Study of Customer Journey Map in Electronic Bookshops

The purpose of this research was to identify the touchpoints in the customer journey map of electronic bookshops. This study was an “applied research” and was conducted by analytical-survey method, the statistical population of this research were those who had the experience of purchasing a few books from online bookstores and was included 670 people. The documentary research method (library research method) and a survey questionnaire based was used to collect the data. Finally, using the SPSS software, data were analyzed. Calculation of descriptive statistics indices and reliability were performed by the SPSS software, and also Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, binomial distribution test and Kruskal-Wallis test, and Mann-Whitney test were conducted by the SPSS software. The extracted touchpoints were evaluated in three dimensions. Finally, 41 touchpoints were divided into three stages: pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase. According to the research results, only 10 of these 41 touchpoints were more important from the customers' point of view, which include the following items: 1. touchpoints in the pre-purchase stage include: virtual advertising, high ranking in search engines, reading of comments and ratings of previous customers of the store, popularity and commercial reputation of the store, design of the store website and instructions for using the store website; 2. touchpoints in the purchase stage include: interaction with the support unit of the store, and cash on delivery; and 3. touchpoints in post-purchase stage include: store notification for new products and after-sales service. The results of this research showed that identifying and focusing on the touchpoints that customers use in the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase stages to communicate with electronic bookshops, allow bookstores to look at their products from the customers' point of view and identify the needs and problems of their customers. Also, by reviewing customers' journey map, bookstores can improve their strengths and weaknesses