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The customer journey is driving a

competitive advantage.

The online retail sales of firms in the consumer electronics industry

Author: Job Meinen Student number: S4193415 Email: j.j.meinen@student.rug.nl Supervisor: P.J. Marques Morgado

Co-assessor:

Faculty of Economics and Business University of Groningen

Duisenberg Building, Nettelbosje 2, 9747 AE Groningen, The Netherlands P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands

http://www.rug.nl/feb

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Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables ... 2

Abstract ... 3

1. Introduction ... 4

2. Literature Review ... 6

2.1. Competitive advantage ... 6

2.2. Consumer Electronics Industry ... 7

2.2.1. Principal players in the e-retail consumer electronics industry ... 7

2.3. The customer journey ... 10

2.4. Essential aspects of the customer journey ... 11

2.4.1. Technical factors ... 12

2.4.2. Purchase-path factors ... 13

2.4.3. Product factors ... 15

2.5. Partial conclusion ... 16

3. Research Design ... 17

4. Analysis and Discussion ... 18

4.1. Technological factors in the online consumer electronics customer journey ... 19

4.2. Purchase-path factors in the online consumer electronics customer journey ... 20

4.3. Product factors in the online consumer electronics customer journey ... 21

5. Conclusion ... 22

5.1. Limitations ... 23

5.2. Future research ... 23

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List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1: Five Forces E-retailing ... 9 Figure 2: The modern customer journey ... 10 Figure 3: Conceptual Framework ... 18

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Abstract

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1. Introduction

The rapid evolvement of information and communication technologies and the adoption of the internet have created an interest in online commerce. This transformation to e-commerce has resulted in changes concerning the marketing and sales of many industries.

Historically, consumer spending occurred in offline channels, e.g., local shops, and marketplaces. Gradually over time, these traditional sales evolved to a more global approach, in which markets offered a more comprehensive range of goods to a broader audience. Currently, customers are enabled to purchase any product of their favor from worldwide webshops, changing the business environment.

Due to this rather rapid change in consumer behavior, the role of companies in influencing their visitors to purchase their goods and services has changed from a personal approach, by taking time for the customer, to a fast, easy and well-structured online customer journey. Hence, companies should be aware of customer experiences online, to be able to adapt to the new competitive landscape and gain a competitive advantage for their online store.

For this research paper, the researcher has defined the scope in geographic terms for Europe. Hence, the companies used in the literature and analysis will have a European background. The researcher aims to systematically analyze the influence of the online customer journey on consumer experience, to achieve a competitive advantage. A competitive strategy is the strategic management plans for competing successfully and securing a competitive advantage over business rivals (Porter, 2005). Competitive strategies are used by companies to set their company apart from the competition.

A driver of competitive advantage is online sales, which can be increased by increasing consumer experience. These online sales comprise of all the sales of products and services in the private and external online market places of firms. The topic for this research paper is, therefore, the customer. This customer is the principal stakeholder in the online sales process since firms tailored the sales process towards convincing a customer to purchase the goods in a particular online marketplace.

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(FMCG). However, the effects on more expensive and comprehensive products, such as the consumer electronics segment, are not excessively studied.

This research paper aims to explore and describe the factors that influence the customer journey by taking the market-based-view theory to analyze the industry and the resource-based-view approach to analyze the essential resources a company needs to integrate into its online customer journey. By conducting these analyses, the researcher aims to create a conceptual framework on the relationship between elements of the customer journey and achieving a competitive advantage. The central research question of this paper is, therefore, 'How does customer journey affect customer experience of firms in the consumer electronics industry to gain a competitive advantage?'

The performance of the firm in the online customer journey is likely to increase consumer experience, which is likely to develop a competitive advantage. Throughout this paper, the researcher investigates and presents the essential factors in the customer journey of consumer electronics.

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2. Literature Review

This chapter introduces the audience to an introduction of the consumer electronics industry, the customer journey, and the vital customer journey elements. This literature review aims to analyze the existing academic literature to understand the industry and the customer journey.

2.1. Competitive advantage

A competitive advantage is 'something' in which the firm outperforms the competition. Barney referred to a competitive advantage as the implementation of value-creating strategies that cannot be implemented simultaneously by competitors (Barney, 1991). He emphasized that a firm's resources can lead to a competitive advantage.

