• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to obtain the implications for establishing a marketing strategy for retailers by analyzing whether the consumer's preference for products (food) is influenced by on-line, off-line, and omni-channel preferences. The research model consisted of the effects of consumers' food selection characteristics on business preference and omni channel preference. The results of analysis based on 477 questionnaires are summarized as follows. First, food purchasing characteristics that utilize the seven characteristics of (1) freshness of food, (2) taste, (3) quality and safety, (4) tasting, (5) food function and information, (6) country of origin, and (7) brand loyalty, has various effects on types of business preference, omni-channel preference. The adopted hypotheses were selected in order of brand loyalty (5 times), freshness (3 times), tasting (3 times), and origin (1 time). The selective attributes on foods are: (1) what kind of brand, (2) how good the freshness is, (3) tasting. (4) The country of origin is to be compressed. Actually consumers seem to utilize only the core selective factors that are appropriate to the characteristics of the distribution channel rather than all of them in the shopping of the food, and there is three characteristics on Convenience Store and only one or two factors in the other types of business. Second, in the analysis of the omni-channel preference analysis, food selection characteristics has been shown to have a limited effect, which is attributed to the fact that the consumer has not yet understood the concept of omni channel. Third, the results of this study suggest that there is a need to reflect the selection characteristics of foods that have diverse influences by business type in the marketing strategies. Because consumers make reasonable consumption to use both on-line and off-line simultaneously, consumers who use Omni Channel focus on quality and safety of food, identify products through tasting, pursue brands that can trust anywhere. Customers who pursue rationality will have a high preference for using Omni Channel. Product choice characteristic has significant effect on omni-channel preference. For a few years, omni-channel strategy of retailers meets with a difficulty. This study make a first attempt to study omni-channel preference changing retailing paradigm.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.65-73
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• 2014

Purpose - Distribution of agricultural products is collapsing due to recent changes in the environment balance between retailers and producers. Further, the increase in the imports of agricultural products due to free trade has caused revenue problems for producers. Agricultural producers are faced with increasing difficulties, and the organized producing center's importance is growing each day. Korean organized producing centers' policies have been conducted since 2000, and have thus been sustained for more than 10 years. Organizing a producing center's business is focused on agricultural cooperative and farming association corporation this has already have been carried out. In addition, it has achieved significant results through these organizations, but it still has many problems. Research design, data, and methodology - Organized producing centers were classified for each type. The survey covered 90 organizations, based on factor analysis, analysis of balance, and logistic regression analysis. The results of the conducted factor analysis are as follows. Production, marketing, human resources management, organizational skills, post management, safety, and scale were classified as the seven kinds of factors. These are the factors that affect the organized producing centers through the variance analysis and logistic regression analysis. The purpose of such research and analysis is to suggest the direction for the future organized producing centers' policies. Result - Results of the analysis of the variance are listed below. Items by type, production, marketing, human resource management, and organizational skills are shown to depict differences between the factors. Organization form results show that production and marketing showed a difference between the factors. The size of the organization, production, and marketing showed the difference between the factors. The factors affect organized producing centers differently depending on the type shown, as seen from the results. In contrast, the logistic regression results of the analysis are as follows. Considering the results by the type of item, and the horticulture type of marketing, human resource management has a (+) influence. Grain type and production showed a (+) influence. New types of income affecting organizational skills have a (+) influence. Considering the results for each type of organization, the agricultural cooperative type of marketing and human resource management have (+) influence. Farming association corporation type of production has a (+) influence. As a result, the size of the organization is as follows. Large organizations are production, expressed in marketing with a (+) impact. Medium-size organizations are expressed with their size factor having a (+) impact. Small organizations are expressed with a safety factor having a (+) impact. Conclusions - The types of factors display different effects. One factor is that the type of a (+) represents the influence of other factors (-) as per factor symptomatology. Therefore, the type of measures to organize a strategy to maximize the benefits of your organization should be pursued. In addition, based on the support for small organizations, improving the quality of the producer organization should be considered.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.75-97
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• 2013

