analysis of brands practice in digital communications
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TOPSHOP'S WEBSITE

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Appendix 3: Comparison of change

Customer Engagement

Engagement refers to the long-term ability of a brand to gain a customer’s attention. The commercial aim of engagement is to increase customer value through using strong customer interactions. Engagement has four parts which can be measured which are Involvement, Integration, Intimacy and Influence. Topshop’s website should engage with customers effectively and to do so consider these measurements (Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick 2012). 
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Appendix 2: Alexa.com figures
River Island Website graphic examples.
The involvement of Topshop’s visitors is measured by their website visits and time spent of their website. Looking on competitive intelligence website Alexa.com (App 2) figures show that Topshop’s bounce rate, which is the percentage of customers viewing just one page. Topshop’s rate is slightly higher than competitors River Island. Through looking on both websites and comparing the two, suggestion to improve Topshop’s bounce rate may be to optimise their images more and create a larger advertising space similar to River Islands. River Island have a slide show of images which gives the customer more information, quicker, than a stand-alone image, their promotions are specific and are easy to connect with for the fashion conscious market as they have adverts such as "Most Wanted" (See Slideshow for examples) Topshop could consider incorporating this onto their homepage as a way of improving engagement. River Island has a better all-round performance on engagement on their website compared to Topshop including their daily page views per customer which is almost double Topshop’s. This indicates Topshop must improve their promotional tactics on this platform in order to continue to be successful with the growth of technology and interaction with online customers. 

After conducting personal analysis over a certain period, findings were that Topshop changed their homepage graphics after 6 days (App 3), where River Island changed theirs twice in this time alternating the layout of the entire homepage graphics not just the first few which made the experience more exciting and “new” each visit. Topshop’s homepage remained very similar with only a slight shift of change in images; this could be a contributing factor to the bounce rate and therefore should be considered for change.

Online customer experience

To create and maintain an effective online brand presence, the presence must deliver a relevant and satisfactory customer experience for its audience, adding value to the brand and delivering results.  Some areas to be considered for creating a successful presence are too emotionally connect with the customer, respond to the customer and create a pleasant online experience. An effective online customer experience is dependent on factors including visual elements of the site design (Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick 2012).

Appearance
An effective website design should have a site personality, consistent with the needs of the target audience. Topshop’s homepage has various advertisements that are appealing to its style conscious audience as they incorporate “NEW IN” styles and “Must haves”. They are of high image quality and even have moving GIF images to create a live online shopping experience. The navigation titles are clean and easy to read, all in sync with a black and white colour scheme that is tied together with the TOPSHOP logo above.  The website has a mobile optimised version, which means the smart phone user can access a clean, smaller version of the website if they require too. The mobile optimised version is very similar and perfectly cohesive with Topshop’s website, which generates customer satisfaction as there is consistency of quality across the brands digital platforms. 

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Appendix 5: Gift Guide from Topshop
Considering MACRO factors
Topshop must consider changes in the MACRO environment in order to stay current and update promotions accordingly. Topshop have applied their knowledge of social factors this season and adjusted their website banners and appearance to fit with the Christmas season. Adverts across the homepage highlight “Gift ideas” to inspire customers when shopping for presents. They have created a banner to guide customers with shopping for presents which categorises items into sections; this is a quick and easy way for the customer to get a feel for what products are on offer (App 5).  

Topshop’s main online customers are based in the UK (35%), followed by the USA (30%). When considering creating an engaging online promotion Topshop must consider the changes in these countries. Their website has options to change to the consumer’s local currency which in exchange changes the website layout slightly to appeal more to that consumer.

If Topshop wish to globalise their brand and appeal to a larger audience they could consider personalising their website more for other countries for example Australia. River Island has a different layout of promotions that are specific to meet the needs of the Australian customer, understanding the difference in climate. Topshop’s Australian website still has the advert “Winter Wrapped Up” on the homepage which is not fitting to the summer season that they enjoy over Christmas. This therefore does not interact as well with customers as River Islands “Pacific Cool” range advertised on their AU website. 
Navigation & Product View
Importance on being able to navigate effectively should be considered as too much confusion could put a customer off shopping online. Topshop have implemented an optimised search navigation system where you can adjust the search to fit to the consumer’s requirements. You can narrow down the search to a specific price range, which is an example of how Topshop have considered economic changes such as their range in target customers having a variety of different disposable incomes and spending patterns. For example their student audience will have less disposable income so can search by how much money they’ve got spare to spend and see if anything appeals to them, rather than just a generic display of products (App 4). 

Topshop have again considered Individualisation when it comes to browsing products, as there is the option of changing how many you view per page, how you wish the products to be sorted and alternative views of the product. Having the “Outfit view” option is a way of Topshop successfully cross-selling as it incorporates the idea of a personal stylist to show you how you could wear this item. More so, when you view the item there is “Why not try” promotion banner down the side showing products of similar style that may also interest the customer and therefore generate more sales.