• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.329-342
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate consumers' perceptions of sodium saccharin in social media. Data was collected from Naver blogs and Naver web communities (Korean representative portal web-site), and media reports including comment sections on a Yonhap news website (Korean largest news agency). The results from Naver blogs and Naver web communities showed that it was primarily mentioned 'sodium saccharin-no added' products, properties of sodium saccharin, and methods of reducing sodium saccharin in food. When media reported the expansion of food categories permitted to use sodium saccharin, search volume for sodium saccharin has increased in both PC and mobile search engines. Also, it was mainly commented about distrust of government, criticism of food product price, and distrust of food companies below the news on the news site. The label of sodium saccharin-no added products in market emphasized "no added-sodium saccharin". These results suggest that consumers are interested in sodium saccharin and especially when media reported the expansion of food categories permitted to use it. Consumers were able to search various information on sodium saccharin except safety or acceptable daily intake through social media. Therefore media or competent authority should report item on sodium saccharin with information including safety or acceptable daily intake based on scientific background and reference or experts' interview for consumers to get reliable information.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.401-407
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to examine the preferences to yacht tourism and perceptions to importance of yacht tourism industry's activation strategies from consumers perspectives. In order to such a purpose, this study employed survey methodology with a total of 300 visitors to yacht facility and beach located in B metropolitan city. With 265 usable questionnaires, data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Accordingly, following findings were derived from current study. First, 32% of participants had yacht tourism experiences and more than 64% of them had willing to purchase yacht tourism products in the future, which indicates optimistic increases in yacht tourism demand. In addition, amount of willingness to pay for yacht tourism was less than 100 thousand Won per day. Second, the most preferred product was a yacht training and experience program, and preferred time for yacht tourism was weekend and or vacation with the period of one day or one night and two days. The main motivation was to spend leisure time and enjoyment with accompanying persons of family or friend members. Third, consumers' restriction factors included high expenditures, time consuming and lack of various yacht tourism products but their selection attributes included low expenditures, associated tourism products and quality of yacht tourism products. Finally, the most important activation strategies included the development of yacht tourism products, building yacht tourism conditions and establishing marketing strategies, but the least important activation strategies from consumers views included policies, experts and facilities.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.19-31
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• 2018

In general, an increase in consumer income increases interest in safe foods and increases consumption of environmental friendly foods. Meanwhile, even in Malawi, interest in safe food and environmentally friendly food has been increasing due to increase in per capita income, but research related to this has not been done yet. The purpose of this study is to estimate the value of environmentally friendly foods in Malawi consumers. For this purpose, we surveyed the consumption patterns and estimated the value of organic chicken for consumers visiting supermarkets. As a value estimation technique, Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was used. Probit model analysis showed that price, expenditure on regular chicken, and knowledge of organic food affect the willingness to pay for organic chicken. CVM analysis shows that Malawi supermarket consumers are willing to pay MK2,514 (3.59) dollars per kilo of organic chicken, which is 25.7% higher than the average price of a regular chicken. Thus, Malawi supermarket consumers can deduce that they have a higher value for environmentally friendly food than regular food. These findings can be used in formulating policies on food safety by government officials, organic chicken meat marketing strategies by supermarket mangers, decision making to enhance organic food production by producers, in order to develop organic food industry.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.199-214
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• 2024

Until now, research on consumers' purchasing behavior has primarily focused on psychological aspects or depended on consumer surveys. However, there may be a gap between consumers' self-reported perceptions and their observable actions. In response, this study aimed to investigate consumer purchasing behavior utilizing a big data approach. To this end, this study investigated the purchasing patterns of fashion items, both online and in retail stores, from a data-driven perspective. We also investigated whether individual consumers switched between online websites and retail establishments for making purchases. Data on 516,474 purchases were obtained from fashion companies. We used association rule analysis and K-means clustering to identify purchase patterns that were influenced by customer loyalty. Furthermore, sequential pattern analysis was applied to investigate the usage patterns of online and offline channels by consumers. The results showed that high-loyalty consumers mainly purchased infrequently bought items in the brand line, as well as high-priced items, and that these purchase patterns were similar both online and in stores. In contrast, the low-loyalty group showed different purchasing behaviors for online versus in-store purchases. In physical environments, the low-loyalty consumers tended to purchase less popular or more expensive items from the brand line, whereas in online environments, their purchases centered around items with relatively high sales volumes. Finally, we found that both high and low loyalty groups exclusively used a single preferred channel, either online or in-store. The findings help companies better understand consumer purchase patterns and build future marketing strategies around items with high brand centrality.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.61-72
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• 2017