The resource-based view (RBV) is a widely used theory to determine whether a firm can exploit its resources to achieve or sustain a competitive advantage. The firm's resources can be either tangible or intangible assets. An e-commerce retail firm aims to leverage its webshop and IT infrastructure to create unique capabilities to outperform the competition. E-commerce capabilities are often interconnected with a firm's resource base and incorporated in its business processes (Kuang, 2011). To assess a firm's resources based on its value, rarity, inimitability, and organization, one can use the widely used VRIO framework (Jugdev, 2005). Online retailers can cultivate resources, but their resources are imitative, hence would not provide a sustainable competitive advantage (Zhuang & Lederer, 2006). Temporary competitive advantage in e-retailing, however, could be achieved.

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2.2. Consumer Electronics Industry

Revenues generated through sales of audio, visual, and photographic equipment, primarily designed for daily domestic usage, define the consumer electronics market (MarketLine, 2015). The consumer electronics industry in Europe has faced a substantial decline in the past decade, by paralyzed consumer spending in the more significant European economies and sales events, cutting a firm's margins (MarketLine, 2015). Consumer switching costs are low since the market consists of few manufacturers and many resellers, including large retailer chains and local independent electronics stores. Hence, the products in the various stores are similar, and therefore the purchase decision is mainly price-driven or extra-service-driven, e.g., extended warranty (MarketLine, 2015).

Traditionally, retailers sold their products offline and offered a service to manufacturers that were not able to sell to end-consumers directly. Nowadays, manufacturers like Apple and Microsoft market their products online to end consumers, increasing the competition in the retail segments of the consumer electronics industry and, thus, driving companies to take a different, more comprehensive, or more innovative, approach to attract customers.

2.2.1. Principal players in the e-retail consumer electronics industry

The consumer electronics retail industry in Europe consists of more than 1150 retail chains (Veraart Research, n.d.), making retailing consumer electronics highly competitive. There are dominant leaders in the retail sector for consumer electronics that have been around and profitable for years.

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Table 1

Principal competitors in European consumer electronics retailing (Veraart Research, n.d.)

Rank Retail company Annual turnover (2018) *(2016) Online presence

1 Media Markt - Saturn €22.5 billion Yes

2 Euronics €19.1 billion Yes

3 Expert €13 billion Yes

4 Dixons Retail €12.3 billion Yes

5 Fnac/Darty €7.4 billion Yes

6 Argos €4.1 billion Yes

7 Boulanger €2.1 billion Yes

8 Electronic Partner €1.6 billion Yes

9 UniEuro €1.6 billion Yes

10 Conrad €1 billion Yes

Media Markt-Saturn, a German retail company, dominates the consumer electronics retail sector in Europe. The industry shows a strong position for e-commerce.

In the literature on the consumer electronics market, one could argue that the product offerings are generally homogenous across the various platforms, stimulating primarily fierce competition on price. This homogeneity across firms is a result of a few dominant manufacturers of consumer electronics and ample resellers. When taking the MBV approach of Porter, one uses five dominant forces to analyze the business environment.

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The bargaining power of buyers is moderately high since there are hardly any switching costs, and consumers have almost complete information on the various offerings. This availability of information gives consumers the ability to advanced comparison methods (Pratap, 2018). Supplier power, on the contrary, is generally low. Manufacturers and brands require retailers to adhere to the code of conduct, in which retailers are limited to specific rules (Pratap, 2018). There are, however, e-commerce firms that have a scalable business and can leverage their firm size and quality (Pratap, 2018). The overall level of competitive rivalry in e-commerce retailing is high, as a result of a large number of firms competing.

The Five Forces Model of the retail e-commerce industry presents a highly competitive retail environment in which companies need to sell their products. These high levels of competition impact potential profits and drive aggressive pricing of products (Wilkinson, 2013). Based on the analysis, a company can opt for primarily three strategies; cost-leadership, differentiation, and focus (Martin, 2019). In the retail of homogeneous products, the most used strategy is cost-leadership, stimulating fierce price battles.

Figure 1

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2.3. The customer journey

The customer journey is a broad concept that involves activities to engage or attract customers. Consumers usually undertake this jaunt in pursuit of life goals, opportunities, challenges, and needs, e.g., consumption of goods (Hamilton & Price, 2019). They emphasize that companies must understand the difficult emotional and experiential journeys for customers when participating in the search to satisfy a need.

