Business Communication Report: SFE and Online Shopping

This report examines the barriers to online shopping, particularly during the pandemic, using the clothing chain "Something for Everything" (SFE) as a case study. Assessment 1 identifies physical, emotional, informational, technical, and cultural barriers that discourage online purchases. Assessment 2 delves into the factors influencing consumer behavior, including product quality and customer attitudes. The report analyzes organizational communication theories (Weber's classical, Tompkins and Cheney's control, and Deetz's critical communication theories) to understand communication challenges at SFE. It evaluates the barriers of communication, specifically physical, emotional, informational, technical, and cultural issues, and concludes with recommendations for improving online shopping experiences and organizational communication within SFE.

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
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Table of Contents
Assessment 1..............................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
Assessment 2..............................................................................................................................5
Introduction................................................................................................................................5
Analysis and discussion.............................................................................................................5
Recommendations......................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Reference..................................................................................................................................10
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Assessment 1
Introduction
Online shopping is one kind of electronic factor which allows people to purchase directly
from a website also when they are at home with few clicks. In the present scenario, people
like to shop everything online which includes necessary products to luxurious products.
During a pandemic, people have no option to go outside and they have only the option to
purchase online. As a manager of a popular clothing chain. Something for everything, there
are some of the barriers which may discourage the people from shopping from this website
which has been discussed in this paper.
Physical barriers
During a pandemic, people need to stay at their homes and purchase everything from online
because online delivery is only available. However, people have the mindset that they will get
the wrong size or wrong product if they purchase clothes from online. They are not ready for
opting for an online purchasing facility (Tandon, et al., 20118, p. 58).
Emotional barriers
During a pandemic there are so many people who lost their job or some of them faced
deduction in their salaries and due to that reason, they all are emotionally broken down and
are not in that state to purchase clothes online. On the other hand, most of people do not shop
online due to their fear which has catered to their emotional well-being during this pandemic
situation.
Informational barriers
Some of the people are facing informational gaps and they are unsure about the return policy
of purchasing clothes online and they are also not sure about getting their money refund if
they return any products.
Technical barriers
At the time of the pandemic, people have only the option to purchase online. However, any
type of technical issue may frustrate customers and due to that they shift to other online
shopping options. Customers face some problems whenever they add something in the cart
after 30 mins it's deleted automatically and if one product is available after some point of
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time its showing unavailable. For these reasons, most of the people are seen to be hesitant to
purchase online.
Cultural barriers
People like to explore every possible product which is a substitute of their first choice during
shopping online. They have to spend their leisure time scrolling down the website by going
through all the products and all the brands before making a decision to purchase anything.
However This online shopping may consist of some limited stocks and also people have no
language preference to choose before they are going to shop. This may reduce the purchasing
power parity of the company.
Conclusion
Two kinds of people can be classified according to their attitude towards shopping. One kind
of person who loves to visit stores physically to buy anything especially clothes and one kind
of person who purchases every single thing online. Due to the pandemic everyone is forced to
stay at their home and people have no option but to shop online. At the end it can be
concluded that there are several barriers that need to be solved to smoothen the online
purchasing facility during this pandemic.
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Assessment 2
Abstract
There are certain factors that affect the shopping behaviour of consumers at the time of
purchasing products online. In this paper some factors regarding online shopping specially
during covid has been analysed. There are substantial studies that have been discussed for
analysing factors which affect the choice of online shopping. There are several models and
frameworks available to measure these factors that have also been considered in the
discussion. The paper aims to portray a comprehensive framework of the relevant literature as
the barriers in online shopping options.
Introduction
This paper focuses on three major points which influences the purchasing behaviour of a
person, those are quality of product, attitude of the customer, and the retail factors. Design of
website and characteristics of brand promotion, not only impacts the customer-related factors
but also impacts on strategic and pre-emptive decision of retailer. This paper also measures
the impact of consumer's expertise, attitudes towards internet changes on online shopping.
