As the brand always claim they are fast, I did an online analysis of the PUMA online shop to examine and confirm or contradict the claim. Furthermore, other statements are investigated with the goal of brand alignment. The German shop is taken as a base for the research and an online mystery shopping has been carried out.
The day of the analysis is a day after football legend Diego Maradonna died and Thursday before black friday. Therefore, the homepage consists three big posts: a memorial post, a countdown, and a gift guide for christmas, also three smaller ones: Sneakers, trends, and Pamela Reif’s favorite looks. In addition, a section „recommended for you“ shows random items, which is not clear on which basiss they are chosen.
Overall the home page presents the sports-link as well as the brand's fashionable character. Inconsistent to the brand’s mantra is the header note with shipping information, where it says „We have a lot to do, shipments can be delayed.“
In order to investigate the time span for a respond, a message has been sent to the contact mail address service@puma.com asking whether a specific sneaker is true to its size. The delay for an answer was 1 hour 8 minutes, compared to the overall customer service respond time average really fast (12 hours). In order to recheck the size PUMA offers a service called "find my size", that calculates the perfect size for each model based on some information that you provide. There is no chatbot available on the website which could facilitate the service.
The web shop has a clear structure, the menu is separated in gender, categories, and collections. Additionally a search bar is provided in order to find products faster. A product site consists of the product, a description, including material, and a product story, as well as a "worn by you" slidebar. PUMA’s community feeling is strengthen by the inclusion of customer’s tagged instagram posts. Supplementary, the photos present different angles, lightnings, and styles and supports the buying decision.
For the analysis the RS-X3 Plastic Sneaker has been used as an example. PUMA is claiming to work on its sustainability targets, nevertheless transparency regarding the material is not given, which does not allow the customer to verify the ethicalness of the product. The product description’s wording is youthful and funny, pointing out tradition and innovation. But also empowers to differentiate.
"We took our classic RS design and cubed it. Hence the X3. Three times the style, three times the attitude. First, we stripped everything down to the basics; second, we built it all back up with stronger materials; and third, we used a colour palette inspired by the toys we all enjoyed as kids. Exaggerated? Yes. Extreme? Yes. Exciting? Yes, yes, yes."
The order process was smooth, the purchase confirmation as well as the delivery informations came quicker than expected. After one day, my parcel has been forwarded to DHL and from then on PUMA is not in charge anymore. My online mystery shopping experience has been an average one. I ended up satisfied as the website delivered the informations I expected, but I got not overwhelmed or utterly impressed.
As mentioned in articles before, a brand's purpose is not solely to sell products but to sell an experience, and a provide a more far reaching objective. Therefore, besides testing the online shop, I also tried some of the pumatrac workouts, with some of the brand ambassadors and other athletes. The brand’s personality is present in a sense of fashion as I got some outfit inspirations. Additionally, the coaches are quite diverse and training on the platform gives a sense of community feeling which fits to PUMA’s „be you and be together“ value. And finally, I got more motivated and felt empowered doing a workout.
SuperOffice. (2020, November 27). 5 Ways to Reduce Customer Service Response Times. Retrieved November 29, 2020, from https://www.superoffice.com/blog/response-times/
PUMA trac website. Retrieved November 29, 2020, from http://pumatrac.puma.com
PUMA online shop. Retrieved November 29, 2020, from https://eu.puma.com/de
Comments