Evaluation of Hmv

TABLE OF CONTENT 1. Tasks Allocation3 2. Company Web Site (hmv. com. hk)3 3. Business Model and Value Proposition3 4. Evaluation Framework4 4. 1. Context4 4. 2. Content7 4. 3. Community9 4. 4. Customization12 4. 5. Communication15 4. 6. Connection17 4. 7. Commerce19 5. Fit and Reinforcement23 6. Competitor Comparison24 7. Reference List24 1.Tasks Allocation | Business Model, Competitor Comparison, Framework Design | Evaluations of Customization, Communication, Fit and Reinforcement | Evaluations of Community | Evaluations of Connection and Commerce | |2. Company Web Site (hmv. com. hk) |HMV is a British global entertainment retailer. The retail shops are selling music, videos, games and entertainment accessories. The HMV Website’s started in 1997 and provided the online selling and delivering services. |3. Business Model and Value Proposition | HMV’s online service is a Business-to-Customer (B2C). It has been provided the different services as selling, delivering and exchange at retail’s industry.To enable competitive advantage (value proposition), the business model of â€Å"Bricks and Clicks† is performed by HMV which integrates both offline (bricks) and online (clicks) presences and the services are available 24 hours a day for all countries. HMV specializes in both physical and digital products on music, video, games and entertainment’s accessories. |4. Evaluation Framework | The evaluation of hmv. com. k will be based on 7Cs framework, including context, content, community, customization, communication, connection and commerce. Each of the 7Cs will be evaluated individually and how HMV use it to â€Å"fit† its business model and value proposition and we also look into whether consistency exists among the 7Cs. |4. 1. Context | 4. 1. 1. Pros Targeted website www. hmv. com. hk has used black and shocking pink as the theme color throughout the site. It is consistent with brand image and banner of HMV.It matches th e symbol of HMV, which is shown HMV is a trendy and fashionable CD warehouse to their target customers such as teenager, the middle class and the working people. From the functionality aspect, HMV uses tab menu as navigation tool on the top of the page to present its product or service catalogs, so it enables users to move easily back and forth between different catalogs without clicking â€Å"back† button. Moreover, the design of the website has taken into consideration of different language requirement including English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. The specific language environment can be easily changed by users.Moreover, HMV uses consistent image layout and packaging information, which helps customer to easily identify required products. It also presents the new release products in HMV, catalyzed by the type of product, such as new release of music and movies. And the special information that included the weekly top 10 sales ranking of product and the speci al offer of HMV is placed in the left hand side and right hand side of the main page. This design approach makes customer can find the important information, as known as the newest product is on sales in HMV recently in the center of the main page.On the other hand, the sales ranking and special offer information has put into left and right hand side in the page, when customer would like to know more about the sales information of HMV. The context of HMV fits its value proposition by using user-friendly tab menu which make users easily access the information and multi-language web interfaces. [pic] 4. 1. 2. Cons As a customer’s experience, an advertisement banner in the main page is quite annoying, because it started to play the promotion movie clip automatically. It does not provide any visible interface to let customer to pause or mute the promotion movie.Sometimes, customer will not prefer to see the advertisement, when the page is loading with the big band sound. [pic] 4. 1. 3. Recommendation To avoid inconvenient cause to customer on the advertisement, it is recommended to HMV that try to provide a movie interface as good as customers can play the promotion movie clip by themselves or mute the movie clip as default movie playing setting after the main page is loaded. |4. 2. Content | 4. 2. 1. Pros First of all, www. hmv. com. k is a specialty store which is selling physical products. It can be seen in the clear catalog and the sub-catalog in the top of each page. This catalog has divided HMV’s product into different type, such as â€Å"music†, â€Å"dvd†, â€Å"blue-ray†, â€Å"games† and so on. Therefore, it can be seen that HMV is a Mega specialty store which is provide multimedia to its customer. [pic] When customers click to the catalog and find his or her product that want to buy, HMV has listed the information of the product such as the price, the artist of the product, track list of the product and other p roducts that relate to the selected product.Through the information listed, customer can understand the detail of the product and the related products. As a result, the content of HMV fits its value proposition by providing sufficient information which move consumers close to purchase, because of more awareness. [pic] 4. 2. 2. Cons In the product information, only text and graphic information are provided to the customers review. As media warehouse, HMV does not provide more information such as promotion music clips or promotion video to its products. 4. 2. 3. RecommendationIt is recommended HMV to use more multimedia to aid HMV to have customer to understand the product of HMV such as promotion music clips or promotion video to its product. |4. 3. Community | 4. 3. 1. Pros The HMV does not have a community for users on its own websites. The strategy of HMV is using hyperlinks, connected to social networks. For example, Facebook, Tweeter and YouTube are integrated in HMV site to pr ovide information about latest products and discount, creates topics for iscussion and answer user's questions through these social networks. For these parts, HMV can function as advertisement and customer service. [pic] Information about latest products: Moreover, customers not only collect information passively, but also create topics and plan activities of interest to others. Apparently the degree of member participation is high and there are more user-to-user communications on these websites especially Tweeter and Facebook. Customer Service: While micro blog and social network are becoming more and more popular, it is reasonable that HMV mainly emphasizes on these websites.There is no need to create new sites, so the cost can be lower. And because micro blog and social network have millions of users, using those platforms to do advertisement and contact with customers are quite effective. Actually, micro blog and social network can be very useful tools for promoting for every B2 C company. As a result, the community of HMV can fit its business model, because they are effectively using external resource systems such as Facebook and Twitter to enable online HMV community and global communications. 