Background: With continuous developments of AI and digitalisation, the fashion industry has transformed remarkably. In Sweden, as a large fashion export, these technological developments have reshaped various aspects of the industry. The digital shift has also contributed to the customer journey’s complexity. The significance of using AI and understanding the customer journey, both has a growing relevance as they are experiencing changes. However, there is limited research on AI’s influence on the customer journey among fashion retailers. Hence, this study highlights the research gap in how fashion retailers can leverage AI technologies in this context.  Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore how retailers in the Swedish fashion industry can leverage AI to influence the customer journey, from a managerial perspective. Furthermore, to explore Swedish fashion retailers’ perceptions of future possibilities for AI and its influence on the customer journey.        Method: This study is based on a qualitative method with an inductive approach, by combining literature review with six semi-structured interviews of Swedish fashion retailers. It adopts an interpretivist paradigm to ensure quality and depth of the collected data.  Conclusion: The results show that AI is primarily used online and in the prepurchase stage of the customer journey. Implementation of AI tools vary between fashion retailers in Sweden, including tools like targeted advertising. The research presents that fashion retailers have mainly implemented AI tools internally and not directly towards customers. The results highlight factors, like the maturity level of AI, as important for current and future implementations of AI as a fashion retailer. Moreover, Swedish fashion retailers recognise AI’s potential for future implementations to influence the customer journey, especially regarding personalisation and customisation.

Näthandeln ökar över hela världen, och i Sverige är kläder och skor de största produktgrupperna som inhandlas online. I samband med detta ökar även antalet produktreturer, då förutsättningarna hos e-handelsföretag är annorlunda jämfört med fysiska butiker. Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka vilka aspekter som kvinnliga konsumenter upplever som viktigast när en modeprodukt presenteras på en e-handelssida, och hur detta påverkar deras returbeteende. Vidare undersöks användarvänlighet på en e-handelssida, i form av befintliga funktioner och information gällande hur en produkt presenteras. Resultatet av de kvantitativa studier, i form av en enkät och en nulägesbeskrivning genominnehållsanalys, som gjorts i samband med uppsatsen visar att korrekta och utförligaproduktbeskrivningar är viktiga i processen innan köpet genomförs. Det är inte bara mängden av information som är viktigt, även kvaliteten hos den angivna informationen uppges vara viktig. Detta uppdagades också i nulägesbeskrivningen som gjordes av tre undersökta ehandelsföretag. Samtliga uppvisade en hög grad av användarvänlighet, vilket innebar att de hade många tillgängliga funktioner. Alla tre företag har dock höga returgrader, vilket indikerar på bristande kvalitet gällande den tillgängliga informationen. Resultatet visar också på likheter angående vad konsumenterna upplever som viktigt i en produktbeskrivning, och vad de upplever behöver förbättras. Baserat på resultatet av konsumentstudien samt kartläggningen av nuläget i de aktuella ehandelsföretagen, påvisas hur e-handelsföretag inom mode kan utveckla sitt avoidance-arbete utifrån konsumenternas efterfrågan. Då returgraderna inte är beroende av användarvänlighet i denna specifika undersökning, kan det också konstateras att användarvänligheten inte är den huvudsakliga påverkande kraften i konsumenternas returbeteende. / Online shopping is increasing all over the world, and in Sweden, clothing and shoes are the largest product groups to be purchased online. As a consequence, product returns are increasing as well, due to the conditions of online shopping being different to those in a brick and-mortar store. The purpose of this paper, which is written in Swedish, is to examine which aspects of the online product presentation are perceived to be the most important by female consumers, and how that affects their return behavior. Furthermore, user experience is examined via the available features and information regarding how a product is presented. The results of the performed quantitative studies, which include a questionnaire and a description of the present state of e-commerce companies through a content analysis of their websites, show that accurate and extensive product descriptions are important in the prepurchase process. However, it is not only the amount of information that is important, but also the quality of the provided information. This was also uncovered in the description of the present state, which was an analysis carried out on three e-commerce companies. All three displayed a high level of user experience, which meant a large number of available features. All three companies also displayed high return rates, which indicates a lack of quality in regard to the information provided. The results also show similarities in terms of what the consumers perceive to be important in a product description, while at the same time needing to be improved. Through the results of the consumer study and the description of the present state within the examined e-commerce companies, this study suggests ways for e-commerce fashion companies to develop their avoidance strategies, based on consumer demand. Because the return rates are not dependent on user experience in this particular survey, it was found that user experience is not the main influencing force in the consumers’ return behavior.

