• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.67-90
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• 2008

Prior to making choices among online products and services, consumers often search online product reviews written by other consumers. Online product reviews have great influences on consumer behavior because they are believed to be more reliable than information provided by sellers. However, ever-increasing lists of product reviews make it difficult for consumers to find the right information efficiently. A customized search mechanism is a method to provide personalized information which fits the user's requirements. This study examines effects of a customized search mechanism and perceived similarity between consumers and product reviewers on consumer behaviors. More specifically, we address the following research questions: (1) Can a customized search mechanism increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers? (2) Are product reviews perceived as more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them? (3) Does credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews? (4) Does acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers? To examine these research questions, a lab experiment with a between-subject factor (whether a customized search mechanism is provided or not) design was employed. In order to enhance mundane realism and increase generalizability of the findings, the experiment sites were built based on a real online store, cherrya.com (http://www.cherrya.com/). Sixty participants were drawn from a pool that consisted of undergraduate and graduate students in a large university. Participation was voluntary; all the participants received 5,000 won to encourage their motivation and involvement in the experiment tasks. In addition, 15 participants, who selected by a random draw, received 30,000 won to actually purchase the product that he or she decided to buy during the experiment. Of the 60 participants, 25 were male and 35 were female. In examining the homogeneity between the two groups, the results of t-tests revealed no significant difference in gender, age, academic years, online shopping experience, and Internet usage. To test our research model, we completed tests of the measurement models and the structural models using PLS Graph version 3.00. The analysis confirmed individual item reliability, internal consistency, and discriminant validity of measurements. The results show that participants feel more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them, credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews, and acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers. However, a customized search mechanism did not increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers. The results imply that there is an urgent need to develop a better customized search tool in order to increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.59-88
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• 2008

