as it restricts the outcome of brand switching and over-browsing. These challenges
should be treated as an opportunity for the company in incorporating its machine learning
technology for improving the operational practices for overseas locations. Understanding the
browsing pattern and adding the feature of ‘notify me’ in the stocked out collection will help
in understanding the urgency of certain clothing or accessory items in the website. The
customer data gained from the queries and feedback through market research, online email or

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social media feedbacks will allow the brand to understand the demand for engaging content.
Although, concluding the print media due to the concern of cost has impacted the customer
engagement approach but the clothing company can utilize the customer insights on the
medium, they are usually accustomed to, as it can be used as a promotional medium and
engaging channel for the target groups. The feature of machine learning can be used for
understanding their preferred social media sites or activities, such as Instagram, YouTube
giveaways and social media Influencers’ role in buying decision.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded from the paper that consumer behaviour is one of the
most significant fields of consideration for the organizations, especially for the organizations
targeting young population as they can be exposed to multiple options and reflect the trait of
brand switching behaviour. ASOS is a well-established clothing company and becoming
accepted in Australia. The company has recognized the significance of understanding
consumer behaviour and customer insights for developing marketing strategies like
promotional content and website suggestions. However, the company is experiencing
challenges of declining growth and profit due to two of the major reason, concluding the print
media and distribution problems. The best possible strategy of ASOS can be to utilize its
efficient customer service unit and the feature of machine learning for creating engaging and
attractive offers for the customers.

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References:
Aslam, M., & Srivastav, A. K. (2018). Analyzing the effect of marketing digitization on
business processes and consumer behaviour. International Journal in Management &
Social Science, 6(5), 162-169.
Asosplc.com (2019). Our Customers. [Online] Available at:
https://www.asosplc.com/corporate-responsibility/our-customers
East, R., Singh, J., Wright, M., & Vanhuele, M. (2016). Consumer behaviour: Applications in
marketing. Sage.
Javornik, A. (2016). Augmented reality: Research agenda for studying the impact of its media
characteristics on consumer behaviour. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,
30, 252-261.
Roymorgan.com (2019). Roy Morgan. Online shopping on the rise for most retail categories.
[Online] Available at: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6095-online-shopping-on-
rise-201503182332
Szmigin, I., & Piacentini, M. (2018). Consumer behaviour. Oxford University Press.