• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.686-693
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• 2011

Small-to-medium retailers in local neighborhood have been managing to survive without outside influence. However rapid change in business environment including consumer needs for goods and the quality of life has brought turbulence into retail business. Petty retailers are facing a crisis as large-sized discount stores owned by big enterprises are entering into traditional markets. To protect small-to-medium retailers from such threats and revive the traditional commercial markets the government is taking on the policy of subsidizing small-to-medium businesses. However, recent emergence of SSM (an industrialized supermarket in forms of direct management and affiliation) in local commercial areas has brought about conflicts and frictions between large companies and local merchants. Under this background this study attempted to make an analysis of vulnerable factors of small-to-medium retailers coping with SSM and probe for the alternatives to SSM business restructuring.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.7-16
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• 2012

Despite the enforcement of SSM control laws such as 'the Law of Developing the Distribution Industry (LDDI)' and 'the Law of Promoting Mutual Cooperation between Large and Small/medium Enterprises (LPMC)' stipulating the business adjustment system, the number of super-supermarkets (SSMs) has ever been expanding in Korea. In France, however, Super Centers are being regulated most strongly and directly in the whole Europe viewing that there is not a single SSM in Paris, which is emphasized to be the outcome from French government's regulation exerted on the opening of large scale retail stores. In France, the authority to approve store opening is deeply centralized and the store opening regulation is a socio-economic regulation driven by economic laws whereas EU strongly regulates the distribution industry. To control the French distribution industry, such seven laws and regulations as Commission départementale d'urbanisme commercial guidelines (CDLIC) (1969), the Royer Law (1973), the Doubin Law (1990), the Sapin Law (1993), the Raffarin Law (1996), solidarite et renouvellement urbains (SRU) (2000), and Loi de modernisation de l'économie (LME) (2009) have been promulgated one by one since the amendment of the Fontanet guidelines, through which commercial adjustment laws and regulations have been complemented and reinforced while regulatory measures have been taken. Even in the course of forming such strong regulatory laws, InterMarche, the largest supermarket chain in France, has been in existence as a global enterprise specialized in retail distribution with over 4,000 stores in Europe. InterMarche's business can be divided largely into two segments of food and non-food. As a supermarket chain, InterMarche's food segment has 2,300 stores in Europe and as a hard-discounter store chain in France, Netto has 420 stores. Restaumarch is a chain of traditional family restaurants and the steak house restaurant chain of Poivre Rouge has 4 restaurants currently. In addition, there are others like Ecomarche which is a supermarket chain for small and medium cities. In the non-food segment, the DIY and gardening chain of Bricomarche has a total of 620 stores in Europe. And the car-related chain of Roady has a total of 158 stores in Europe. There is the clothing chain of Veti as well. In view of InterMarche's management strategies, since its distribution strategy is to sell goods at cheap prices, buying goods cheap only is not enough. In other words, in order to sell goods cheap, it is all important to buy goods cheap, manage them cheap, systemize them cheap, and transport them cheap. In quality assurance, InterMarche has guaranteed the purchase safety for consumers by providing its own private brand products. InterMarche has 90 private brands of its own, thus being the retailer with the largest number of distributor brands in France. In view of its IT service strategy, InterMarche is utilizing a high performance IT system so as to obtainas much of the market information as possible and also to find out the best locations for opening stores. In its global expansion strategy of international alliance, InterMarche has established the ALDIS group together with the distribution enterprises of both Spain and Germany in order to expand its food purchase, whereas in the non-food segment, it has established the ARENA group in alliance with 11 international distribution enterprises. Such strategies of InterMarche have been intended to find out the consumer needs for both price and quality of goods and to secure the purchase and supply networks which are closely localized. It is necessary to cope promptly with the constantly changing circumstances through being unified with relevant regions and by providing diversified customer services as well. In view of the InterMarche's positive policy for promoting local partnerships as well as the assistance for enhancing the local economic structure, implications are existing for those retail distributors of our country.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.193-209
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• 2011

