6379 Blog 2A — Hobonichi Techo?

Nurul Rika
Aug 31, 2018 · 7 min read

Hello everyone! Another week, another blog post. This week, the topic for our blog is to evaluate online customer experiences using Rose and Hair’s elements. So I decided to assess the Hobonichi Techo website. For you who have heard about this brand before I post it here, I salute you! And let’s be journal friends! xD

As an online customer myself, I can be very picky when choosing a website that I will buy things from. There are too many things to consider, such as shipping delivery, the variety of items available, let alone quality. Hence, I tend to shop from the original product website before finding other online retailers, especially when your interests requires you to do a lot of research on Google, like my interest, journaling.

Journaling is not everybody’s cup of tea, especially with this digital era, when everyone prefers to write on their smartphone/laptop/tablet. I like the feeling of writing on any surface; it gives you the sense that you are writing something.

I have tried a lot of journal brand before, like Moleskine, Kikki K., and Traveller’s Notebook, that opens my door to Japanese stationeries. Japanese stationaries always have a special place in my heart because it usually looks simple, useful, and yet… beautiful. In terms of journal, Japanese brands introduce me to a variety of paper that I have not heard before, like Tomoe River Paper (I know right?). Tomoe River Paper is famous for its pen bleeding resistance to fountain pens and other ink pens. That intrigued me because my TN’s paper can not really handle my fountain pens! (Yes, I have fountain pens, you read it right)

The paper research journey led me to Hobonichi Techo. The first time I have heard about Hobonichi Techo was not from any website but an Instagram hashtag. On Instagram, Hobonichi Techo has its own occult. They showcase their Hobonichi Techo that filled with their own creativity on their Instagram. Some of them also write with fountain pens, and that was how I know that I would love Hobonichi Techo for journaling!

Not really, I’m just a sucker for pretty things lol.

Finding Hobonichi Techo website is a bit of unique experience because the shop is not really using English word for its website address, so I had to Google it first.

Hobonichi Research

As you can see from the pictures above, the address starts with numbers, 1101. However, if you type 1101.com, it will not link you to the shop. So it is a bit tricky if I forgot the store name. But with Google power, nothing is tough these days, isn’t it?

Rose and Hair’s Online Customer Experience Elements

There was a lot of literature that was studying the connection of how the customer experiences on online could lead to long-term relationship building with the company. Rose and Hair (2011) compared the traditional face-to-face versus online customer contexts:

Based on their comparison, online customers prefer to have the freedom to do whatever they want on the company website because they want to gather all information needed about the company/product in their own time period.

A conceptual framework of OCE (Rose & Hair, 2011)

Rose and Hair (2011) journal focused on a conceptual framework of OCE that was created of both cognitive and affective states of costumers. I will analyse the Hobonichi Techo website using my own experience in browsing through their website.

Antecedents #1: Information Processing

Rose and Hair (2011) pointed out that information processing is a crucial stage where online customers gather necessary information about the company/product and the vital part of the online process.

My experience while browsing the website, I found a lot of information available regarding not only their products but also “How It’s Used” information, which a bit different from another journal website that I browsed before.

Now, in my opinion, this “How It’s Used” page is not essential to the website itself because users can easily browse the store to see all the products available. However, this page is a game-changer. It gives more reason to journal lover like me to see the endless possibilities in using Hobonichi Techo once I have them on my hands. For new users like me, they also have “Shopping Instruction” page to guide us through the buying process, covers everything from product guidelines to check out.

Twin Antecedents #2 #3 #4 #5: Perceived ease-of-use (PEOU), Perceived Usefulness (PU), Skills, and Perceived Control.

Rose and Hair (2011) explained that several features in a site lead to perceived ease-of-use, which include: uncluttered screens; transparent organisation; logical flow; and easy navigation. Furthermore, Cao, Zhang, and Seydel (2005) added to evaluate website quality that proposes perceived ease-of-use and perceived usefulness are a series of features such as search facility, the responsiveness of the site, the multimedia capability, and the accuracy and relevance of the information.

According to my experience, the website is straightforward to navigate and use. All navigation tab located on the header, with a difference in color to highlight services. The menu design helps customers to build experience on the website over time.

Header Tab that shows all navigation on the website

Even though the website is using a lot of pictures on their website, it does not take long to load other page or all images on one page. Their multimedia capabilities even let customers to look on the journal detail (picture below).

Multimedia Capability

In term of accuracy and relevant information, on their product page, the company provides clear size comparison for every journal, and also information about “other pages” where customers can see all other pages that are available on the product. All of this available information on the website is aligned with perceived control, which according to Rose and Hair (2011), relates to consumers’ feelings about the degree to which they have control over their access, search and evaluation of the content of an organisation’s website. The more thorough information that the site provides, the customers feel they have control over the website to browse around and enjoy the experience.

Antecedents #6 #7: Perceived benefits and Enjoyment

Cao et al. (2005) proposed that online customers seek gratification in escapism, entertainment and interaction. They also added to incorporate the associated construct of ‘playfulness’ in a measurement model of B2C website quality to help create a positive online shopping experience.

On the ‘Fun Stuff’ page, the company provides a manga comic on how to shop the 2019 Hobonichi Techo. The information also provided very thorough and detail.

Twin Antecedents #8 #9: Risk and Trust

Rose and Hair (2011) explained that these antecedents model proposes trust and satisfaction to be outcome variables that both independently and together have a direct influence on customer loyalty.

For the Hobonichi Techo website, the information that I gathered from this website makes me believe in them. All information that is needed is available, helpful help page, not-shady About page, and the security protocol that they use on their website.

Secure Protocol
‘About’ Page

Conclusion

Based on all the good experiences that I, myself, feel from this website, I am delighted to purchase the new journal from here! All information that I needed is available, without the need to do more research on Google page. Suffice to say; the website applied all Rose and Hair’s elements to ensure their online customer experience enjoyable.

Thank you for reading my writing! Now, some point to ponder:

Do you prefer to write digitally or traditionally?

Reference:

Cao, M., Zhang, Q., & Seydel, J. (2005). B2C e-commerce website quality: an empirical examination. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 105, pp. 645–661.

Hobonichi Techo. (2002). Retrieved from https://www.1101.com/store/techo/en/

Rose, S., Hair, N., & Clark, M. (2011). Online customer experience: a review of the business-to-consumer online purchase context. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13, pp. 24–39.

Nurul Rika Laksmi

All blog posts by Nurul Rika Laksmi (u3179455) about Internet Marketing PG unit 6379 in University of Canberra, Australia

Nurul Rika

Written by

Nurul Rika Laksmi

All blog posts by Nurul Rika Laksmi (u3179455) about Internet Marketing PG unit 6379 in University of Canberra, Australia

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