4. 3. 2. ConsAfter browsing lots of products on HMV, we found that although, there is customer review section for each product behind the product introduction, only a few customers do the rating and hardly find customer reviews. Lack of comments, rating or references can influence customer purchase decision. As a consumer aspect, when buying a certain product on HMV site, they might interest other people's opinions for the references. 4. 3. 3. Recommendations Considering very few people write the customer review, there are three recommendations for HMV.Firstly, in order to grow the audiences, HMV can submit its blog to various search engines such as Google and Yahoo for making user attentions. Secondly, HMV can also build a music blog community for its fans to encou rage them to leave comments for making more interactive communications. This kind of communications might help to grow HMV’s audience and generate the customer reviews. The last suggestion is that the specific offer, discount or coupon can be provided by HMV, when writing a number of customer reviews by visitors. |4. 4.Customization | 4. 4. 1. Pros Log-in Registration: After log-in registration, users can access personal account details that contain personal information, payment method, wish list and order history, so that the users can be able to manage their personal HMV profile. Cookies: The feature of cookies is enabled by HMV to track our basket during site visit. For the â€Å"my basket†, the shopping items can be recorded by the users and saved by clicking â€Å"add to basket† button.The feature of â€Å"My Basket† also helps to provide personalized shopping basket to store the interested items, before performing business transaction. Content Pers onalization: HMV offers the features of content personalization by using â€Å"wish list†. For the â€Å"wish list†, it provides flexibility to allow users to specify their personal preferences and provides the way to keep track of products we may want to purchase at a later date. Moreover, the users can receive e-mails about sale promotions, based on a personal â€Å"wish list†.Even though, the HMV's unique customization tools try to a â€Å"fit† with its position as an innovative online music shop, we found that there are some customization features, company policies which should be improved with the following details. 4. 4. 2. Cons The web site provides some customization features such as personalized content and cookies, but there are four weakness points. First of all, HMV does not offer notification features to notify the consumers about the upcoming releases of our favorite singer.Secondly, HMV does not take responsible for any loss of privacy, dis closure or information with its web-site, this might cause negative band image for the users. Thirdly, HMV offers very limited content personalization in this stage, so that the users might not pay more attentions in their products or services. The last weakness point is that HMV does not offer the feature for reviewing visited products. 4. 4. 3. Recommendations There are limited customization features provided in HMV site.The recommendations are that HMV should consider to make sufficient privacy policy for protecting consumers, in order to build the positive band image. Although, the feature of cookies has been enabled for â€Å"My basket†, this feature should be improved, so that they can track and gather data and then return corresponding visited items, called â€Å"browsing history†. Moreover, the feature of product notification for upcoming releases of our favorite products should be provided to enhance competitive advantage. The last recommendation is about pers onalized contents, in order to address individual user needs and driving consumer behavior.According to the study â€Å"2008 ChoiceStream Personalization Survey†, there are 78% of consumers interested in receiving personalized content and 71% of consumers also believe that personalization can improve their experience [X]. Therefore, both implicit data and explicit data should be used in HMV site to provide customized experience for online shopping, called â€Å"tailoring by sites†. Implicit data should be generated by the user who choose to view the products by clicking on relevant links. Explicit data is provided by user [X].For example, â€Å"recommendation list† should be generated by HMV site to display similar category of products, based on your past shopping records. |4. 5. Communication | The overall communication of the website is good. It provides many communication channels, including email enquiry, FAQ, Phone, Facebook. Some of the Pros and Cons are l isted below: 4. 5. 1. Pros e-Mail Newsletters & Content-Update Reminders: The feature of â€Å"Newsletter† is an example of broadcast communications. The newsletters are sent via e-mail to inform subscribers about sale promotions or specific offers.Customers can choose either subscribe or unsubscribe newsletter at their discretion under â€Å"Communication Preferences† menu. Beside, the website also provides email alarm for new products and News Information broadcast, based on purchase history. As a result, customers can receive latest information via these channels. Moreover, personalized e-mail content is another type of one way information exchange from HMV to users, called â€Å"Content-Update Reminders†. The e-mail content is tailored by HMV to reflect each user's interests, based on â€Å"wish list†, so that the users from time to time to receive emails from HMV about sales promotions.Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): The HMV site provides the list of questions and answers to support all commonly asked questions, called broadcast communication. It is very useful for users to know how to use HMV's web services such as configuration of cookie and checking order status, when they do online shopping. Innovative communication channels via Facebook: The feature of Facebook as social networking service is embedded in HMV site. It is an example of one-to-many, responding user. Users can share their comments regarding their experiences and respond. . 