• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.163-171
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• 2016

This study derived the policy implications and market strategies by analysis the e-book companies requirements & the CPND value chain structure, in order to revitalize the e-book market in Korea. Specifically, we examined the prospect of e-book market in Korea, current situations of production and distribution, awareness of service utilization and requirements for support policy with targets of 30 companies. As a research, the most needed item for e-book companies is 'PR and marketing support to enter and open the markets'(27%), which is the highest. 'Financial support such as labor costs and business expenses', 'support for retraining personnel to develop the expertise in respective fields' are followed and they account for 22%. Currently, the most effective support item is the external support program(35%) and funding power(30%) is followed. Unlike a paper book market, e-book is turned into a platform business in terms of the value chain. Based on these research content, e-book market activation and corporate competitive strategy was derived as follows : 1)literacy reinforcement about SNS marketing and e-pub3 authoring tool. 2)statistical DB construction of retail sales channels. 3)diversification of the billing system. 4)The quality of the e-book content certification.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.971-976
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• 2013

This study provides insight into current social media influences and purchasing power of the young generation in that the size of both of these demographic groups will impact the apparel companies and retail market for the predictable future Denim apparel companies are aware of the discretionary spending power of the Y and Z Generations. The characteristics of current teens are so similar to college-age individuals in that they have grown up with digital technology and they prefer to communicate via social networking sites. Retailers have utilized these social media platforms in order to capture the attention of the generations. Traditionally marketing campaigns have differentiated between teens and the college-age population. However, the teens actually have larger spending power and more discretionary income. A survey consisted of 32 questions pertaining to Internet media influences, influence of people, and decision factors on decisionmaking related to purchasing selection. A random sampling of 163 females responded to a set of questionnaires. Teens, like college students desire to make their own decisions when they select and purchase denim jeans. Overall 40% of them wanted to make their own decisions when purchasing their jeans, however, a significant number are influenced by their friend's opinions (34%) and the opinions of family members (15%). However, celebrities (10%) had the least influence on their decisions. Teens, like colleges students make decisions based on the same decision factors: fit (63%), cost (23%), brand (10%) and color (2%). The most important factor in determining preference was "fit".

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.323-346
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• 1995

The increasing number of senior citizens, combined with the power of purchasing due to discretionary income have vaulted the elderly into the position of an attractive future target market. Therefore, it would be crucial for marketers to understand elderly's purchasing behavior. The purpose of this study was to identify clothing purchasing behavior of elderly women. For this study, questionnaires were administered to 600 women over 55 years of age. However, the sample that was analyzed fer statistical analysis was involved 418 elderly women. Statistical analysis were majorly descriptives such as frequencies and percentages. The major results of this study were summarized as follows. 1. In relation to problem recognition in purchasing process, motives of purchasing apparel were identified as a happy event in home such as a wedding and a birthday, a change of seasons and a casual discovery of a suitable clothing in shopping, in orders. 2. In relation to information search, important information on apparel and fashionability were thought as display racks in a store, opinion from friends and family and fashionability from others or streets, in orders. 3. In relation to selecting a store in purchasing process, older consumers assessed that attractive price, design suited to my age, variety in one store and apparel product quality were important store attributes, in orders. In terms of a purchase place, older consumers purchased clothing mainly on department stores, wholesale stores such as Namdaemoon or Dongdaemoon market, mainly retail stores located close to home and discount stores of well known brand, in orders. 4. In relation to alternative evaluation in purchasing process, older consumeres considered that style or appearance suited to me, color, design, comfort and fitness were important selection criteria, in orders. 5. In relation to purchase choice, 61.7% of the respondents paid money by themselves and 68.9% paid on cash in purchasing apparel. 6. In relation to outcomes of purchase, older consumers solved their complaint against a unsatisfactory product mainly by returning the unsatisfactory clothing. Also, there were those who took no action against the unsatisfactory product and who altered the clothing for fitness by themselves.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.51-75
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• 2007