Die bestehende Infrastruktur in der Gerontopsychiatrie steht vor der Herausforderung, den speziellen Bedürfnissen älterer Patient:innen mit zusätzlichen psychischen Erkrankungen nicht gerecht zu werden. Angesichts dessen erfordert die Architektur im Gesundheitswesen die Erprobung neuer methodischer Ansätze. Die Methode, welche ursprünglich aus dem Bereich des Marketings stammt, wurde für die Anwendung in der Gerontopsychiatrie adaptiert. Hierzu wurde eine phasenweise Struktur entwickelt, um Problemstellen gezielt zu identifizieren. Eine Umfrage mit den Mitarbeitenden der Station diente der Datenerhebung. Diese wurden im Folgenden schrittweise kategorisiert und zu verallgemeinerten Problemen zusammengeführt. Für diese formulierten Probleme wurden anhand von bestehender Forschung zu alters- und demenzsensibler Architektur Lösungsvorschläge entwickelt. Diese Gestaltungsempfehlungen wurden daraufhin in zeitlicher Abfolge strukturiert, wodurch ein Leitfaden für künftige Umplanungen entstand. Nach einer konkreten Anwendungsdarstellung wird der Prozess der Customer Journey verallgemeinert, um eine Bewertung der Methode im Gesundheitswesen zu ermöglichen. Abschließend wird eine Empfehlung für den effektiven Umgang mit dieser Methode gegeben, wobei eine ganzheitliche Betrachtung des Ansatzes erfolgt. [...aus dem Text]

The customer journey is a re-submerged subject which has become increasingly relevant. The focus derives from the increased focus on customer experience as touch points are increasing as well as becoming more accessible. This is creating problems for companies to allocate their resources in marketing. Previous literature on customer journeys are also limited, mostly originating from research on customer experience. This motivates research within the field with the purpose of exploring the customer journey and connected phenomena.    The basis of this thesis was the customer journey which derives from customer experience. Further, the theoretical framework presents theories about customer experience, consumer buying decisions, customer journey and its touch points. The theoretical framework also presents two conceptual models concerning customer journey and customer experience. Focus was here on exploring the formulation of the customer journey, its steps and components. But also, on investigating how customer experiences affects customer journeys. This thesis had a qualitative research strategy and empirical material was collected through interviews. The empirical findings and the analysis resulted in several conclusions as this was an exploratory study. Reason for use of route, use of different touch points, customer experience impact and were found. Furthermore, the customer journey itself was identified as a reason for conducting a purchase. The result of this thesis might help companies allocate their resources more efficiently between touch points. As well as understanding how to create positive customer experience and the importance of it.

Det finns ett flertal studier som på påvisar hur kommunicerande mellan designers, både experter och noviser, och hur de förhåller sig till visualiseringar Arvola & Artman, 2006; Segelström., 2009 & Tholander, Karlgen, Ramberg, & Sökjer, 2008). Det finns även studier som jämför designutförande mellan expertdesigners och designnoviser Ahmed, Wallace, & Blessing, 2003; Ball, Ormerod, & Morley, 2004; Ho, 2001 & Kavalki & Gero, 2002), men någon uttalad standard för designers beteende och kommunicerande vid visualsieringsskapande finns inte och i nya studier observeras hela tiden nya fenomen. Det finns även få studier som undersöker hur individer helt ovana vid design förhåller sig till visualiseringar och hur de kommunicerar kunskap mellan varandra vid visualiseringsskapande. Denna studie utfördes som en fallstudie på Migrationsverket i Norrköping. Syftet med arbetet var dels att utforska hur individer som är ovana vid designarbete kommunicerar kunskap mellan varandra vid skapandet av visualiseringar inom tjänstedesign. Studien syftade även till att undersöka hur individer ovana vid designarbete förhåller sig till visualiseringarna de skapar vid kommunicerade med resterande gruppmedlemmar. För att studera detta hölls två workshops där fyra individer som aldrig hade hört talas om tjänstedesign, två individer ifrån medborgarskapsenheten och två individer ifrån kundtjänst, tillsammans fick skapa customer jouney maps och service system maps. Workshoptillfällena spelades in med videokamera och det inspelade materialet användes för att analysera konversation och interaktion mellan deltagarna och deras förhållningssätt till visualiseringarna. Resultaten ifrån studien visar att deltagarna använde sig av två huvudsakliga metoder för att kommunicera kunskap. Aningen genom yttranden eller genom frågor och svar. Deltagarnas yttranden var korta och nämndes vid tillfällen i diskussioner där deltagare ansåg att de hade kunskap som kunde bidra till utvecklingen av visualiseringarna. Vid kommunicerande av kunskap genom frågor och svar var det vanligast att deltagare ifrån den ena enheten frågar deltagare ifrån den andra enheten hur de förhåller sig till de sökande och hur deras arbetsuppgifter ser ut. Resultaten visar även att deltagarna använde sig av visualiseringarna för att referera till händelser i tjänsteförloppet eller för att uppmärksamma resterande deltagare om felaktigheter som hade uppstått i visualiseringen. Deltagarna arbetade iterativt i sitt visualiseringsskapande och alla designbeslut kring utvecklingen av visualiseringarna fattades gemensamt. I studiens slutsatser påpekas visualiseringars kommunikativa förmågor inom designgrupper och hur deltagarna använder sig av visualiseringarna för att effektivt kommunicerande med varandra. Ytterligare påvisas effekten visualiseringar kan ha på strukturen för kommunicerande och informationsutbyte och att deltagarnas strävan efter att fatta gemensamma beslut ledde till att de utbildade varandra kring de ämnen och processer som visualiserades.

