Free Custom «Click Frenzy Paper» Essay Paper

Introduction

Click frenzy was an Australia initiative for online sales.  The online sale event was launched in 2012 in November 20. It was facilitated by the heavy media and internet promotions. The online sale event organizers made partnership for sales with the leading retailers in Australia. Before the event clashed due to heavy online traffic, the organizers had assured the people that they would be able to handle any anticipated traffic, but this did not happen because the Click Frenzy website collapsed within a few minutes after its launch.

1.      How did consumers make their decisions on whether or not to buy products/services from Click Frenzy

Situational influences are the temporary factors that influence how buyers behave in whether they actually purchased a product, bought more products or they buy nothing at all. These include conditions such as social factors, physical factors, time factors, the buyer’s mood and the reason for purchasing the product.

Physical factors, which include the design of the store, in this case, the Click Frenzy website design was attractive and therefore many consumers were interested in the online site. The catalogue of the Click Frenzy was easy to access and the products layout was in such a way that the consumer would find the desired products and services easily. The online sale was able to deal with the bad whether problem, people preferred to shop online due to the free delivery at home location. What could be more comfortable than shopping at home? If it was windy and cold to drive all the way to the stores then people found it convenient to buy the company products from online. They were able to take orders online and they would arrange for delivery (Tanner Jr. & Raymond, 2010).

Crowding factor was the other thing that facilitated people goods and products from Click frenzy. Consumers would feel better to do their shopping in a less crowded shopping mall and stores. This reduced time consumed in doing shopping. On the other hand, people were prompted to shop because the site attracted many shoppers. Some studies have showed that crowding have a positive impact on people’s shopping behavior; this is referred to as the “herd behavior”. The great number of customers the Clink Frenzy got during its first days before the launched could have made some people to get curious about the online event and could have engaged in the impulse buying. The impulse buying was further encouraged by the great discounts the event offered (Tanner Jr.  & Raymond, 2010).

Click Frenzy was aware that people lack time to go to shop and therefore they came up with a way to reduce the burden. Customer services were made available in the social media pages such as Amazon, facebook and twitter. Click Frenzy also ensured that they gave the products details in an attractive way, especially people who were shopping for Christmas gift during the launch of the event, were well catered for due to the availability of gifts at very cheap prices (Butler, 2007).

The event was to encourage as many people as people to shop with tantalizing promises of huge discounts, the convenience of shopping that the sale would bring to the people by ensuring that they did their shopping while still at home or in the office instead of struggling to go for deals is the shopping malls and the huge brand that the event introduced attracted a lot of customers. The event was very genuine and therefore it prompted the customers to buy from the Click Frenzy. The huge market awareness that the organizers of the sale event had put in place made people compare prices in their stores and the offers that the frenzy offered and it appeared that they were cheaper due to the discounts. Moreover, many genuine and popular brands had signed in for the event together with hundreds of retailers. Click frenzy leveraged the brand rub and ensured that thousands of customers signed up to the site, these attracted people to shop for the good bargain that were available (Baumeister, 2012).

How do consumers arrive at their final purchasing decision?

The consumers first recognized the need to purchase a certain good or services. The aroused customer then decides on the information that is required and if the need to buy something is strong and the goods and services that meet their need were available, then the consumer makes the decision to purchase the products. The customers could get the information through various sources such as families, friends, and neighbors and from the online sales advertisers. After getting the information needed, they would then compare with other stores and online sellers, for quality and for price evaluation to look for better services and price alternatives, but due to the discounts that the Click Frenzy offered, it was the bestselling shop for quality products at a cheap price and then they purchased Click Frenzy products and services (Riley, 2012).

2.      Evaluate the positioning of Click Frenzy

Positioning is that process where marketers create an image or an identity that remains in people’s mind about their products, organization or brand.  Click Frenzy achieved this by creating a very attractive and memorable website that would allow consumers to purchase products and services at the click of a button. The organizers also included many retailers and reputable companies that offered their goods through Click Frenzy. The online sale was advertised in various social media sites such as twitter and facebook. Click Frenzy positioned its brand effectively by communicating its uniqueness and by the verifiable value. Since Click Frenzy offered the same services just like the other online sellers, the likes of Amazon, they ensured that they offered their products and services at lower prices by giving significant discounts over their competitors (Green & Krieger, 1991).

Product positioning was attained by identifying the relevant customers who were mostly the young people and the busy people who have no time to do their shopping. Click Frenzy was therefore to solve their problems by bringing the market at the tap of their hands. It also ensured it provided benefits to their customers by adding value to their money through offering discounts. The product providers and the suppliers were from reputable firms and companies hence ensuring that the customers got the best deal.  Click Frenzy, did define their position correctly (Aaker, 2008).