Dongdaemun fashion market has been successfully positioned as a main hub for non-brand fashion product distribution in Korea. One of important competitive advantages of Dongdaemun market often quoted by retail researchers is an efficiently managed network system among supply chain members. This study aimed to examine the importance of buyer-supplier relationship elements and supplier properties from buyers' perspectives (small & very small-sized fashion stores in Dongdaemun market), and to identify the determinants of the relationship length between suppliers and buyers. Survey responses of 233 stores were analyzed using EQS 6.1 for Window and SPSSWIN 10.0. The findings could be summarized as follows: First, fashion stores perceived that right delivery as the most important factor, and geographically closeness, design capability, quality, and lower price followed in order. Second, the characteristics of stores such as location, wholesaling versus retailing focusing, monthly sales, and total business length all affected the perceived importance of buyer-supplier relationship. Third, design capacity, communication, power was identified as determinants of actual relationship length with a supplier, while communication and trust were found to be determinants of future expected relationship length.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.37-60
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• 2010

Department Stores have been in place as typical large-scale retailer in Korean retail market. After Asian financial crisis in 1997, the market share of major three department stores has been increased and they have had a dominant position in relationship with vendors or manufacturers. Thus, they are able to control sales commission. Sales commission is defined as things that department stores which contribute to products sales instead of manufacturers take some portion of price as their revenue. In other words, vendors or manufacturers pay some amount of money from their sales by contracted ratio to department stores. The problem is that vendors or manufacturers think that sales commission is high. However, department stores have a different opinion that sales commission is not high because they generate new value from gathering customers and doing marketing activity on behalf of vendors or manufacturers. Because department stores have operated with business model of renting sales space to vendors or manufacturers instead of buying goods directly from them, this situation has been taken place. The revenue of department stores depend on sales commission. Thus, they want to get a dominant power to control sales commission in relationship with vendors or manufacturers. So, they have tried to increase their size and brand power. The considered policies related in sales commission of department stores are as following: preventing monopoly or oligopoly of department store, being strength of monitoring for department stores' unfair trade, strict enforcement of law for large-scale retailer's unfair trade, and inducing win-win strategy doing voluntarily by department stores.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.26-34
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• 2010

KOGAS, established in 1983 by law to ensure stable gas supply to the public, is responsible for the wholesale distribution to 30 city gas companies that deal with the retail distribution of natural gas in their geographic areas. The gas imported by KOGAS is measured by checking the level difference of LNG shipped in tankers before and after unloading. The analysis of gas composition is essential because the imported gas price is determined by its calorific value. The turbine meter is widely used for measuring the gas sold to city gas companies. Unlike the metering system for power plants, there is no gas chromatograph since the custody transfer of gas to the city gas companies is not billed by calorific value, but by volume basis. The gas quantity that a city gas company has bought from KOGAS is not equal to the quantity that the company sold to its customers. There have been some discrepancies between the wholesale gas meter readouts and retail ones due to some inherent errors of meters and some operational issues of the meters. This paper investigates the controversies regarding the real quantity of gas between distributors and consumers. It will discus and suggest desirable policies, both technically and economically, in order to solve the discrepancies of gas measurement.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.165-177
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the Internet channel introduction on the channel composed of a monopoly manufacturer and an independent physical retailer. This study also examines what would be the best strategy for the Independent physical retailer to respond to the new internet channel entry. The game theoretic model consists of a monopolist manufacturer selling its product through a channel system including one independent physical store before the entry of an internet store. The audition of the internet store to this channel system results in a mixed channel comprised of two different types of channels. The new internet store is launched by the manufacturer. The results show that an Internet channel entry has the following impacts on the existing channel members. First, the manufacturer's internet channel introduction mitigates the double marginalization problem of the traditional channel. Second, the manufacturer could enhance Its channel power by introducing its own internet channel while it diminishes that of the incumbent independent physical retailer. Third, manufacturer's adding a new internet store leads to a higher demand. Finally, with its own internet direct channel, the manufacturer has an opportunity to practice price discrimination. The manufacture leaves only those with a strong preference for the physical store to be served by the Independent physical store. The results suggest that the independent physical store's best strategy to the entry of the manufacturer's Internet channel is to focus on the consumers who are highly loyal to the physical store while maintaining a high retail price.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1682-1694
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• 2007