Here the effort of e-retailer to overcome the barriers at the time of covid-19 has been
discussed. According to (Kapur, 2018, p. 2019) establishing strong communication helps to
meet customer satisfaction and company's profitability. The present paper highlights the
barriers of organizational communication the company has faced catering to different theories
of organizational communication during the pandemic of covid within a fashion
organisational chain that is Something for Everyone (SFE).
Analysis and discussion
Discussion on general theories of organizational communication
By establishing general theories of organizational communication, it's easy to measure the
barriers of communication faced by the customers along with identifying its causes
(DuHadway et al., 2018, p. 10). During a pandemic people are forced to stay at their home
they can't even go outside to available shopping facilities. There are so many online shopping
applications available that give people the opportunity to choose wisely (Swiegers , 2018) .
As a manager, it is necessary to identify the right technology and strategy for which more
people get attracted towards this shopping option. Three general theories of organizational
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communication analyse the technological progression of information (Chhaya et al., 2017, p.
43). The theories have been discussed below.
Weber’s classical organizational theory:
Max weber, a German sociologist stated the fact that bureaucracy is the most efficient theory
used by business organizations. According to this theory there should be strict rules a
company should follow to maintain communications with the customers. (Muellerleile and
Robertson, 2018, p. 210). Weber also introduced a legitimacy of power which shows that
authority exists in every state of communication. The authorities are Traditional authority,
Charismatic authority, and rational-legal authority.
According to Weber, an organization should have an appropriate classified structure and set
of effective rules and regulations, for certifying strong communication. Weber also stated that
there should be no confusion or miscommunication when professionals are communicating
with their clients, otherwise, that might hamper the individual’s preference of choosing that
website. Weber theory explains a technique of protuberant merit and advanced technology
which the company should use to improve its capabilities According to Weber, functional-
specialty institutions, taking online shopping website as an example, should decide their way
of providing products to their customers on the basis of the speciality of quality products.
Tompkins and Cheney's organizational control theory:
An extended version of weber's theory of organizational communication was introduced by
Tomkins and Cheney. This theory is used to measure the organizational communication of
those organizations that are moving past the mode of bureaucratic as well as amorphous
(Krizanova et al., 2019, p. 7016). According to Tompkins and Cheney, there are four kinds of
control determination procedures which tend to exercise the ability and power of the
organization that should be easy, technical, concentric, and bureaucratic (Sillince and Golant
2018, p. 100). As the present organization of SFE is new in the market and has catered to the
policy of work from home, it has made a communication gap within the management of the
organization. This particularly creates a hindrance for the customers to get attracted towards
the products. Hence, the idea of bureaucracy can be taken up by the organisation as a
concerning factor which can depend on the vision of the particular organizational
communication (Larson, 2017, p. 11).
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Deetz’s critical communication theory:
This communication theory establishes communication as a social reality, introduced by
Deetz. There are four ways for taking decisions and taking the operation work under control,
these four factors are consent, involvement, participation and strategy (Mcdonald 2017, p.
18). By working on these four factors and establishing improvement in these, a company can
improve the organization's communication even if that is online by removing the barriers.
Deetz established communication as a classical notion which is substitutive with the solution
of the economies, social and political factors. Hence, because of the pandemic, SFE has
restructured its organizational operations where in some cases, transparency of the work has
been compromised which has led to a collaboration gap within the management. Hence,
employee participation and involvement can help the company to formulate different
strategies for attracting customers.
Evaluate the barriers of communication at SFE
As opined by (Kuhn et al., 2019, p. 110) establishment of communication skills in an
organization especially when its going through online mode is not that easy and becomes
challenging for the company as well as the customers. During covid, everyone has only one
option to purchase anything and that is online mode. In that case people become choosy and
compare one website with another before buying anything. In that case as a manager of SFE,
the proper way of communication needs to be identified. There are some barriers which the
company faced during the lockdown and these are explained below.