The point of difference is the feature or something that makes something or a business different from its competitors and something that customers really want. The point of difference technique that Click Frenzy used was to assure the customers that they would get the best products and that they would run their business a better way than their competitors by making sure that products and services were delivered on time and at very low price. They were able to claim superiority over their competitors by making sure that their website was well known by use of advertisement and by using fascinating offers, which would attract more people (Zinkhan, Joachimsthaler, & Kinnear, 2009).

The point of parity is the point of difference that the competitors have over an organization for that matter over Click Frenzy, their weak point was when many customers lost trust in Click Frenzy services when their services failed for the whole night after its launch. People were not able to access the website and their services; this was a very frustrating moment for Click Frenzy. This happened because of high volume of customers and visitors than the anticipated hence leading to a failure of their website that the organization with unfilled promises of great goods and services (Shostack, 1987).

3.      Competitive frame of reference

Competitive frame of reference is a fancy way of describing the market or the context in which a person choose to position a brand. Click Frenzy positioned it brand in Australia and it would offer online services to them. The products and services were to be offered via online order and this was facilitated by the high use if internet and the internet enabled phones, which made their business reachable by very many people in Australia.  Click Frenzy took for granted the need for convenience when their website clashed and they could not access their services. This left their customers disappointed and their and their angry reaction could be seen by the way they wrote comments on the organization’s webpage. The angry customers also ridiculed the online sale organizations because they failed on the very night of their launch.  This made customers not to be loyal to the click Frenzy brand (Edvardsson, 2007).

Identify Click Frenzy‘s sources of brand equity.

Sources of brand equity include, brand extensions, financial or consumer based perception. The categories allow a business to define and estimate the brand equity. In identifying and measuring brand equity of an organization give a better income and cash flows and in converting the brand equity into a good will.  Click Frenzy had the following brand equity; financial sources of brand equity, this type of brand equity attempts to determine the products or an organization money worth over the other products or other organization. Click Frenzy got this kind of equity from the business’ ability to promote its name and the products and services it would offer over other online sellers in the market. In measuring brand equity, it is often done by measuring the money spent to achieve its popularity and the consumer purchases (Kelly, Grenfell & Allan, 2004).

Brand extension, these are the other sources of brand equity. In order to achieve this kind of brand, a company must establish a financial extension equity source. After a company has established financial brand equity, it can use brand extensions when placing new products into the market (Cobb-Walgren& Ruble, 1997).

Consumer based sources of brand equity. This is whereby consumers might have beliefs, feelings or other intangible attitudes towards a product. Click Frenzy attained this brand equity type by ensuring that the retailers of the goods and services were from the reputable companies, companies that trusted to provide consumption goods and services (Aaker, 1991).

Brand awareness is the extent to which a brand is recognized by potential customers and is correctly associated with a particular product.  It is the primary goal of advertising in the early months of a product’s introduction. It is recorded that before the launch of the online sale it had 3600 fans in the social media, that is facebook and over 7500 views on the You-tube website. This was a good sign to show that the organization was well recognized by many people from the advertisement in the newspapers and social media sites (Srinivasan, 1997).

4.      Do you think Click Frenzy did a good job in managing its visitors and customers?

No! Click Frenzy started its sale at around 7pm in Australia but its site crashed due to a great number of visitors and customers. Click Frenzy had stopped attracted many Christmas shoppers but unfortunately, it left them with empty promises of great deals and discounts. After the online event was launched, the visitors and consumers started comparing the great deals with the local and international offers and people realized that their offers did not have as much value. People could get the same deals in shopping malls and in shopping stores. It was with no doubt that, Click Frenzy had many great things by ultimately being able to execute on the user-friendly online marketplace that would be able to withstand a huge concurrent traffic volumes and it was their biggest failure. Execution is everything online shoppers want, by bad luck Click Frenzy, together with many retailers, failed, and copped the greatest criticism, potentially beyond repair (Doukas, 2012).

5.      How did Social Media affect the reputation of Click Frenzy, before and after the sales period?

Click Frenzy was extremely successful in using the social media to market their products and services through social media such as twitter, facebook and Google+, and hence they attracted many customers into their website. However many Australian consumers turned and used the same social sites to criticize the brand especially through twitter website and harsh-tags in the facebook which critized the brand after its website collapsed (Doukas, 2012).

6.      How can retailers prepare for Click Frenzy?

The retailers should prepare for Click Frenzy by coming up with appropriate products and services for Christmas and by offering gift hampers and great discounts to the customers.

7.      Using other strong brands which have been born online (e.g., Google, Facebook), how do you build a successful online brand?

A successful online brand can be attained by ensuring that the brand is well known for the best services in the most convenient way. People are looking for a convenient and efficiency way of shopping during Christmas.

8.      What do you think are the future branding challenges and opportunities for Click Frenzy?

The challenges that Click Frenzy could face could be that people would not take them seriously; they can assume that the brand can frustrate them once more. On the other hand, more people could shop as a way of checking whether they have improved their services. (Doukas, 2012).