Traditionally, the definition of a consumer decision-making process was a funnel, in which the consumer started with a large number of options and narrowed it down to their choice (Thobani, 2018), from awareness to familiarity, consideration, purchase, and loyalty (Court, Elzinga, Mulder, & Vetvik, 2009). In today's society, consumers are continuously exposed to various channels of communication to convince them to purchase a good or service (Thobani, 2018). This trend has led to a decrease in brand awareness of consumers. Hence, when consumers decide to purchase a product, their first step will be to search online for the product and compare products from various companies. This search is increasing the potential number of firms that can satisfy their needs (Court et al., 2009; Thobani, 2018).

Court et al. state that the first step in the customer decision journey for companies should be to develop in-depth knowledge of the customer and the way they make purchase decisions. The consumer decision-making process will increase in complexity over time, forcing companies to adopt innovative ways of measuring consumer attitudes, brand performance, and effects of marketing activities (Court et al., 2009).

The modern customer journey comprises five stages (Yuzdepski, 2019), as presented in Figure 2. The awareness, findability, and reputation stages comprise advertising and marketing, search

efforts, search engines and apps, and social media, blogs and articles, and reviews (Yuzdepski, 2019). The conversion stage directs the customer to the final purchase, via websites, apps, or in-store sales. The final aim of the company is to retain the customer and drive them to advocacy, leading to more conversion from them, and potentially from others that they inspire.

awareness findability reputation conversion advocacy

Figure 2

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2.4. Essential aspects of the customer journey

When analyzing the customer journey, the literature presents us with several critical elements that influence the customer journey, which relates to the resources of the company. These factors can be broadly segmented, partly based on research by Chen et al. (2010) and Schaupp & Belanger (2005), into three main categories, technical factors, purchase-path factors, and product factors, as visualized in Table 2. The resources analyzed for online retailing are driving temporary competitive advantage, as studied by Zhuang & Lederer (2006).

Table 2

Factor analysis of the online customer journey and representative literature

Factor category

Essential aspect Representative literature

Technology factor

Process security (Chen, Hsu, & Lin, 2010; Kutic, 2018; Luo, Ba, & Zhang, 2012)

Consumer privacy (Chen et al., 2010; Cisco, 2019; Kutic, 2018; Redman & Waitman, 2020; Schouten, 2014)

Usability,

multi-responsiveness

(Breschi, Freundt, Orebäck, & Vollhardt, 2017; Chen et al., 2010; Hausman & Siekpe, 2009; Ranganathan & Ganapathy, 2002; Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Malhotra, 2002)

Transparency in product offerings, advanced comparison capabilities

(Court et al., 2009; Schouten, 2014)

Purchase-path factor

Consumer centered customer journey

(Court et al., 2009; Hamilton & Price, 2019; Maechler, Neher, & Park, 2016; Peter Fader, 2012; Schouten, 2014; Vakulenko, Shams, Hellström, & Hjort, 2019)

Consumer trust, minimization of risks in the process

(Chen et al., 2010; Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011; Schouten, 2014)

Last mile (Chen et al., 2010; Robinson, n.d.; Vakulenko et al., 2019) Omni- and multichannel

visibility

(Lemon & Verhoef, 2016; Picot-Coupey, Huré, & Piveteau, 2016; Wagner, Schramm-Klein, & Steinmann, 2020)

Product factors

Product value matches consumer expectations

(Boyer & Hult, 2006; Court et al., 2009; Luo et al., 2012; Thobani, 2018)

Product ease of use (Chen et al., 2010; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005) Price reasonably reflects the

brand

(Chen et al., 2010; Rao & Monroe, 1989; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005)

Firms offer additional, continuous services to customers

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2.4.1. Technical factors

Technical factors in the customer journey comprise the technological advancements in the website, process, and consumer security (Chen et al., 2010; Kutic, 2018; Luo et al., 2012), e.g., the privacy of web-visitors (Schouten, 2014). Technological factors, furthermore, consist of usability and multi-responsiveness of the channels, and transparency, and the ability of advanced product comparison (Chen et al., 2010; Schouten, 2014).

2.4.1.1. Security

Kutic (2018) emphasizes the importance of safe transactions and data privacy in customer experiences, since customers do not solely demand a class experience, but a secure, high-class experience (Convery-Pelletier, 2018). With the increasing threat of data breaches, leaks, and the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), online security is affecting both businesses and consumers. Application of, e.g., two-factor authentication, or a Secure Sockets Layer (SLL), significantly improves the security and consumer perception of a safe environment, and drive sales growth and consumer loyalty (Kutic, 2018).