The fast expansion of super supermarket(SSM) in Korean retail industries has attracted serious social attentions and some types of regulations to slow down its growth are prepared. However, the regulations are hardly justified because they attempt to establish entry barriers which are not recommendable economic policy. Accordingly, the regulations should be justified at least on the basis of social and political causes. The study interprets the social and political causes as the effects of entry of SSM on trading ares where SSM is located. The study is distinguished from the past studies which focused only on intertype and intratype competition between retailers Another goal of the study is to complement the weakness of past studies and provide additional information to settle the issues. More closely, the study investigates the relationships between the changes in sales of convenience stores, which may be a surrogate measure of the viability of a local economy, and the changes in the composition of business types within 500m radius of a SSM. Further, the study investigates the effects of the establishment of SSM and the retail sales index on the sales of convenience stores. The study analyzed the panel data and adopts Swamy's random coefficient models. The results show that the effects of the establishment of SSM on the sales of convenience stores are not statistically significant. The relationship between the change in the portion of restaurants among the local business and the change in the sales of convenience stores is positive. On the other hand the relationship between the change in the portion of retailers in the composition of local businesses and the change in the sales of convenience stores is negative. In conclusion, even though any negative effects of the establishments of SSM on local economies are expected, as long as other types business especially restaurant businesses fill the space left by retailers, the net effect on the local economy may not be signification or even positive.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.107-128
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• 2013

When Korea's retail industry was liberalized, new store formats such as large discount stores and Super Supermarket(SSMs) have grown. New types of business have borne significant influence on traditional market. Traditional markets have been in gradual decline since they fail to meet to consumer's purchasing behavior. The South Korean government has been making sustained efforts to revitalize the modernization of traditional markets since 2004. This research is conducted to analyze how changes in the distribution of different types of distributors influence the consumer's purchasing behaviors depending on the changes in the market environment. The purpose of this research is to present a policy to invigorate consumer-oriented traditional markets by analyzing the consumption behavior among major retail channels at a point when competition among retail channels is becoming intensified. In order to examine the effect of the spatial competitive landscape among major retail channels on consumption behavior, an empirical analysis was conducted with 613 consumers in 6 cities nationwide, using the multiple regression model. This research identified three main areas of factors. The analysis result indicates that the physical factor (time required to go to the traditional market), socioeconomic factors (the number of vehicles owned and average monthly income), and competitive factors (intensity of competition in spatial locations and average monthly spending in supermarkets) have significant influence on consumption patterns of consumers. The findings present that the Korean government should go ahead with policies aimed to revitalize traditional markets, keeping in mind the factors that influence the consumption patterns of customers based on these results. We propose that the policy supporting traditional markets need to be a customized-strategy, considering traditional market's characteristic.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.37-43
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• 2017

As the number of SSM(Super Supermarket) has been growing, the conflict between large companies and small-to-medium retailers is being deeper in which large-sized market has been growing rapidly and small to medium retailers has been depressed. To solve the conflict, the government enacted the system of business limiting of large enterprises by SMEs. It brought growth of sales of small-to-medium retailers. However, unintended effects were caused by the system. This research aims to analyze underlying structure beyond conflicts between SSM and small to medium retailers using system thinking and draw relationships between key factors. Thus we can provide political alternatives through simulation model which is developed based on the factors.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.12
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• pp.3804-3814
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• 2009

Because of the stagnancy of business activity and an excessive competition, the number of the people who quitting of one's business is increasing rapidly. Especially, government is further efforts on the upbringing for the small and micro business. But the ratio of cessation of business is increased gradually due to the influence of saturated market, consumer confidence shrinking, lack of funding and appearance of super supermarket. The another characteristic of growth rate for the cessation of business is the increase of the second foundation of business desire to succeed. But government's business transformation policy is inadequate. So, this study is willing to give an improvement of the government's support system through extraction actually and dependable data about business transformation and analysis to found a various gain model that continuous growth in small and micro business.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.35-42
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• 2010

This study is for finding out the relationship between reactions on POP per consumer purchase trends and major factor for making final purchasing decisions after being exposed to POP from large supermarkets. The following results were obtained after the research. First, consumers displayed higher reaction scores on End-Cap in general among POP advertisements. The factors for making final purchase decision are in the order of function > price > brand for household electrical goods, price > design > function for sundry goods and design > price > function for clothing (including bedding). Second, the results of analyzing the differences based on age on impulsive purchase showed that the lower the age the higher the tendency. Unplanned purchase trend also showed higher when younger. The results of this study showed that there are discrepancies in the theory related with existing POP advertisements, that is, the theory that impulsive purchasers have higher POP responses.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.39-57
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• 2012

