In the following blog post I will attempt to critically analyse and audit online fashion retailer ASOS.com, previously known as “AsSeenOnScreen”. ASOS are a British fashion and cosmetic retailer founded in London, in the year 2000. They now ship to over 200 countries worldwide with distribution centres based in the UK, the United States and Europe (ASOS, 2018).

ASOS.com S.W.O.T Analysis

ASOS is primarily aimed at young adults and as such include Zara, Topshop and Boohoo as competitors. Despite these well-established competitors, ASOS have grown to become the largest online fashion retailer in the United Kingdom (Business of Fashion, 2018), so what has set them apart from the competition? Above is a S.W.O.T analysis that I conducted using research from online resources for ASOS, it is clear that the strengths that ASOS hold are very important in the online retail market and that will be something that I touch upon further on in the blog.

The online market for fashion is a vast and incredibly competitive environment and as a result there are many ways that market segmentation can occur. There can be gender related segmentation, age-related segmentation, geographic segmentation, behaviour-related segmentation, lifestyle segmentation, and infinitely more (Ko et al., 2007).

The following three graphics identify three consumer personas that I have created in order to identify certain consumer behavioural groups:

Consumer Persona Profile Two: Marketing Responders.

The first consumer persona that I have created are the ‘Marketing Responders’, who are usually young professionals or students with higher than average amounts of disposable income, they have no kids and are typically female. Key strategies needed to entice this persona to make the commitment to spend are as follows:

• Frequently provide product suggestions.
• Analyse other consumer behaviour (through the use of cookies etc.) to enhance the relevance of suggested products.
• Including value adding content in the marketing rather than just ‘selling the product’.

Consumer Persona Profile Two: Procrastinators.

The second consumer persona that I have identified are the ‘Procrastinators’, who are young professionals or students, generally male and tend to have average levels of disposable income. Key strategies for this persona are as follows:

• Send reminders about products added to the cart.
• Show few but relevant options first.
• When products are added and left in cart, send user generated content such as images or reviews to validate this purchase.

Consumer Persona Three: Power Shoppers.

The final consumer persona identified, before we move on to the consumer journeys are the ‘Power Shoppers’, who typically are slightly older professionals with larger amounts of disposable income than the two previous personas. They may have children, but are most likely in some sort of relationship. Key strategies for this persona are as follows:

• Create a loyalty programme for frequent shoppers.
• Encourage to try out new, fast-selling products.
• Analyse purchase history and other points of data to make suggestions for the next purchase.

Customer Journeys Map

The final part of the digital marketing audit that I have conducted is the generation of two consumer journey paths towards making a purchase at ASOS. Connecting customer journeys is a cohesive and complimentary way is of upmost importance as customers who have a positive experience with your company are three times more likely to recommend you to their personal networks (Benmark & Singer, 2012). Unfortunately for ASOS, only online sales are offered which whilst it is one of their USPs in the modern, technological world it also threatens their sales. There have been many studies that suggest that having a purely online presence will decrease the likelihood for a consumer to make a purchase (e.g. 65% of consumers expect to be able to return online purchases at a physical store [Morely, 2016], despite this ASOS has bucked the trend and ushered in a new business model for online apparel sales techniques.

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