While good return policies are suggested as one of the critical services for e-commerce, ambivalence between the burden of the cost and shoppers' satisfaction may prevent e-tailers from increasing their level of leniency. Based on the S-O-R model, this study has attempted to develop a grounded theory to explain how lenient return policies shape online shoppers' perceptions and responses, with a focus on cultural influences in the relationship. In order to check the cultural effects of the lenient return policy, thirty two female and eleven male undergraduate students in South Korean shoppers, who are accustomed to strict return policies, participated in the semi-structured interview. A series of open-ended questions were designed to explore consumers' reactions toward four different levels of the lenient return policy: from the strict type in South Korea to the lenient type in the U.S. Using qualitative research methods, this research has defined three types of dimensions of lenient return policy: return possible period, complexity of progress, and other restrictions. While previous researchers did not pay much attention, the last dimension, other restrictions, is shown to be the most significant in influencing online shoppers' perceptions, especially in South Korea. Also, the impacts on online shoppers' perceptions from the three types of sub-dimensions of return policy were somewhat different. Whereas a longer return possible period was considered more favorable, a medium level of complexity and restrictions were considered more desirable. In summary, this result showed that shoppers in Eastern cultures, i.e. South Korean online shoppers, seem favorable to a medium level of lenient return policies, while allowing for taking precautions against possible fraudulent behaviors and setting other restrictions. Therefore, most of retailers in South Korea recommended that e-tailers who adopt the most lenient return policies raise the bar to guard ethical shoppers from fraudulent users. Next, lenient return policies can enhance ease of use, usefulness, affect, and trust while relieving perceived risk, which is connected to intention to purchase, satisfaction, and loyalty. Interestingly, lenient return policies are more likely to change the behavioral responses of online shoppers, such as return and purchase, rather than change their attitudes or beliefs such as image, satisfaction, and loyalty. This tendency can be seen more clearly in the direct influences of return policy on responses. The reaction to lenient return policy is mostly the intention to return or to purchase. This suggests that return policy serves the e-tailers as a powerful tool in increasing online shoppers' purchase intention at the moment of purchase. Therefore, e-tailers who plan to expand their market to eastern countries, including South Korea, have to build a shield of restrictions around their lenient return policy, rather than immediately applying their original liberalized return policy. Also, e-tailers in South Korea need to review their strict and undifferentiated return policies to deal with the unsatisfied reactions of online shoppers toward their normal return policies. Although the present study was confined to the return policies currently being practiced by popular e-tailers, it would be worthwhile to develop effective return policies separately for each country, especially South Korea, keeping the culture of the relevant country in mind.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.199-207
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• 2010

For us, there is virtually no distinction between being a responsible citizen and a successful business... they are one and the same for Wal-Mart today." ~ Lee Scott, al-Mart CEO after the 2005 Katrina disaster; cited in Green to Gold (Esty and Winston 2006). Lee Scott's statement signaled a new era in sustainability as manufacturers and retailers around the globe watched the world's largest mass merchandiser confirm its intentions with respect to sustainability. For decades, the environmental movement has grown, slowly bleeding over into the corporate world. Companies have been born, products have been created, academic journals have been launched, and government initiatives have been undertaken - all in the pursuit of sustainability (Peattie and Crane 2005). While progress has been admittedly slower than some may desire, the emergence and entrance of environmentally concerned mass merchandisers has done much to help with sustainable efforts. To better understand this movement, we incorporate the perspectives of both executives and consumers involved in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. This research relies on three underlying themes: (1) Conceptual and anecdotal evidence suggests that companies undertake sustainability initiatives for a plethora of reasons, (2) The number of sustainability initiatives continues to increase in the consumer packaged goods industries, and (3) That it is, therefore, necessary to explore the role that sustainability plays in the minds of consumers. In light of these themes, surveys were administered to and completed by 143 college students and 101 business executives to assess a number of variables in regards to sustainability including willingness-to-pay, behavioral intentions, attitudes, willingness-to-pay, and preferences. Survey results indicate that the top three reasons why executives believe sustainability to be important include (1) the opportunity for profitability, (2) the fulfillment of an obligation to the environment, and (3) a responsibility to customers and shareholders. College students identified the top three reasons as (1) a responsibility to the environment, (2) an indebtedness to future generations, and (3) an effective management of resources. While the rationale for supporting sustainability efforts differed between college students and executives, the executives and consumers reported similar responses for the majority of the remaining sustainability issues. Furthermore, when we asked consumers to assess the importance of six key issues (healthcare, economy, education, crime, government spending, and environment) previously identified as important to consumers by Gallup Poll, protecting the environment only ranked fourth out of the six (Carlson 2005). While all six of these issues were identified as important, the top three that emerged as most important were (1) improvements in education, (2) the economy, and (3) health care. As the pursuit and incorporation of sustainability continues to evolve, so too will the expected outcomes. New definitions of performance that