Physical barriers:
There are many customers, especially who belong to the older generation like to visit stores
and try before buying anything. Pandemic left people with no choice of going outside as
social distancing is not easy to maintain in stores. People have to stay at home to survive.
They have the mindset that online purchasing may cause wrong products, wrong size, cheap
quality and no return policy, even if it provides the same brand which they used to purchase
offline. People are not ready to accept this facility here which has been a barrier for the
company as they may lose a good base of customers
Emotional barriers:
Pandemic have made the people experience something which they have never imagined.
Companies start losing a good base of clients and for this reason many companies fire their
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employees and reduce the salary to cut their management costs. People are not in that state of
shopping as they have lack of money and shopping for clothes becomes unnecessary
expenses to them in lockdown. In the particular case, the employees of the company are
known to work for extra hours through the policy of work from home with a reduced salary
which has made the employees emotionally unstable and this has reflected within the work as
well.
Information barriers:
As any online service provider, it is necessary to take care about the information the
customers are getting should be proper and correct. Customers sometimes are unable to find
the return policy of a product. It is not mentioned with the details of the product which may
create lack of information and customers may get confused about the fact that whether the
return of the product may be refundable or chargeable (Guru, et al., 2020, p. 140). Everyone
wants to avoid miscommunication and complications. Due to this lack of information, it has
created both miscommunication and complications for this reason people find it better to
avoid online purchasing.
Technical barriers:
Communication deepens on the advancement of technology. Before starting anything over
online people want to go through every possible website. While using this clothing online
website people complain about technical difficulties like, every time they add something in
cart that may be automatically removed after thirty minutes or less. Several customers face
the problem that one product showing available and after some point of time customer finds
that unavailable. Not only these, but there are also so many people who have complained
about the speed of the website is getting slower. This irritates the customer and becomes a
barrier.
Cultural barriers: Every person has individual language preferences before communicating
with others (Giovannoni and Xiong, 2019, p. 275). Every online store needs to be concerned
about the fact that people want their preferred language to understand the product details and
other policies. The website provides only one language English and people find it difficult to
avail products that do not use English as their primary language.
Recommendations
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A set of recommendations can be made after knowing the barriers to communication
(Rietjens et al., 2017, p. 545). Effective communication should be used to revamp
communication skills especially at the time of pandemic when everyone has no option but to
use an online website to purchase anything.
 The company should send the invoices through registered mail to the customers
 The customer service operator should be communicating with every preferred language of
the country
 The company should have concerned about the customer's feedback about the website
and products and depending on that they can improve themselves
Outline company strategies to overcome these barriers
Strategies need to be taken to overcome the communication barriers which includes assessing
the present situation, consulting with the expertise, considering the alternate options and
taking steps. For managing a fashion organization as a manager, it is necessary to take charge
of the development of the company. By modifying the skills, adapting new advancement and
making the right decision may help to meet the goal. Some strategies can be made depending
on the barriers which requires positive attitudes, dedication and commitment as well.
 The company should upload some attractive content and prove themselves best among the
other competitors which may convince the customers to avail the online shopping. The
company should increase their stocks online. By this strategy they can overcome the
physical barriers to some extent.
 The company should avail special offers or coupons which can reduce the price of the
product and people can go shopping during the lockdown.
 The organisation needs to provide proper information about the details of the product and
return policy they also need to mention the no return policy if available for any product
with these only the organization can overcome the information barriers.
 The organisation needs to upgrade the technology of the website and should work on
making the website easy for all.
 The company should avail the option of selection of every language depending on
customer’s preferences. This can reduce the cultural problems
Conclusion
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This paper covers effective factors that have been used to establish strong communication in
an organization. It can be concluded that frequency, consistency and transparency among the
company and clients play a significant role in establishing communication. Organizations can
overcome all the barriers which they faced especially during a pandemic by improving
themselves depending on customer's preferences and feedback.
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