Digital Convergence means integration between industry, technology, and contents, and in marketing, it usually comes with creation of new types of product and service under the base of digital technology as digitalization progress in electro-communication industries including telecommunication, home appliance, and computer industries. One can see digital convergence not only in instruments such as PC, AV appliances, cellular phone, but also in contents, network, service that are required in production, modification, distribution, re-production of information. Convergence in contents started around 1990. Convergence in network and service begins as broadcasting and telecommunication integrates and DMB(digital multimedia broadcasting), born in May, 2005 is the symbolic icon in this trend. There are some positive and negative expectations about DMB. The reason why two opposite expectations exist is that DMB does not come out from customer's need but from technology development. Therefore, customers might have hard time to interpret the real meaning of DMB. Time is quite critical to a high tech product, like DMB because another product with same function from different technology can replace the existing product within short period of time. If DMB does not positioning well to customer's mind quickly, another products like Wibro, IPTV, or HSPDA could replace it before it even spreads out. Therefore, positioning strategy is critical for success of DMB product. To make correct positioning strategy, one needs to understand how consumer interprets DMB and how consumer's interpretation can be changed via communication strategy. In this study, we try to investigate how consumer perceives a new product, like DMB and how AD strategy change consumer's perception. More specifically, the paper segment consumers into sub-groups based on their DMB perceptions and compare their characteristics in order to understand how they perceive DMB. And, expose them different printed ADs that have messages guiding consumer think DMB in specific ways, either cellular phone or personal TV. Research Question 1: Segment consumers according to perceptions about DMB and compare characteristics of segmentations. Research Question 2: Compare perceptions about DMB after AD that induces categorization of DMB in direction for each segment. If one understand and predict a direction in which consumer perceive a new product, firm can select target customers easily. We segment consumers according to their perception and analyze characteristics in order to find some variables that can influence perceptions, like prior experience, usage, or habit. And then, marketing people can use this variables to identify target customers and predict their perceptions. If one knows how customer's perception is changed via AD message, communication strategy could be constructed properly. Specially, information from segmented customers helps to develop efficient AD strategy for segment who has prior perception. Research framework consists of two measurements and one treatment, O1 X O2. First observation is for collecting information about consumer's perception and their characteristics. Based on first observation, the paper segment consumers into two groups, one group perceives DMB similar to Cellular phone and the other group perceives DMB similar to TV. And compare characteristics of two segments in order to find reason why they perceive DMB differently. Next, we expose two kinds of AD to subjects. One AD describes DMB as Cellular phone and the other Ad describes DMB as personal TV. When two ADs are exposed to subjects, consumers don't know their prior perception of DMB, in other words, which subject belongs 'similar-to-Cellular phone' segment or 'similar-to-TV' segment? However, we analyze the AD's effect differently for each segment. In research design, final observation is for investigating AD effect. Perception before AD is compared with perception after AD. Comparisons are made for each segment and for each AD. For the segment who perceives DMB similar to TV, AD that describes DMB as cellular phone could change the prior perception. And AD that describes DMB as personal TV, could enforce the prior perception. For data collection, subjects are selected from undergraduate students because they have basic knowledge about most digital equipments and have open attitude about a new product and media. Total number of subjects is 240. In order to measure perception about DMB, we use indirect measurement, comparison with other similar digital products. To select similar digital products, we pre-survey students and then finally select PDA, Car-TV, Cellular Phone, MP3 player, TV, and PSP. Quasi experiment is done at several classes under instructor's allowance. After brief introduction, prior knowledge, awareness, and usage about DMB as well as other digital instruments is asked and their similarities and perceived characteristics are measured. And then, two kinds of manipulated color-printed AD are distributed and similarities and perceived characteristics for DMB are re-measured. Finally purchase intension, AD attitude, manipulation check, and demographic variables are asked. Subjects are given small gift for participation. Stimuli are color-printed advertising. Their actual size is A4 and made after several pre-test from AD professionals and students. As results, consumers are segmented into two subgroups based on their perceptions of DMB. Similarity measure between DMB and cellular phone and similarity measure between DMB and TV are used to classify consumers. If subject whose first measure is less than the second measure, she is classified into segment A and segment A is characterized as they perceive DMB like TV. Otherwise, they are classified as segment B, who perceives DMB like cellular phone. Discriminant analysis on these groups with their characteristics of usage and attitude shows that Segment A knows much about DMB and uses a lot of digital instrument. Segment B, who thinks DMB as cellular phone doesn't know well about DMB and not familiar with other digital instruments. So, consumers with higher knowledge perceive DMB similar to TV because launching DMB advertising lead consumer think DMB as TV. Consumers with less interest on digital products don't know well about DMB AD and then think DMB as cellular phone. In order to investigate perceptions of DMB as well as other digital instruments, we apply Proxscal analysis, Multidimensional Scaling technique at SPSS statistical package. At first step, subjects are presented 21 pairs of 7 digital instruments and evaluate similarity judgments on 7 point scale. And for each segment, their similarity judgments are averaged and similarity matrix is made. Secondly, Proxscal analysis of segment A and B are done. At third stage, get similarity judgment between DMB and other digital instruments after AD exposure. Lastly, similarity judgments of group A-1, A-2, B-1, and B-2 are named as 'after DMB' and put them into matrix made at the first stage. Then apply Proxscal analysis on these matrixes and check the positional difference of DMB and after DMB. The results show that map of segment A, who perceives DMB similar as TV, shows that DMB position closer to TV than to Cellular phone as expected. Map of segment B, who perceive DMB similar as cellular phone shows that DMB position closer to Cellular phone than to TV as expected. Stress value and R-square is acceptable. And, change results after stimuli, manipulated Advertising show that AD makes DMB perception bent toward Cellular phone when Cellular phone-like AD is exposed, and that DMB positioning move towards Car-TV which is more personalized one when TV-like AD is exposed. It is true for both segment, A and B, consistently. Furthermore, the paper apply correspondence analysis to the same data and find almost the same results. The paper answers two main research questions. The first one is that perception about a new product is made mainly from prior experience. And the second one is that AD is effective in changing and enforcing perception. In addition to above, we extend perception change to purchase intention. Purchase intention is high when AD enforces original perception. AD that shows DMB like TV makes worst intention. This paper has limitations and issues to be pursed in near future. Methodologically, current methodology can't provide statistical test on the perceptual change, since classical MDS models, like Proxscal and correspondence analysis are not probability models. So, a new probability MDS model for testing hypothesis about configuration needs to be developed. Next, advertising message needs to be developed more rigorously from theoretical and managerial perspective. Also experimental procedure could be improved for more realistic data collection. For example, web-based experiment and real product stimuli and multimedia presentation could be employed. Or, one can display products together in simulated shop. In addition, demand and social desirability threats of internal validity could influence on the results. In order to handle the threats, results of the model-intended advertising and other "pseudo" advertising could be compared. Furthermore, one can try various level of innovativeness in order to check whether it make any different results (cf. Moon 2006). In addition, if one can create hypothetical product that is really innovative and new for research, it helps to make a vacant impression status and then to study how to form impression in more rigorous way.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.205-212
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• 2015