There are a lot of factors working to facilitate the decline of Korea's traditional markets including large-scale discount stores, convenience stores, businesses of new types such as non-store retailing, and fiercer competitions among retail shops. The changes to the business environment are never favorable to them, either; the consumers have developed more diverse tastes and altered their purchasing styles; and the trading areas around traditional markets have withdrawn in size and power as new towns attract more businesses. In a word, every factor and situation seems to push traditional markets down the slope. Reacting to the problems, the Korean government enacted and enforced the "Special Law for the Promotion of Traditional Markets and Shopping Streets" to provide proper financial and management support. The shop owners of traditional markets formed merchants and prosperity associations and took various initiatives to increase the competitive edge of their traditional markets. All those efforts on the part of the government and the merchants, however, do not seem to be enough to revive traditional markets. This study set out to compare and analyze the management of shop owners of traditional markets based on the support projects by the government, to conduct an empirical research and analysis of their management conditions, and to suggest a better policy model by making improvements for the government's support system and making revisions to the current directions.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.3-33
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• 1991

Since the early 1980's, the Korean government has gradually been widening the Korean market to foreign consumer goods. This, combined with the increased purchasing power of the Korean consumers resulting from the continued economic growth of the country, has sparked a spectacular influx of foreign consumer goods into Korea, ranging from BMW's to chopsticks. Import of foreign consumer goods amounted to more than 6 billion dollars in 1989 and is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. The increased import of foreign consumer goods doubtlessly improved the overall welfare of the Korean consumers by providing them with a wider range of options to choose from, by lowering the prices of some of the consumer goods domestically produced, and also by forcing the producers of some Korean goods to face competition with better foreign goods, thus giving them an incentive to raise the quality of their products. However, it is agreed by most economists that this increase in general welfare has been much smaller than what they had expected at the outset. Consumer prices of most imported consumer goods are easily double the import price, and in some cases, more than treble the import prices. Further, there has not been a noticeable drop in the prices of domestically produced consumer goods. Much of the blame has been attributed to the distribution sector of Korea. The objective of this paper is to analyze the imported consumer goods distribution sector of Korea, focusing on the possible sources of the poor performance of that sector, and to make policy suggestions that could potentially increase the welfare. This paper differs from all the previous research by others on this subject in that it analyzes the imported consumer goods distribution sector of Korea as a vertical structure. The distribution sector of an imported consumer good is a vertical structure since it consists of an international market, an import stage, and domestic wholesale and retail markets, in that order vertically. Our study naturally includes the analysis of the vertical restraints as well as the analysis of the industrial organization of each horizontal stage in the vertical structure. Each horizontal component of the imported consumer goods distribution sector is basically a monopolistically competitive market differentiated by characteristics of goods and by the locations and the services of firms. Further, restrictive dealership and resale price maintenance are found to be widely in use. Our main findings are the follwing; First, most consumer goods are imported monopolistically or oligopolistically through restrictive dealership contracts between foreign producers and domestic importers. Such restrictive dealership gives importers market power in the domestic market and explains many of the large discrepancies betwen the consumer prices and the import prices of many goods. Korean anti - trust law does not cover the issues arising from the market power of an importer resulting from a restrictive dealership contract. Second, some major producers of Korean goods are also importers of foreign goods that are substitutes of their products. The import of substitutes by major domestic producers is anti - competitive because it tends to raise the prices of both domestic goods and foreign goods, and also because it reduces the incentive of the domestic producers to raise the quality of their products. Third, wholesalers and retailers widely use resale price maintenance as a price fixing mechanism, and while this is against the anti- trust law, it seldom gets noticed. Fourth, the high level of rents of real estate for commercial use works as an entry barrier to the distribution sector and results in reduced competition by the firms in that sector. Finally, there are information problems. Consumers have inferior information to firms about the quality of a foreign consumer good that they have not tried before. Such information asymmetry often enables firms to raise prices. In addition, information asymmetry between importers frequently delays the import of cheaper substitutes. In order to alleviate the problems indentified above, we suggest the following policy changes. The government should strengthen the anti - trust law and its enforcement to regulate restrictive import contracts, import of competing goods by major domestic producers, and RPM by wholesalers and retailers that is aimed at price fixing. In addition, the government should loosen its tight real estate policy to encourage investment in the distribution sector. Finally, we suggest that the import price revelation policy that has been in use for some items since 1990 be expanded to most imported consumer goods that are introduced for the first time to give consumer better information and be used only for the period of time needed to inform sufficient number of consumers.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.87-115
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• 2012

