Report and Evaluation of the ASOS Website

Project Report from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: 1st Class, University of Kent (Kent Business School), course: Business Administration, language: English, abstract: ASOS is the largest online fashion website in the UK with 7.1 million customers, the core business activity clothes retail. ASOS is regarded as a global competitor within the online retailing of fashion; a core competence is that ASOS has identified a target market which uses the internet more than any other age. The report analyses the website of ASOS and constructs a series of recommendations using a variety of frameworks and perspectives.
The WebQual 2.0 Method (Barnes & Vidgen, 2001) allows a website to be assessed from the perspective of the customer and highlights that the website attains the highest score of 5 in seven of the twenty-four questions, underling the consistency of the website in delivering an effective user experience. From this it is inferred that the ASOS website is customer-centric, this benefits ASOS from a business perspective, but also in the wider significance as the user experience is enhanced. Based on the WebQual analysis it is evident that ASOS has an excellent website compared to its competition however a long term recommendation for ASOS to continue to developing a sense of community and develop it into a core competency.
The report applies an activity system perspective using the (Amit & Zott, 2001) to rank the NICE forces in significance of value creation for the ASOS website The Lock-In design theme is the most important to the ASOS business model. ASOS must develop its sense of community to encourage engage with its products. The design themes underline that for ASOS to remain the market leader this level of interaction should be enhanced as new technologies emerge. Furthermore the ASOS website is important to the efficiency of the business. In the long term if managed successfully these efficiencies should improve with an increased scale and scope, however ASOS should scenario plan this strategy before engaging.
ASOS's website is market leading, this is demonstrated by analysis and academic reasoning which supports the design of its website. It's vital that the ASOS mind-set remains innovative and not become complacent, competition is fierce and fast ASOS must keep up.