This paper aims to investigate key factors affecting customer adoption of the online review from the three perspectives such as customer review characteristics, reviewer characteristics, and customer characteristics. We collected data on customers who have experience in purchasing products in Taobao. The major findings are as follows. First, the customer review amount and vividness are not directly related to customer adoption of the online review. Second, the trust of reviewer and perceived similarity have positive effects on customer adoption of the online review. Third, the prior knowledge and product involvement increase customer adoption of the online review. Finally, customers' purchase intention is greatly determined by customer adoption of the online review. This paper presents the importance of the management of customer reviews and management method for the stakeholders of shopping mall to advancing Chinese market.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.885-898
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• 2015

This study develops scales to measure clothing consumption values for Korean male consumers. This study conducted qualitative and quantitative research to explore a new clothing consumption value among males as well as investigate empirically the measurement of clothing consumption values. In-depth interviews and focus group interviews were collected for qualitative research on 20 Korean men in their 20s-40s who had experience with 2 types of stores in Korean men's fashion. An analysis of qualitative data based on grounded theory approaches identified 6 factors and 15 items. For the empirical research, the questionnaire which consist of 9 factors and 46 items were developed by the results of grounded theory approaches and prior studies. Final measurement scales were based on 651 data used in exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). All subjects were in their 20s-40s. The result from CFA suggested 4 factors and 18 items with showing acceptable construct validity and discriminant validity. Therefore, this study confirmed that clothing consumption value for Korean male consumer consist of ostentatious and brand value, epistemic and possession value, conditional value, and reasonable value. These constructs will provide critical insight in understanding and segmenting Korean male consumers.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.60-75
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• 2016

This research was conducted to understand the different circumstances for wearing shirts by adult males aged 20-39, and to provide this basic information to the shirt industry prior to developing new functional men's shirts. A total of 345 respondents participated in the survey. Most of questionnaire, frequency, mean and standard deviation were calculated and the differences between the 20s and 30s were analyzed by t-test or ${\chi}^2$ test. The results of the survey are as follows. Grading the satisfaction degree of their body parts, the respondents were relatively unsatisfied with their height, weight, and waist, abdominal and hip circumferences. Majority preferred department stores, discount stores and outlets for purchasing shirts. Many have never owned tailored shirts - men in 20's had less experience with tailoring than men in 30's. The foremost selection criterion for purchasing shirts was fit -during purchase, men in their 20's considered fit more important than men in their 30's. The most preferred unbuttoning of the top button when wearing shirts. For favored collar shapes with one button unbuttoned, the most valued collar angle and style was V-neck shape when unbuttoned, low collar band, collar with unopened collar, and stiff collars. Most shirt designs and details included slim fit, no dart in the front and one dart on the back. Men in 20's more preferred the no dart in the front and one tuck on the back, as compared to men in 30's. On the other hand, men in their 30's preferred one dart shirts than men in 20's. Regarding shirt bands and cuffs, one button and regular collar and one button cuffs with round angle design, were the most preferred, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.841-852
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• 2009

The aim of the study was to quantify and explore the causal relationships of appearance management through an analysis of one's own clothing and wearing experience, namely clothing preference, personality factors, emotion and mood, newness, familiarity of one's own clothing, and social interaction. Explorative quantitative and qualitative research was carried out using a uniformly composed sample of 10 size 12 females. A personality questionnaire was completed a short while prior to the study. A 10 day ‘wearing diary’ was administered to record where and when outfits were worn. Two questionnaires were completed measure emotion and mood, prior to changing into clothing (a daily baseline), and when they were wearing or changed clothing (dynamic mood). Qualitative information was recorded and included their thoughts and feelings other than the questionnaires, along with photographs that were taken by participants. Preference, social and newness ratings for each outfit worn were recorded after the 10 day period. SPSS analysis identified relationships and linear regression analysis identified preference indicators. Thematic analysis identified 9 themes regarding the management of mood, personality and social factors when wearing one's own clothing. The results indicated strong relationships between emotion, mood, personality and preference and how much newness and different levels of social interaction influence these factors. Participants tended to match their mood and personality with their clothing choices but in some cases also compensated. This research recognises the value of consumer psychological processes involved in appearance management, and has implications for further research into product involvement, post-purchase behaviour and retail strategies for personal shoppers.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.113-134
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• 2014