Today’s society is earmarked by developments in technology so drastic, that our lives are continuously changed, impacted and remolded. When thinking about how many impressions one goes through during a single day, the results will be uncountable. And at an increasing pace, many of these impressions are shifting to the digital realm. This thesis acknowledges these rapid changes in the modern world of marketing, particularly the digital aspects of it. Yet while a great amount of research has been conducted to more closely understand digital marketing and how to conduct it, a significantly little amount of research has been spent focusing on the customer. This while the path that a customer takes from need to purchase may have grown to be more complex than ever. Not all the impressions that a customer gains on a certain product or brand come solely from the company behind it. As such, we decided to focus on exploring this customer journey – a relatively nascent theme in the field of marketing research. More specifically, we aim to answer the following research question: How is the customer purchasing decision affected by the customer’s interaction with touch points throughout the customer journey? Our main purpose was to arrive at a model as an answer to the research question, that could be used as a foundation for future research studies. We were intensely curious at gaining a better understanding of the customer journey and what the customers experience as they are touched by different influential channels during their travel from need to purchase. Our study shows that it is possible to synthesize the state of current research on the topic of the customer journey and support it with empirical data gathered from interviews with a variety of customers. Central to our thesis are the following two definitions that we have constructed based on current literature: The customer journey is the individual experience that a customer has when interacting with touch points in the path from a pre-purchase to a post-purchase setting. Touch points are moments of contact between customer and company that individually and collectively influence customer experience. The third critical element is that of the customer experience, which we don’t explicitly define, but implicitly construe as a distinct construct with a powerful impact by serving as the catalyst between touch points and customer actions and perceptions.The result is a conceptual model of the customer journey that we feel could be a foundation for future research on the customer journey to build upon and perhaps one day could serve as an overarching model for marketing as a whole.

This bachelor thesis explores a virtual try-on interface in the context of the fashion product category. It is argued that virtual representations of product offerings can stimulate consumers’ purchase intentions, and thus, enact an online transaction. The purpose is to investigate how market-based AR/VR influences the behavior of consumers along the customer journey. A qualitative research approach was undertaken to answer the exploratory question. The context of the empirical bachelor thesis is the virtual try-on Synsam Style Lab where two qualitative research methods were conducted. These methods consisted of a document study on Synsam Style Lab and three synchronous online focus group interviews that laid the foundation of the thematic analysis. The purpose of conducting these qualitative research methods was to shed light on whether or not Synsam Style Lab could facilitate consumers’ online buying decision process. Consumers who saw convenience in Synsam Style Lab often expressed reasons related to the theme Alleviate. On the contrary, if consumers interaction with Synsam’s virtual try-on yielded negative experience, then their reasons were often in connection with the theme Insufficiency.  The context of this bachelor thesis is restricted to the fashion eyewear segment and does not represent the total fashion industry. Only members of Generation Y, also known as millennials, participated in the synchronous online focus group interviews. Therefore, incorporating the perspectives of other demographics could contribute to a diversified discovery of findings. Previous research has not explicitly investigated the influence of AR/VR applications on consumers’ engagement in a fashion retail setting. Hence, this bachelor thesis provides new dimensions within the field of market-based AR/VR applications.