5. 2. Cons The customer service is not convenience, because the HMV does not offer the â€Å"Live HELP† support for 24 hrs. In modern life style, most customers go online shopping after working hours. Beside, the scope of FAQ session is insufficient as it only forces the basic questions. 4. 5. 3. Recommendations The service of 24 hrs â€Å"Live Help† should be provided by HMV for supporting time zone difference and providing quick response to consumers, by using read-time cha t system, like [pic] to provide the one-to-one personal Live communicational channel.Moreover, the website should enhance the FAQ session for the overall operations instead of providing the FAQ for the basic enquires only. |4. 6. Connection | 4. 6. 1. Overview The degree of target website HMV links to other website is low. In order to make a better understanding of the connection part, a similar online CD warehouse, Yesasia, is selected to compare with HMV: [pic] Base on the table above, it can be seen that HMV performs better than Yesasia.HMV has a better Google index pages and inbound links ranking, along with the Alexa ranking. But shows a little bit lower in Alexa inbound links. 4. 6. 2. Pros First of all, lesser external link may give customers the image that the company is professional. Consumers can far away from annoying advertisement. On the other hand, external link may generate some extra profit. The link here provides some latest information relating to the website. The refore, the tube from HMV can provide the customers with information about the fresh new goods. . 6. 3. Cons Although HMV has few external links, the link may not achieve customer expectation and the profit generated by this link might be low. Moreover, as HMV is mainly deal with the audios and games, which update very rapidly, so customers would more willing to have some links on introducing the latest information or selling some related products. 4. 6. 4. Recommendations As mentioned in overview, HMV need to lift the Alexa Inbound Links ranking. There are few suggestions that recommend to HMV.It can be delivered messages or published articles on the popular BBSs or Blogs linking to its own website and add the index link. Or it can exchange links with some related or similar website. |4. 7. Commerce | 4. 7. 1. Overview This website has most of the basic features of customer interface that support the aspects of trading transactions. 4. 7. 2. Pros Registration For the registration, the most impressive thing is â€Å"Individuation†. When registering, the website will record consumers’ preferences if permitted.Then it will email the information of the goods to the consumers according to their preferences. [pic] For the Shopping part, one very useful column is sales ranking. It is a good promotional way to attract customers and guide consumption. When I have no idea to buy what kind of staff, or I’m confused with which CD is good, it will be quite useful, like a shopping guide. Security Security gives an impression of convenience. Not like the general security methods by which customers need to install different kinds of digital certificates or USB key, HMV cooperates with â€Å"thawte†.Only one single click can achieve verification. It is convenient for the customers to a great extent. Besides, â€Å"Thawte† provided a security policy that guarantees all transactions inside HMV are trusted via security channel by using SSL aut hentication. Additionally, there is a guideline for customers to identify the site is safety while it has the Thawte Trusted Site Seal. [pic] 4. 7. 3. Cons Even though, HMV considers customization in registration, some negative user experiences also appear while using HMV registration interface.For instance, customers have to change their privacy settings in browser to allow the website to track the shopping cart and account details during visit, but most customers may not be willing to do so. [pic] Moreover, only one address can be stored. Usually, customer will have at least two addresses which are used for different purposes or at different times. So every time when customers want to ship items to a different address, they have to manually fill in the different address rather than choose one from the address lists. The function of shopping cart is very important in customer interface.However, it is not that 100% satisfaction. Whenever adding a product to shopping cart, the page w ill skip to the cart page. It is not convenient when customers want to continue shopping other items. What’s more, no recent history will be demonstrated about the items viewed by the customers. If the product is deleted by human mistake, customers have to go back to the original page and place the order again. 4. 7. 4. Recommendations In the registration module, information about more addresses and contact persons can be stored in the customer information.Shopping online is convenient but receiving packages sometimes could be a problem. So adding more information about delivery addresses and contact persons is necessary. Shopping cart could be more user-friendly. For instance, the deleted items can be recovered. It can operate as follows: [pic] Apart from that, what customers have to add to shopping cart can be stored in backstage and when they finish shopping, they can pay through their baskets. Furthermore, HMV can adopt â€Å"one click† shopping pattern which allow customers to make online shopping through one single click, like[pic].It is a good way to simplify purchase work flow. |5. Fit and Reinforcement | Communication is reinforced by customization (wish list) Commerce is reinforced by personalization Community is reinforced by communication (Lecture Note p. 58) Content is reinforced by customization HMV provides user-friendly customer interface to fit its business model for creating positive experiences and brand-building which make users close to purchase. 6. Competitor Comparison | |7. Reference List | [X] ChoiceStream, Inc. : Choicestream personalization survey. Research brief, 2008, pp 2-4. [X] Rayport, J. F and Jaworski, B. J. , e-Commerce, McGraw 2001. pp 113-165. [X] Probert, J. , Personalization In Digital Business, 2010, pp 1-2. ~ END