2.4.1.2. Privacy

Data privacy in the customer journey remains, e.g., the ethical debate on whether a company can obtain or share personal information from its webpage visitors and consumers, an unsolved discussion in the academic literature (Martin & Murphy, 2017). A survey in 2019 has found that 32 percent of a sample of 2,601 adults cared about data privacy and are willing to, or have, switch their procurement of a good or service based on a company's data-sharing policies (Cisco, 2019; Redman & Waitman, 2020). Therefore, making this topic highly relevant to the purchase decision-making process.

2.4.1.3. Usability

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the consumer a perfect experience under any circumstance. Responsiveness, therefore, is a 'moment of truth,' according to a McKinsey study (Breschi et al., 2017).

2.4.1.4. Transparency

The definition of transparency, according to Schouten (2014), is the ability of consumers to analyze stores or products. Firms that offer clarity, and thus enable the consumer to compare tend to outperform other firms. A study by Schouten (2014) found that consumers wanting to buy a television are mainly looking to minimize risks (.394) and seeking transparency in service levels (.285). These outcomes are especially actual for consumers in the 'satisfices' category that do not always strive to get the maximum out of a deal (Schouten, 2014). The transparency can be broadened by marketing and advertising, findability of the company and reviews (Yuzdepski, 2019), since the products are increasingly visible to potential customers, leading to enhanced comparison possibilities and transparency of offerings.

2.4.2. Purchase-path factors

Purchase-path factors in the customer journey comprise the actual customer journey factors, the customer-centricity in the process, consumer trust and implications, the final processes and last-mile delivery, and the visibility of products and services across channels (Chen et al., 2010; Court et al., 2009; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005).

2.4.2.1. Consumer centered customer journey

Traditionally, firms pushed their marketing to the customer. Over time, this business practice changed to a more consumer-centered approach, in which the consumer actively pull the information needed in the customer journey (Court et al., 2009). Court et al. studied the effect of touchpoints in the active-evaluation stage of today's customer journey. They found that two-thirds of the touchpoints in the customer journey involve consumer-driven marketing activities (Court et al., 2009).

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Verhoef, 2016). All the interactions with consumers during the process are called touchpoints (Court et al., 2009; Hamilton & Price, 2019; Vakulenko et al., 2019).

Touchpoints, or 'moments of truth' (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016), determine the purchase process of customers and form a consumer journey comprising customer responses and drive the consumer experience (Vakulenko et al., 2019). Understanding the touchpoints will help a company to understand their consumers and drive consumer experience and sales. A study showed that 80 percent of companies believed in delivering a superior consumer experience in their store, while only eight percent of the consumers agreed (Allen, Reichheld, Hamilton, & Markey, 2005).

2.4.2.2. Consumer trust

Consumer trust is of critical importance and leads to beneficial outcomes for firms, according to a study on its role in consumer relationships (Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011). The primary benefits of consumer trust are loyalty, which leads to long term relationships between the consumer and the firm (Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011), higher purchase probability, and lower monetary risk (Schouten, 2014). Schouten (2014) states that consumer trust in online environments is more critical than in offline environments.

Consumer trust tightly connects to higher consumer advocacy, reviews, and recommendations (Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011; Schouten, 2014), which is essential when considering the consumers. A study found that 32 percent of consumers trust multinational enterprises; only 13 percent believe its advertisements (Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011). Comparing these percentages to the 90 percent of recommendations from friends, and 70 percent of reviews online (Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011), one could say that businesses must develop trust and loyalty to increase and leverage the potential.

2.4.2.3. The last mile

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2.4.2.4. Multi- and Omni-Channel visibility

Multichannel refers to the use of different channels, e.g., a firm's webshop, external web-platforms, brick-and-mortar shops, through which firms acquire, retain, and develop customers (Ailawadi & Farris, 2017; Neslin et al., 2006). The use of multiple channels in the retail process is essential for businesses (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). Omnichannel visibility draws further upon the multichannel approach, in which the various customer journeys in the different channels conjoin to create a unified experience for consumers across multiple platforms (Moffat, 2017).

2.4.3. Product factors

Product factors in the customer decision-making process comprise the value and quality of products and services in the customer journey (Boyer & Hult, 2006; Chen et al., 2010; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005). A determinant for consumers in the customer journey is the value of the product. Prior research specifies four main categories of the product value. (1) the product matches consumer expectations, (2) the product is easy to use, (3) the product price reflects the product brand, and (4) the firm offers additional continuous services to consumers.

