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Science talk(ie)s about the ROPO effect on Polish consumers - dr hab. inż. Grzegorz Szymański



Shopping without the need to leave your home - that is what drives the growing popularity of online retailers. More and more consumers take advantage of the possibilities that the Internet offers, while their behaviour arouses scientists' curiosity. ROPO effect is one of customer behaviour trends. Dr hab. inż. Grzegorz Szymański of the Faculty of Organisation and Management explains what it means.

 

What is meant by ROPO effect?

nauka-movie-grzegorz-szymanski-PŁThis is an acronym formed with the first letters of Research Online, Purchase Offline. It means that you find information about a product online but complete your purchase at a brick and mortar store. It has been noted that customers will frequently use the Web only to search for the products they wish to buy. Once they find and qualify the ones that are the best value for their money, they go to a regular store to buy them there. The Internet is where you go to find detailed information, read reviews and compare. This phenomenon has become problematic for some businesses because online retailers take great care to have a high-performing website developed that has many functionalities; they invest a lot of resources to do it yet the person who visits the site turns out to be merely a potential customer. Despite the efforts of some of online retailers, the purchase is completed at a retailer's that may not have a website at all. Researchers got interested in the mechanism behind ROPO and started to investigate where, when, and why customers tend to exhibit this behaviour that is so undesirable for e-commerce. I might add that inverted ROPO effect and even more sophisticated ROTOPO effect (Research Online, Test Offline, Purchase Online) have also been observed. The former describes behaviour where customers buy products online having first viewed them at a brick and mortar store, whereas the latter describes a situation where customers search for the most satisfactory product online; then, they visit a regular point of sale only to return, in the end,  to buy the product online at a lower price.

 

What research is being conducted on this topic at TUL?

Lodz University of Technology, in collaboration with Opiniac, conducted extensive research on online behaviour of Polish consumers. The study started in October 2015 and ended in September 2016. 50 000 respondents from around the country took part. The survey was administered with the support of Wirtualna Polska. It is worth pointing out that Opiniac is a company owned by a graduate from TUL's Faculty of Organisation and Management. We had a cooperation agreement and based on its provisions, together, we designed a questionnaire. The company conducted the survey and forwarded its results to our researchers who then prepared a report. We started with grouping retailers into 9 key categories by the type of merchandise (medication and cosmetics; groceries and household chemicals; clothing and footwear, sporting goods and hobby supplies; books, movies and music; travel and leisure; DIY supplies; consumer electronics, telecommunication). For each category, we identified three leading e-commerce retailers and three leading traditional brick and mortal retailers.

 

What can be said about customer 'market research'?

Poles will most frequently research travel and leisure products on the Internet - 87.5% of the respondents used the Internet to prepare for purchasing this type of products. Not many fewer respondents, 84.5%, go ROPO when purchasing consumer electronics and home appliances. 74.5% of the respondents admitted that they had consulted the Internet before the purchase of telecommunication services and products. ROPO effect is the least frequent with regard to groceries and household chemicals - only 20%. A relatively small number of people, slightly fewer than 35% of the respondents, consult online reviews and compare prices of clothing and footwear before completing their purchase at a traditional store. What is interesting is the fact that we have noticed differences in behaviour between men and women as far as some of the merchandise categories go. Groceries, books, movies and sporting goods are nearly as frequently researched by women as they are by men. However, women will much more frequently prepare for their purchase of medication, cosmetics, clothing, and footwear online. Men, on the other hand, tend to look for information about telecommunication, consumer electronics and home appliances, and DIY supplies.

 

Do we prefer online or traditional shopping?

The answer to that question will not be unbiased because the respondents were internauts. Based on their responses, the most popular online stores are those that sell medication, cosmetics, groceries and household chemicals. The Grzegorz-Szymanski-PŁleast popular are those that sell consumer electronics, home appliances, and telecommunication services. The greatest gap, however, between traditional and online shopping exists with regard to  DIY supplies, by which I mean home improvement supplies. We buy these products twice as frequently at traditional stores than we do from online retailers. The reverse holds true for books, movies and music. I would like to draw your attention to the reasons that motivate consumer decisions. The convenience of shopping from home, lower prices, and the possibility to compare prices offered by competitors are all advantages of online shopping. The possibility of viewing the product before the purchase, instant purchase and no shipping and delivery charges give the upper hand to traditional shopping.

 

How would you characterise Polish online retail market?

In Poland, there are 24 000 online retail stores – together with our students, we checked that by sending an e-mail to every single one. Most of them are operated by no more than 3 persons and do not have their own warehousing facility, which means that they make money mainly by seeking customers. They exclusively use the Internet for advertising. Cookies that track our online activity are what marketers find very helpful. Poles rarely delete them from their computers, which makes it much easier for marketers to display personalised ads of products that we ourselves have looked up on our devices. Typical of Polish e-commerce is the relatively low popularity of online grocery shopping.  The sector of e-supermarkets has been growing rather slowly, which may be attributed to customers’ misgivings concerning product freshness and delivery costs. Delivery time is another issue. Young people tend to want to receive the product right away. Yet, delivery takes time. However, people aged 55 and older are a very promising consumer group as they tend to appreciate home delivery.

 

What do we need to know before going online shopping?

There are a lot of mechanisms that we can use before completing a purchase. Price comparison services, online forums and rankings allow us to find the best price. You can consult the Internet to read product reviews, and so price comparison services, forums and rankings are helpful but recommendations from your friends are the most credible source of information about products. From the customer’s point of view, ROPO effect is beneficial. On the other hand, access to a great deal of information causes customer decision paralysis. The Internet constitutes a boundless information exchange platform, and the urge to find out more and more renders choosing, and consequently, purchasing, more difficult.

 

It is worth being a scientist because …

You can choose the topic that interests you and explore it.  Researchers’ work is a vicious circle of sorts because once you find an answer to one question, a hundred other questions arise. The University provides us with tools that allow us to find those answers more quickly and efficiently. I, as a member of the academic staff, also very much appreciate my role as a teacher. I really like working with students, having discussions with them. Students have a lot of original ideas and theories that beg to be verified scientifically.


Date of record:2017-02-13
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Submitted by:
Anna Boczkowska
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