Fulfilling customer demand Customer requirements and demands on e-commerce

Abstract: This thesis has been carried out during second semester 2010 at University College of Borås in Collaboration with Halens AB. Halens Holding AB is one of Sweden’s leading e-commerce companies. The company contains of four subsidiaries which together create Halens Holding AB. The concern includes Halens AB, Cellbes AB, Time Finans AB and New Bubbleroom Sweden AB. The main office of Halens Holding AB is located in Borås, the company has a turnover of 1.1 billion SEK and employs 300 people. Halens Holding AB has a wide range of products; fashion, home textile, furniture’s, home electronics and beauty- and health products. Halens has recently expanded their market, and now have Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, Estonian, Latvian, Czech, Polish, Slovakian, Russian, Swiss, Slovenian and Turkish customers.The purpose of this thesis was to investigate customer requirements and demands on e-commerce. Furthermore, the intention was also to compare customers from the different subsidiaries. The purpose could be concluded with following three bullets;Identify customer demand on; product, lead-time, service and cost. Investigate differences in customer demand at two of the subsidiaries; Halens and Cellbes. Determine different consequences to the identified customer demand; purchase, non-purchase, purchase followed by return, uncollected package. A survey was made in order to find real time information about customer behavior. The objective of the survey was to understand customers’ demands of e-commerce in general. The next step was to investigate if Halens and Cellbes fulfilled those requirements. Moreover, observations were made in order to capture the customers’ use of the web-pages. These observations provided a deeper insight of the customer requirements and demands. With survey answers and observations as a base, different customer segments could be spotted. Furthermore, the task was to find problem areas or errors from the customers’ point of view in order to improve the system. Suggested areas for improvement were presented in order to get a better match between customer demand and customer experience. During this project, a clear view of the demand and requirements of Halens and Cellbes customers has been obtained. There were not major difference between the two subsidiaries, to the contrary; the results showed that there were very similar. It can be concluded that Halens and Cellbes can improve their businesses with smaller changes. Several proposals for improvement have been developed in order to better fulfill customer demand.