The unabated influx of micro businesses has turned the Korean retailing market to a rat race, which causes severe financial distress for micro business owners due to heavy competition. The woes of these micro business owner's are exacerbated by the presence of large scale distributors such as Super Supermarket(SSM) and large discount stores. In summary, the Korean retail market is overburdened an uneconomically viable. Retailing has low barriers to entry which attracts unskilled labor or those with little capital. These start-ups have low opportunity costs since they would make low wages elsewhere in the economy. Thus, these owners are content with relatively low returns on their investment. These 'subsistence ventures' are maintained for economical viability rather than economic growth. These 'subsistence ventures' intensifies competition among small-scale businesses. The presence of large retail corporations also aggravates the situation. The recent stagnation of the economy has worsened the retail market in Korea. The overwhelming competition solidifies the coarse structural system and the prolonged economic sluggishness has increased the risk of insolvency for micro business owners. As the economy continues to stagnate, the imminent risk in retailing market will rise up to surface threatening economic stability. More systematic inflows and outflows of retailers are required in order to redress this structural problem. It has been empirically shown that the self-employment rate is high in Korea compared to other OECD countries. To draw the comparison of self-employment rate by industry, Korea shows high rates among transportation, whole sale, retail, education, lodging, and restaurants. In the case of the transportation and education service sectors, this high rate can be explained by the idiosyncratic nature of Korean culture. In the transportation sector, political policies favor private cap service and private freight carriers. In the education service sector, Koreans put particular emphasis on education that leads to many private institutions that outnumber other OECD countries. For these singular reasons, Korea maintains high micro business, self-employed rates particularly in retailing. A comparable nation is Japan, with its similar social, economic, cultural environment among OECD countries. Unlike Korea, Japan has much lower rates of micro business which continues to decrease. Also Korean retailers are much more destitute than Japanese. The fundamental problem of Korean retailing is the involuntary exit of these 'subsistence ventures,' micro businesses with low margins, in which a small drop in demand can lead to financial difficulties for the owner. This problem will be exacerbated when Korean babyboomers retire and join the micro business ventures. The first priority in order to cope with the severity of oversupply in retailing is to provide better opportunities for the potential self-employers. There should be viable alternatives to subsistent ventures. Strengthening the retirement program, scrutiny of exit process, reconfiguration of policy funds are the recommendations.

• Archives of design research
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• v.20 no.3 s.71
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• pp.85-96
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• 2007

In Korea, with a dramatic growth of Super Supermarket (SSM) in the wake of opening up the retail market and diversifying distribution, the consumer's purchase behavior about food and consumer goods changed. In order to investigate this change, this study was carried out through collecting and analyzing questionnaires from 190 men and women consumers at ages between twenties and sixties, living in Ulsan and Pusan. The result suggested that in overall features, men were mainly affected by design factors such as packaging design, color, and product design, whereas women were mainly affected by cost factors such as price and configuration. As for product properties, it was suggested that women put importance on the price concerning ail products, but men didn't. In addition, it was identified that women were impressed by advertisements on TV, and men and women both often purchased the product after confirming its information among the displayed products. Considering these results, we concluded that for a product whose main target is men in particular, the product development should focus on design. Moreover, as the packaging design and display affect on both men and women as important factors, hereafter a complementary study on the effects of the packaging design and display of manufacturers related to the products in this study is to be proceeded with greater interest.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.69-94
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• 2010

With the liberalization of distribution services industry since 1996 as well as changes in customers' appetite to spend and consumer behaviors, new forms of distribution services have mushroomed such as superstores and SSM(Super Supermarket), online shopping, TV shopping channels. On the contrary, traditional markets have sunk into a swamp of stagnation. As this stage of stagnation of markets negatively affects tradespeople's employment, livings, and local economy, the Korean government has conducted policies to support improvement of market facilities and management since 2004. However, the government has separated facility improvement from management improvement. As of June 2008, there are 1,550 traditional markets in Korea and among these there are 388 public markets which local governments have established and managed. Public markets have possibilities to be developed as successful models of market revitalization since they can get all-expenses-paid supports for facility improvement, control of merchandise assortment, educational program for merchants. Such successful (strategic hub) markets could become the benchmark for other neighboring markets and tradespeople which could lead other successful cases. In order to produce such effects, the market should have optimized facilities, merchandise and services, co-marketing strategies with nearby markets, group purchase strategies. The hub market could play a critical role in distribution of local goods and developing high value products.