Introduction: In these days, a loyalty program is one of the most common marketing mechanisms (Lacey & Sneath, 2006; Nues & Dreze, 2006; Uncles et al., 20003). In recent years, Coalition Loyalty Program is more noticeable as one of progressed forms. In the past, loyalty program was operating independently by single product brand or single retail channel brand. Now, companies using Coalition Loyalty Program share their programs as one single service and companies to participate to this program continue to have benefits from their existing program as well as positive spillover effect from the other participating network companies. Instead of consumers to earn or spend points from single retail channel or brand, consumers will have more opportunities to utilize their points and be able to purchase other participating companies products. Issues that are related to form of loyalty programs are essentially connected with consumers' perceived view on convenience of using its program. This can be a problem for distribution companies' strategic marketing plan. Although Coalition Loyalty Program is popular corporate marketing strategy to most companies, only few researches have been published. However, compared to independent loyalty program, coalition loyalty program operated by third parties of partnership has following conditions: Companies cannot autonomously modify structures of program for individual companies' benefits, and there is no guarantee to operate and to participate its program continuously by signing a contract. Thus, it is important to conduct the study on how coalition loyalty program affects companies' success and its process as much as conducting the study on effects of independent program. This study will complement the lack of coalition loyalty program study. The purpose of this study is to find out how consumer loyalty affects affiliated brands, its cause and mechanism. The past study about loyalty program only provided the variation of performance analysis, but this study will specifically focus on causes of results. In order to do these, this study is designed and to verify three primary objects as following; First, based on opinions of Switching Barriers (Fornell, 1992; Ping, 1993; Jones, et at., 2000) about causes of loyalty of coalition brand, 'brand attractiveness' and 'brand switching cost' are antecedents and causes of change in 'brand loyalty' will be investigated. Second, influence of consumers' perception and attitude prior to joining coalition loyalty program, influence of program in retail brands, brand attractiveness and spillover effect of switching cost after joining coalition program will be verified. Finally, the study will apply 'prior brand preference' as a variable and will provide a relationship between effects of coalition loyalty program and prior preference level. Hypothesis Hypothesis 1. After joining coalition loyalty program, more preferred brand (compared to less preferred brand) will increase influence on brand attractiveness to brand loyalty. Hypothesis 2. After joining coalition loyalty program, less preferred brand (compared to more preferred brand) will increase influence on brand switching cost to brand loyalty. Hypothesis 3. (1)Brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of more preferred brand (before joining the coalition loyalty program) will influence more positive effects from (1)program attractiveness and (2)program switching cost of coalition loyalty program (after joining) than less preferred brand. Hypothesis 4. After joining coalition loyalty program, (1)brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of more preferred brand will receive more positive impacts from (1)program attractiveness and (2)program switching cost of coalition loyalty program than less preferred brand. Hypothesis 5. After joining coalition loyalty program, (1)brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of more preferred brand will receive less impacts from (1)brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of different brands (having different preference level), which joined simultaneously, than less preferred brand. Method : In order to validate hypotheses, this study will apply experimental method throughout virtual scenario of coalition loyalty program if consumers have used or available for the actual brands. The experiment is conducted twice to participants. In a first experiment, the study will provide six coalition brands which are already selected based on prior research. The survey asked each brand attractiveness, switching cost, and loyalty after they choose high preference brand and low preference brand. One hour break was provided prior to the second experiment. In a second experiment, virtual coalition loyalty program "SaveBag" was introduced to participants. Participants were informed that "SaveBag" will be new alliance with six coalition brands from the first experiment. Brand attractiveness and switching cost about coalition program were measured and brand attractiveness and switching cost of high preference brand and low preference brand were measured as same method of first experiment. Limitation and future research This study shows limitations of effects of coalition loyalty program by using virtual scenario instead of actual research. Thus, future study should compare and analyze CLP panel data to provide more in-depth information. In addition, this study only proved the effectiveness of coalition loyalty program. However, there are two types of loyalty program, which are Single and Coalition, and success of coalition loyalty program will be dependent on market brand power and prior customer attitude. Therefore, it will be interesting to compare effects of two programs in the future.