Digital commerce is a natural part of our everyday life. To fast and easily be able to make purchases from our home without stress has become a matter of course for us. But the new way to make purchases places new demands on the sales, not least at the important customer meeting. The interaction between customer and seller disappears completely and known marketing methods must be adapted to the new conditions. How does the customer journey change when the step from discovering a product to buying it is just a few clicks away? The study aims to investigate and develop a digital sales process for a mobile game aimed for children. The process is based on the marketing framework See-Think-Do-Care and tries to answer questions like which components are needed in a sales flow? How can a product be adapted to different types of users and can UX design be used to get interested customers to buy the product? The method is divided into two different sections. One section for evaluating the chosen marketing framework and another for the development of the sales process. The development of the sales process was made stepwise by prototypes in different degrees of fidelity. The first part of the result ended up in the implementation of the marketing framework, a developed customer journey, and a compilation of ten guidelines to adhere to for increasing the conversion of new customers. The sales flow was then developed step by step from only showing the routing to be a clickable solution similar to the intended end product. The di↵erent prototypes were evaluated by user testing and it was shown that the largest problem was not to make users understand the sales flow, it was to make them understand the actual product. The hope is that the result of the study will be able to be tested in production and be used in the real sales of the product.

Customer experience has become more difficult for companies to control with the expanding number of touch points that the companies must be aware off. One of the major reasons behind the expanding number of touch points has been digitalization. The financial sector is not excluded from this change. With the digitalization continuously improving and new financial technology (fintech) being developed, things might have changed. For example, bank offices and employees have been viewed as important in earlier studies, but has this changed? What is important and affects the customer experience in the Swedish financial sector today? The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of which factors of banking services are considered important by customers today and whether there has been a shift since earlier studies. Thereby, we seek to establish what impacts the customer experience in financial institutions today. To find the answer to the purpose, a qualitative and quantitative study were conducted. The results of the full study show that employees are, as earlier studies have shown, still considered important when conducting a bank errand. However, in what context the employees are important seems to have changed. The results show that the quality that is delivered by the staff is important, while in earlier studies the relational aspect has been more important. Furthermore, the results show that bank offices are no longer considered important for the customer experience. Therefore, a shift can be identified. The study also show that it is important for the customer experience that the banks offer different channels for the customers to reach the bank. Furthermore, having the option to choose whether to resolve the bank errand on your own or obtain help from the bank is important for the customer experience. These two aspects are connected to the digital development of the industry. The results of the earlier research, referred to in this study, has not found these two aspects important. Our study therefore shows a significant shift, compared to earlier studies, in what customers consider important in contact with financial institutions.

In recent years there has been a remarkable distribution of the omnichannel environment, which has emerged as a significant factor in the fashion industry. Today's society is characterized by customers who possess extensive knowledge and easy access to information online, with the added convenience of constantly available e-commerce. As consumer awareness has escalated, it has become imperative for businesses to understand how customers' needs, pain points, and desires impact their customer journey in an omnichannel environment. Consequently, the aim of this research is to gain a comprehensive understanding of how Generation Z customers' needs, pain points, and desires influence their behavior throughout the customer journey within the fashion industry's omnichannel landscape. This study aims to contribute new and crucial insights to the existing body of knowledge, given the lack of recent research on this topic from the consumer perspective. To achieve these research objectives, empirical data was collected through a qualitative multi-method study comprising five focus groups and five semi-structured interviews, with a total of 25 participants. The participants consisted of individuals of Swedish origin who were born in, and belong to, Generation Z. The collected data was afterwards analyzed and discussed, which meant comparing and contrasting the results with previous research on the topic. The conclusion of this thesis reveals remarkable observations about Generation Z in Sweden, where this study has identified the most common combinations of different channels in omnichannel atmospheres. Overall, this study highlights a clear preference among female participants to use the services provided by e-commerce, while male participants show a propensity for physical, traditional commerce. In addition, this report sheds new light on the information search and evaluation process, which constitutes the initial stage of the consumer's decision-making process. Finally, needs, pain points and desires based on each step in the customer journey are identified, as well as how the problems can be resolved with initiatives from the companies.