reflect the social/business benefits as well as the lengthened implementation period are relevant and warranted (Ehrenfeld 2005; Hitchcock and Willard 2006). We identified three primary categories of outcomes based on a literature review of both anecdotal and conceptual expectations of sustainability: (1) improvements in constituent satisfaction, (2) differentiation opportunities, and (3) financial rewards. Within each of these categories, several specific outcomes were identified resulting in eleven different outcomes arising from sustainability initiatives. Our survey results indicate that the top five most likely outcomes for companies that pursue sustainability are: (1) green consumers will be more satisfied, (2) company image will be better, (3) corporate responsibility will be enhanced, (4) energy costs will be reduced, and (5) products will be more innovative. Additionally, to better understand the interesting intersection between the environmental "identity" of a consumer and the willingness to manifest that identity with marketplace purchases, we extended prior research developed by Experian Research (2008). Accordingly, respondents were categorized as one of four types of green consumers (Behavioral Greens, Think Greens, Potential Greens, or True Browns) to garner a better understanding of the green consumer in addition to assisting with a more effective interpretation of results. We assessed these consumers' willingness to engage in eco-friendly behavior by evaluating three options: (1) shopping at retailers that support environmental initiatives, (2) paying more for products that protect the environment, and (3) paying higher taxes so the government can support environmental initiatives. Think Greens expressed the greatest willingness to change, followed by Behavioral Greens, Potential Greens, and True Browns. These differences were all significant at p<.01. Further Conclusions and Implications We have undertaken a descriptive study which seeks to enhance our understanding of the strategic domain of sustainability. Specifically, this research fills a gap in the literature by comparing and contrasting the sustainability views of business executives and consumers with specific regard to preferences, intentions, willingness-to-pay, behavior, and attitudes. For practitioners, much can be gained from a strategic standpoint. In addition to the many results already reported, respondents also reported than willing to pay more for products that protect the environment. Other specific results indicate that female respondents consistently communicate a stronger willingness than males to pay more for these products and to shop at eco-friendly retailers. Knowing this additional information, practitioners can now have a more specific market in which to target and communicate their sustainability efforts. While this research is only an initial step towards understanding similarities and differences among practitioners and consumers regarding sustainability, it presents original findings that contribute to both practice and research. Future research should be directed toward examining other variables affecting this relationship, as well as other specific industries.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.79-91
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• 2015

Purpose - First, the study identifies and analyzes consumer preferences with regard to health foods and supplements. Second, it identifies and analyzes consumer preferences with regard to the properties of Vitamin C supplements. Third, in order to provide a basic data for the development of Vitamin C supplements and to measure how consumers value the properties of different Vitamin C products, a consumer survey was conducted through the choice-based conjoint model. Based on the results, the research estimates consumers' relative product-related priorities as well as price levels and willingness to pay (WTP) for different product types, and makes suggestions regarding consumer-oriented new product development and progressive directions for the successful launch of health foods and supplements. Research design, data, and methodology - This study aims to define the attributes of health foods and supplements based on several characteristics including their natural ingredients, product price, product originality, natural ingredient content, and additional functional ingredients, and makes suggestions regarding strategic market pricing and product development for health foods and supplements according to customer attitudes and characteristics. The research used choice-based conjoint analysis methodology based on the Multinomial Logic Model and collected 94 questionnaires filled out by users of Korean Vitamin C supplements. Results - Product price is the most influential factor among the five analyzed properties. When consumers buy Vitamin C products, the relative significance level of four of the examined properties is as follows: 40.9% for product price, 23.3% for product originality, 21.9% for natural ingredient content, and 13.9% for additional functional ingredients. Vitamin C content is excluded as it is not a statistically significant factor. It is interesting that supplement manufacturers and retailers consider Vitamin C content to be very important whereas consumers do not regard it as an important factor at the time of purchase. The results for the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for each property of Vitamin C supplements show that consumers are willing to pay an additional 11,146 Korean won for a 50% increase in the natural ingredient content. With regard to product originality, consumers are willing to pay an additional 11,301 Korean won for products manufactured in Europe than for products manufactured in China. Moreover, consumers show a greater preference for products manufactured in Korea than in Europe. However, consumers are not willing to pay more for additional Vitamin C or additional functional ingredients added to Vitamin C products. Conclusions - According to the results of consumer research on Vitamin C supplements, which represent a popular health food supplement in Korea, most Korean health food and supplement companies are not consumer- or market-oriented when developing new products. Companies gather information from either R&D specialists or sales managers and their opinions are highly reflected in new product development. The study's results will help companies recognize the importance of understanding consumers' unmet needs in advance to develop new products in the future.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.27-48