Since a movie is an experience goods, purchase can be decided upon preliminary information and evaluation. There are ongoing researches on what impact online reviews might have on movie revenues. Whereas research in the past was focused on the effect of online reviews. The influence of online reviews appears to be significant in products like a movie because it is difficult to evaluate the feature prior to "consuming" the product. Since an online review is regarded to be objective, consumers find it more trustworthy. Contrary to prior research focused on movie review ratings and volume, we focus moves on movie features related specific reviews. This research proposes a predictive model for movie revenue generation. We decided 15 criteria to classify movie features collected from online reviews through the online review mining and made up feature keyword list each criterion. In addition, we performed data preprocessing and dimensional reduction for data mining through factor analysis. We suggest the movie revenue predictive model is tested using discriminant analysis. Following the discriminant analysis, we found that online review factors can be used to predict movie popularity and revenue stream. We also expect using this predictive model, marketers and strategic decision makers can allocate their resources in more parsimonious fashion.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.55-63
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• 2014

Purpose - Brands and products often play key roles in enabling consumers to experience a good attitude, resulting in mentally enacting a specific prototype and reliving the experience by retelling a specific story. Brand storytelling can function as an important tool for managing the brand. To successfully apply a firm's brand storytelling, it is important to prove the effectiveness of storytelling. Therefore, by utilizing the research of Escalas (1998) and Fog et al. (2005), a list of measurements for storytelling component quality (SCQ) was applied. In addition, customer attitudes toward brand storytelling were tested. In particular, if customers encounter a dynamic and interesting story, although the brand is not widely known, they can be in communion with the brand and establish an emotional connection (Hill, 2003). Thus, brand reputation was divided into two levels (high vs. low), and the difference in effectiveness between storytelling component quality and consumers' advertisement attitude, brand attitude, and purchasing intention was examined. Research design, data, and methodology - By using the measurement list used in Choi, Na, and Hwang (2013), 12 categories in the level of message quality, conflict quality, character quality, and plot quality were measured. In addition, categories of brand reputation, advertisement attitude, brand attitude, and purchasing intention were measured. The study was based on 181 final survey samples targeting undergraduate and graduate students in Gwangju Metropolitan City. Results - Consumer responses toward storytelling were researched in the context of brand characteristics or product attributes, such as brand reputation, differentiated from extant simple effects of storytelling. Some brands with high reputation enjoy a halo effect due to prior learning, while other brands with comparatively low reputation have trouble generating positive responses despite attempts to enhance the level of reputation or induce favorable attitudes. Although not all due to the component quality of storytelling, the case of brands with low reputation exerted more positive impact on consumer attitudes than did brands with high reputation. As mentioned earlier, consumer evaluation of the component quality of storytelling was categorized into advertising attitudes, brand attitudes, and purchase intention for this study; this provides managerial implications in other ways. The results imply that an effective application of storytelling could be an important emotional tool for the development of both brands with low brand awareness and of well-known brands. Finally, this study serves to increase consumers' understanding and ability in interpreting brand stories that marketers tell about themselves, as well as to highlight differential experiences with products by level of brand hierarchy. Conclusions - This research aimed to provide an objective guideline for storytelling component quality while considering brand awareness. Thus, brand reputation was considered for proving the baseline effectiveness of storytelling, and this study provided directions for strategic establishment of storytelling. Based on this, we conclude that in further studies, it will be necessary to systematically manage brand story by considering other situation variables and various story patterns, and studying their differences.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.19-41
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• 2016