When consumers order products online, they expect the products to carry a predetermined value. If, for example, the quality of the product is considerably lower than the perceived condition, consumer return rates might increase (Boyer & Hult, 2006; Chen et al., 2010; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005). Besides the value, consumers expect the products to be easy to start and operate and to carry adequate instructions and information on the product (Brucks, Zeithaml, & Naylor, 2000).

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2.5. Partial conclusion

A company can achieve a competitive advantage when implementing strategies that cannot be imitated simultaneously by competitors. The RBV and the MBV are two theories used to assess the ability of companies to gain a competitive advantage.

The Consumer Electronics Industry is highly competitive, with many companies selling similar goods to consumers that can easily switch between suppliers. These characteristics drive the Consumer Electronics market to compete on price, rather than on differentiation or focus. Retail multinationals dominate the European market with an online and offline presence.

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3. Research Design

The purpose of this study is to create a new theory based on the relationship between the customer journey and a competitive advantage in the consumer electronics retail industry. Therefore, the philosophy of this research is interpretive, meaning that reality is only accessible through social constructions. This interpretive philosophy emphasizes qualitative analysis over quantitative analysis (Dudovskiy, 2019).

This paper uses an inductive approach to research since the aim of this report is to explore and generate new theories or conceptual models. Subsequently, secondary data, in the form of academic literature, is derived from exploring the literature on e-commerce, the customer journey, and competitive advantages.

The strategy of this research is primarily archival, meaning that this research focuses on deriving information from existing, secondary sources. The primary source of information used in this report is the university library. This strategy is favored when the researcher has limited resources (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009).

The methods used in this study could be mono-method, multi-method, or mixed-method. The researcher uses a mixed-method by focusing on qualitative data but taking quantitative data derived from the literature into account. The research uses a cross-sectional time horizon since it does not aim to provide insights into a changing environment.

The secondary data, comprising journal articles, academic papers, theses, is accessed primarily through the university library, from the databases; EBSCOhost, JSTOR,

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4. Analysis and Discussion

In this chapter, the researcher aims to analyze how the online customer journey affects the experience of the customers and drives a competitive advantage in the retail industry of

consumer electronics. Figure 3 presents the conceptual framework.

Figure 3 Conceptual Framework Performance in awareness stage Performance in findability stage Performance in reputation stage Performance in conversion stage Performance in advocacy stage

Firm performance in the online customer journey (+) H2c (+) H3 Consumer privacy Usability Consumer Centricity Consumer Trust Value matches expectation Product factors Purchase-path factors Technological factors (+) H2b (+) H2a (+) H1b (+) H1a Consumer experience in the online shopping

process

Competitive advantage for online retailers in the

consumer electronics industry (+) H4

Phases of the online customer journey

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The independent variable in the conceptual framework is the online customer shopping experience. The dependent variable is a competitive advantage for firms in the consumer electronics retail industry. The firm's performance in the online customer journey is the moderating variable. This moderating variable constitutes the essential factors that influence customer journeys, derived from the literature. The literature presents three categories that influence customer journeys: technological factors, purchase-path factors, and product factors. The conceptual framework presents the most influential factors from the three categories. These factors influence one of the five stages of the online customer journey.

4.1. Technological factors in the online consumer electronics customer journey The literature presents technological factors to be essential in the customer journey (Chen et al., 2010; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005). The most important factors of the technological factors are consumer privacy and usability.

Consumer privacy, ranked by Schaupp and Belanger (2005) as the primary factor influencing customer journeys, defines what a company can do with the information of its customers. In the retail of consumer electronics, the importance of data privacy is equally paramount as in other retail industries. Hence consumer privacy in the customer journey increases the performance in the reputation stage of the customer journey. This reputation stage is the stage from which the customer continues to the actual purchase.

Hypothesis 1a: Consumer privacy increases firm performance in the reputation stage of the online customer journey.

Usability, explained by the general functionality and design of the webpage (Chen et al., 2010), is another crucial technological factor. Research suggests that webpage usability, in general, increases company performance, e.g., purchase intentions and customer experience, in the conversion stage of the customer journey (Chen et al., 2010; Hausman & Siekpe, 2009; Ranganathan & Ganapathy, 2002). The usability of the online consumer electronics retail industry is not different from other online retailer industries.