Purpose - Despite that the importance of small enterprises' performance in the community has been magnified, no study has been conducted yet on the performance based on consumers directly faced by small enterprises. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the life styles of consumers who use small enterprises' stores by type and the word of mouth(WOM) effects, which are concrete behaviors of consumers. Research design, data, and methodology - The VALS classification system was utilized to classify the types of life styles of consumers who use small enterprises' stores. The consumers were divided into a total of four types. This study was intended to investigate the effects of the types of consumers on the word of mouth(WOM) effects of consumers who use small enterprises' stores along with the effects of consumers' perception of economic situations on their word of mouth(WOM) effects after using small enterprises' stores. Results - The results of the study indicated that among the types of consumers who use small enterprises' stores, the group that pursues faith and the group that pursues knowledge had positive (+) effects on favorable word of mouth(WOM) effects. However, the group that pursues trends and the group that pursues action were shown to have no effect and positive or negative perceptions of economic situations were shown to have no effects of the word of mouth(WOM) effects of users of small enterprises' stores. Conclusions - In this study, as a measure to create small enterprises' performance, word of mouth(WOM) effects on small enterprises' stores according to consumers' consumption behaviors were examined focusing on consumers. Through the study results, the groups of consumers who use small enterprises' stores by type that provide favorable word of mouth(WOM) effects were derived. And This Study aims to investigate the relationship between the four type life styles of consumer who use small enterprises' stores and the word of mouth(WOM) effect. Accordingly This study is significant in that it derived a measure to create small enterprises' performance centering on consumers and that it presented a cornerstone for the establishment of small enterprises at the government level.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.21-44
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• 2003

The entry of large discount stores into small cities such as Choonchun or Wonju have had a profound impacts on the businesses of small-sized retailers. The impacts of the entry by large discount store will be much larger than those of the entry by department store or other small-scale retailers. Most of research studies on the competitive retail structure focused on the change of retailing in the advanced countries dynamically and investigated macro-trends in sales and market share. As a result, they tend to overlook the micro aspects of consumers" perception and actual behaviors. Furthermore, they tend to limit their research scopes to relatively competitive retailers not to overall competitive structures. In this study, we analyze the overall competitive structures by investigating the retailers" characteristics, perceptions of consumers on retailers and actual purchase of products across different types of retailers We could obtain competitive retail structure. Based on that, we discuss the strategies on the revitalization and enhancement of small-sized retailers" productivities.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.605-625
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• 2011

Doing business in multiple countries, multinational corporations (MNCs) are warmly welcomed for additional choices of products and services available to local consumers. But in other markets, they are viewed negatively as a means of cultural imperialism even though MNCs do not change their strategies much. While the literature remains muted about such unpredictable consumer reactions, this study explores how consumers form their cultural imperialism perceptions on incoming MNCs using the consumer attitude theory.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.71-85
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• 2020

Social media has emerged as a major hub of engagement between brands and consumers in recent years, and allows user-generated content to serve as a powerful means of encouraging communication between the sides. However, it is challenging to negotiate user-generated content owing to its lack of structure and the enormous amount generated. This study focuses on the hashtag, a metadata tag that reflects customers' brand perception through social media platforms. Online users share their knowledge and impressions using a wide variety of hashtags. We examine hashtags that co-occur with particular branded hashtags on the social media platform, Instagram, to derive insights about brand perception. We apply text mining technology and network analysis to identify the perceptions of brand images among consumers on the site, where this helps distinguish among the diverse personalities of the brands. This study contributes to highlighting the value of hashtags in constructing brand personality in the context of online marketing.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.99-124
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• 2017

Little research on sensory study has been conducted from a marketing perspective and most of sensory studies have been done from a science perspective. Thus, this study examined wine sensory perceptions in the consumers' minds, which is how wine consumers associate grape variety Shiraz/ Syrah by the three different region of origins with specific sensory images. Total 234 questionnaires were collected from online wine community members at restaurants in Korea. The main results show that the most two shared sensory images of Shiraz/ Syrah were 'Dry' and 'Fruity' across the three region of origins. For Barossa Shiraz, the unique images were mainly found in Aroma image category such as 'Chocolate', 'Prune', whereas for Rhone Syrah, the unique images were mainly revealed in Overall image category e.g. 'Deep', 'Fascinating'. Additionally, this study confirmed that Maipo Valley is not recognizable region of origin of Shiraz/ Syrah. This study employed a free choice, Pick Any and conducted correspondence analysis to find out the degree of associations of sensory images and each region of origin.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.63-80
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• 2017

This study investigated the impact of advertising of socially controversial products on its endorsers and products, and the role of media in moderating the results. Using the source credibility model with 174 survey samples, advertising of controversial products as a form of product placement (PPL) was found to have negative impact on consumers' attitude toward the endorsers. The results also confirmed that the moderating effect of media credibility on consumers when developing perceptions toward the endorsers. The results suggest marketing managers to use endorsers with careful consideration in designing advertising messages for socially controversial products, especially when delivered as a product placement on television.