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• 2012

Temperature and weather are all around us, quite literally. Furthermore, temperature and weather not only permeate our atmosphere, constantly affecting our visceral states of warmth and coldness, but they metaphorically permeate our language. People, products, and ideas can all be "hot" or "cold." Given this ubiquity, it is perhaps surprising that relatively little research has systematically examined the influence of temperature on choice and judgment. Temperature-related words such as "hot" and "cold" are often used to describe impulsive and calculated behaviors, respectively. These metaphoric connotations of thermal concepts raise the question as to whether temperature, psychological states and decision making are related to each other, and if so, how. The current research examines these questions and finds support for a relationship. Across one field study and one laboratory experiment, I demonstrate that both hot ambient room temperature (Spa) and hot temperature primes (words) trigger decision outcomes in line with the metaphoric association between hot temperature and impulsivity. In the field study, participants were recruited in hot (40-50 degrees Celsius) and cold (10 degrees Celsius) rooms at a spa. Participants were simply asked to indicate their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for three product categories (travel package, birthday dinner, and cell phone). The results showed that participants in the hot room in comparison to those in the cold room were willing to pay more for the same products. Next, I tested if our results would go beyond ambient temperature and would hold if I were to prime temperature concepts by using a different priming method (i.e., subliminal vs. supraliminal). In line with the previous findings in the spa, participants in the hot priming condition were more likely to choose the wrong answer for the bat and baseball question than those in the cold priming condition. In addition, product type (e.g., pleasure vs. necessity) can moderate the effect of hot temperature on impulsivity. Mood and arousal did not mediate participants' responses. My findings seem to suggest that the effects of temperature on decision outcomes can be attributed to metaphoric associations rather than incidental mood or arousal. The current research applies a novel perspective in understanding the relationship between temperature and judgment and decision making. Also, the results have practical implications for packaging, advertising, merchandising, and pricing of goods and services, as well as for public policy and awareness. One of the most natural implications of my findings would be that retailers would be better off carrying more impulse purchase items on hot days. Furthermore, point-of-purchase promotions encouraging impulse purchase is more likely to be effective in retail environments with higher temperature than with lower temperature. In addition, advertisements and product packages evoking hot temperature associations (e.g., beach, sunshine, summer) might lead consumers to pay higher price for the advertised product than those with cold temperature associations.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.3-16
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• 2020

Recently, as the fashion e-commerce market has expanded, the proportion of online shops that are growing rapidly has increased and with them so too has competition. Most retailers operating online shops need their own competitiveness, and accordingly, the need to develop their logistics service quality components is increasing. This study investigated the quality of the logistics services, which is a factor of the logistics service quality of the internet shop. It influences customer satisfaction and repurchase intention by collecting samples from the customers using online fashion shops. Two hundred customers who shop online were surveyed to extract the data. The sample was subjected to basic statistical analysis using the SPSS 25.0 package, and factor analysis, t-test, ANOVA, and correlation analysis were performed. The results of this study showed that the information quality of proactive return, promptness of the return process, and reliability of the return cost had a positive impact on customer satisfaction, and it had a significant influence on the customer's repurchase intention to the online store. A selection of shops showed high amounts of return reasons, high customer satisfaction, and high repurchase, whereas, in general, many others scored poorly across these criteria. This suggests that a retailer operating online should consider pages for receiving information plus sales content in addition to the quality and constituent factors of its logistics services for returns that influence repurchase and satisfaction.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.49-77
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to examine a relationship between the headquarters and the sales offices of a car manufacturing company by comparing their channel types. It examines how the level of communication and commitment of sales offices on their headquarters differently affects some mediating effects between participation and relationship performance. It also tries to find out what kind of mechanisms are needed in order to improve the relationship. Through the data analysis of a total of 200 sales offices which are directly managed stores and agency stores by a domestic car manufacturing company, the following conclusions were reached: Participation, one of the variables in bureaucratic structuring, influences all dimensions of communication. Also, it has found that communication dimensions influence commitment dimensions differently by the type of channels, and commitment dimensions influence relationship performance by the type of channels. Recently, import car makers are accelerating their moves in the domestic market, and the importance of a customer-oriented retail innovation and a relationship management in an auto manufacturing industry is increasing. This study will give an useful suggestion on how to improve a long term relationship of distributors through an enhancement of communication and commitment.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.21-60