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4.2. Purchase-path factors in the online consumer electronics customer journey Consumer centricity comprises a consumer-based approach in customer journeys by integrating and developing interactions, or touchpoints, with the consumer. Companies that understand their customers and develop touchpoints based on customer knowledge tend to perform better (Vakulenko et al., 2019). A study by Allen et al. (2005) found that the vast majority of companies believed in delivering superior consumer experiences, while only eight percent of customers agreed. Delivering superior experience will lead to customers being more prone to proceed to the purchase in the conversion stage of the customer journey, irrespective of the industry in which the customer is undertaking the jaunt.

Hypothesis 2a: Consumer centricity increases firm performance in the conversion stage of the online customer journey.

Consumer trust, frequently influenced by reviews and recommendations of others, is an essential purchase-path factor. This factor benefits consumer loyalty, stimulates long-term relationships (Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011), and increases purchase probability (Schouten, 2014). Consumer trust is more important in online channels than in offline channels and, therefore, of vital importance to online retailers (Schouten, 2014). Similarly to consumer privacy, consumer trust influences the reputation stage of the customer journey. Developing a trustworthy online business with good reviews and high consumer advocacy is found to be a principal driver for the customer journey performance of any online business (Halliburton & Poenaru, 2011).

Hypothesis 2b: Consumer trust increases firm performance in the reputation stage of the online customer journey.

The last mile processes comprise the final stages of the purchase process, from payment to delivery of the item. Customer satisfaction in the journey, and thus the performance of the journey, is greatly affected by the final experience (Chen et al., 2010; Robinson, n.d.; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005; Vakulenko et al., 2019). The experience a customer has after receiving the item influences their potential to advance to the advocacy stage, in which they influence others to purchase. Excellent performance in the final stages will increase the likelihood of new customers undertaking the jaunt in that particular online store, increasing company performance.

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4.3. Product factors in the online consumer electronics customer journey

Customers expect a predetermined value for the products ordered online. If product value and product quality are not in line, customers might not accept the product, increasing return rates and decreasing performance in the customer journey. Furthermore, the experience likely results in lower advocacy for the company and its products, reducing the potential customers undertaking the customer journey.

Hypothesis 3: Matching product quality and consumer expectations increases firm performance in the advocacy stage of the online customer journey.

The performance of the firm in the five stages of the customer journey, comprising awareness stage, findability stage, reputation stage, conversion stage, and advocacy stage, moderates the likelihood that consumer experiences in online shopping result in a competitive advantage for the company. The performance of the customer journey has a positive effect on consumer experience (Chen et al., 2010; Schaupp & Belanger, 2005). Furthermore, one can see that the performance in the customer journey increases the likelihood of achieving a competitive advantage. The consumer electronics retail industry, however, is not likely to achieve a sustainable competitive, but solely a temporary competitive advantage, as a result of fierce competition with similar products.

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5. Conclusion

The central research question of this literature study is: 'How does customer journey affect customer experience of firms in the consumer electronics industry to gain a competitive advantage?'. Throughout the paper, the researcher has provided insights into the different aspects of the research question, by providing literature on competitive advantages in online retailing, the consumer electronics industry, the customer journey, and the essential factors in the customer journey.

This research aims towards raising hypotheses and concluding upon the hypotheses by deriving data from secondary sources. Eight hypotheses have been constructed and placed into four parts, technological factors influencing the customer journey, purchase-path factors influencing the customer journey, product factors influencing the customer journey and the effect of the customer journey on the relationship between online consumer experience and a competitive advantage in online retailing of consumer electronics. Hypothesis 1a: Consumer privacy increases firm performance in the reputation stage of the online customer journey, and hypothesis 4: Firm performance in the online customer journey of consumer electronics increases the likelihood that higher consumer experience in online shopping results in a competitive advantage for the firm. Hypothesis 4 is the most impactful in the conceptual model. Hypothesis 1a, consumer privacy, is the primary determinant for customers to undertake the customer journey in a particular store.

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5.1. Limitations

This research paper has potential limitations. The research paper aims to analyze the online customer journey. This online customer journey comprises of countless factors that affect the satisfaction of customers. This study has introduced only a handful of essential factors. Other vital factors might not be taken into consideration in the analysis, as it was not presented, or overlooked, in the available literature.

Another limitation of this study is that it bases the factor importance primarily on two studies. These authors, Schaupp and Belanger, and Chen et al., might have been biased or mistaken, and thereby, the researcher could have wrongly placed the most vital factors of the customer journey in the conceptual framework. Furthermore, their findings were published in 2005 and 2010, creating the possibility of changes in the importance of factors over time.

The scope of the discussion might not appeal to industry-expert standards since a student has researched without extensive experience in producing academic papers.

5.2. Future research

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