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• 2010

In recent retail environments, multichannel customer management increasingly has been considered a key element of successful CRM. Although customer's multichannel usage is believed to be potential cause of customer loyalty, the theoretical explanation about this causal relationship still remains unexamined and unanswered. In this paper, the authors present a systematic framework to test the postulated "multichannel usage-shopping experience-customer satisfaction" chain. To this end, we examine that the two core components of shopping experience(convenience and enjoyment) is a mediator of the direct causality of multichannel usage(based on both information search and product purchase stage) on customer satisfaction. Moreover, the authors examine that two types of customer-firm relationship characteristics(relationship age and purchase frequency) is a moderator of the multichannel usage-shopping experience relationship. Using integrating data with survey and customer database of multichannel retail company, the authors empirically test and substantiate shopping experience's mediating role in the multichannel usage-customer satisfaction relationship and customer-firm relationship characteristics' moderating role in the multichannel usage-customer experience relationship. These results suggest that multichannel retailers should deliver favorable shopping experience for building customer satisfaction and differentiate shopping experience according to customer-firm relationship characteristics.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.85-107
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• 2019

Online consumers browse products belonging to a particular product line or brand for purchase, or simply leave a wide range of navigation without making purchase. The research on the behavior and purchase of online consumers has been steadily progressed, and related services and applications based on behavior data of consumers have been developed in practice. In recent years, customization strategies and recommendation systems of consumers have been utilized due to the development of big data technology, and attempts are being made to optimize users' shopping experience. However, even in such an attempt, it is very unlikely that online consumers will actually be able to visit the website and switch to the purchase stage. This is because online consumers do not just visit the website to purchase products but use and browse the websites differently according to their shopping motives and purposes. Therefore, it is important to analyze various types of visits as well as visits to purchase, which is important for understanding the behaviors of online consumers. In this study, we explored the clustering analysis of session based on click stream data of e-commerce company in order to explain diversity and complexity of search behavior of online consumers and typified search behavior. For the analysis, we converted data points of more than 8 million pages units into visit units' sessions, resulting in a total of over 500,000 website visit sessions. For each visit session, 12 characteristics such as page view, duration, search diversity, and page type concentration were extracted for clustering analysis. Considering the size of the data set, we performed the analysis using the Mini-Batch K-means algorithm, which has advantages in terms of learning speed and efficiency while maintaining the clustering performance similar to that of the clustering algorithm K-means. The most optimized number of clusters was derived from four, and the differences in session unit characteristics and purchasing rates were identified for each cluster. The online consumer visits the website several times and learns about the product and decides the purchase. In order to analyze the purchasing process over several visits of the online consumer, we constructed the visiting sequence data of the consumer based on the navigation patterns in the web site derived clustering analysis. The visit sequence data includes a series of visiting sequences until one purchase is made, and the items constituting one sequence become cluster labels derived from the foregoing. We have separately established a sequence data for consumers who have made purchases and data on visits for consumers who have only explored products without making purchases during the same period of time. And then sequential pattern mining was applied to extract frequent patterns from each sequence data. The minimum support is set to 10%, and frequent patterns consist of a sequence of cluster labels. While there are common derived patterns in both sequence data, there are also frequent patterns derived only from one side of sequence data. We found that the consumers who made purchases through the comparative analysis of the extracted frequent patterns showed the visiting pattern to decide to purchase the product repeatedly while searching for the specific product. The implication of this study is that we analyze the search type of online consumers by using large - scale click stream data and analyze the patterns of them to explain the behavior of purchasing process with data-driven point. Most studies that typology of online consumers have focused on the characteristics of the type and what factors are key in distinguishing that type. In this study, we carried out an analysis to type the behavior of online consumers, and further analyzed what order the types could be organized into one another and become a series of search patterns. In addition, online retailers will be able to try to improve their purchasing conversion through marketing strategies and recommendations for various types of visit and will be able to evaluate the effect of the strategy through changes in consumers' visit patterns.