Recently, the proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet personal computers and the development of information communication technologies (ICT) have led to a big trend of a shift from single-channel shopping to multi-channel shopping. With the emergence of a "smart" group of consumers who want to shop in more reasonable and convenient ways, the boundaries apparently dividing online and offline shopping have collapsed and blurred more than ever before. Thus, there is now fierce competition between online and offline channels. Ever since the emergence of online shopping, a major type of multi-channel shopping has been "showrooming," where consumers visit offline stores to examine products before buying them online. However, because of the growing use of smart devices and the counterattack of offline retailers represented by omni-channel marketing strategies, one of the latest huge trends of shopping is "webrooming," where consumers visit online stores to examine products before buying them offline. This has become a threat to online retailers. In this situation, although it is very important to examine the influencing factors for switching from online shopping to webrooming, most prior studies have mainly focused on a single- or multi-channel shopping pattern. Therefore, this study thoroughly investigated the influencing factors on customers switching from online shopping to webrooming in terms of both the "search" and "purchase" processes through the application of a push-pull-mooring (PPM) framework. In order to test the research model, 280 individual samples were gathered from undergraduate and graduate students who had actual experience with webrooming. The results of the structural equation model (SEM) test revealed that the "pull" effect is strongest on the webrooming intention rather than the "push" or "mooring" effects. This proves a significant relationship between "attractiveness of webrooming" and "webrooming intention." In addition, the results showed that both the "perceived risk of online search" and "perceived risk of online purchase" significantly affect "distrust of online shopping." Similarly, both "perceived benefit of multi-channel search" and "perceived benefit of offline purchase" were found to have significant effects on "attractiveness of webrooming" were also found. Furthermore, the results indicated that "online purchase habit" is the only influencing factor that leads to "online shopping lock-in." The theoretical implications of the study are as follows. First, by examining the multi-channel shopping phenomenon from the perspective of "shopping switching" from online shopping to webrooming, this study complements the limits of the "channel switching" perspective, represented by multi-channel freeriding studies that merely focused on customers' channel switching behaviors from one to another. While extant studies with a channel switching perspective have focused on only one type of multi-channel shopping, where consumers just move from one particular channel to different channels, a study with a shopping switching perspective has the advantage of comprehensively investigating how consumers choose and navigate among diverse types of single- or multi-channel shopping alternatives. In this study, only limited shopping switching behavior from online shopping to webrooming was examined; however, the results should explain various phenomena in a more comprehensive manner from the perspective of shopping switching. Second, this study extends the scope of application of the push-pull-mooring framework, which is quite commonly used in marketing research to explain consumers' product switching behaviors. Through the application of this framework, it is hoped that more diverse shopping switching behaviors can be examined in future research. This study can serve a stepping stone for future studies. One of the most important practical implications of the study is that it may help single- and multi-channel retailers develop more specific customer strategies by revealing the influencing factors of webrooming intention from online shopping. For example, online single-channel retailers can ease the distrust of online shopping to prevent consumers from churning by reducing the perceived risk in terms of online search and purchase. On the other hand, offline retailers can develop specific strategies to increase the attractiveness of webrooming by letting customers perceive the benefits of multi-channel search or offline purchase. Although this study focused only on customers switching from online shopping to webrooming, the results can be expanded to various types of shopping switching behaviors embedded in single- and multi-channel shopping environments, such as showrooming and mobile shopping.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-34
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• 2010

Introduction As consumers' purchase behavior change into a rational and practical direction, the discount store industry came to have keen competition along with rapid external growth. Therefore as a solution, distribution businesses are concentrating on developing PB(Private Brand) which can realize differentiation and profitability at the same time. And as improvement in customer loyalty beyond customer satisfaction is effective in surviving in an environment with keen competition, PB is being used as a strategic tool to improve customer loyalty. To improve loyalty among PB users, it is necessary to develop PB by examining properties of a customer group, first of all, quality level perceived by consumers should be met to obtain customer satisfaction and customer trust and consequently induce customer loyalty. To provide results of systematic analysis on relations between antecedents influenced perceived quality and variables affecting customer loyalty, this study proposed a research model based on causal relations verified in prior researches and set 16 hypotheses about relations among 9 theoretical variables. Data was collected from 400 adult customers residing in Seoul and the Metropolitan area and using large scale discount stores, among them, 375 copies were analyzed using SPSS 15.0 and Amos 7.0. The findings of the present study followed as; We ascertained that the higher company reputation, brand reputation, product experience and brand familiarity, the higher perceived quality. The study also examined the higher perceived quality, the higher customer satisfaction, customer trust and customer loyalty. The findings showed that the higher customer satisfaction and customer trust, the higher customer loyalty. As for moderating effects between PB and NB in terms of influences of perceived quality factors on perceived quality, we can ascertain that PB was higher than NB in the influences of company reputation on perceived quality while NB was higher than PB in the influences of brand reputation and brand familiarity on perceived quality. These results of empirical analysis will be useful for those concerned to do marketing activities based on a clearer understanding of antecedents and consecutive factors influenced perceived quality. At last, discussions about academical and managerial implications in these results, we suggested the limitations of this study and the future research directions. Research Model and Hypotheses Test After analyzing if antecedent variables having influence on perceived quality shows any difference between PB and NB in terms of their influences on them, the relation between variables that have influence on customer loyalty was determined as Figure 1. We established 16 hypotheses to test and hypotheses are as follows; H1-1: Perceived price has a positive effect on perceived quality. H1-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of perceived price on perceived quality. H2-1: Company reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H2-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of company reputation on perceived quality. H3-1: Brand reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H3-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand reputation on perceived quality. H4-1: Product experience has a positive effect on perceived quality. H4-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of product experience on perceived quality. H5-1: Brand familiarity has a positive effect on perceived quality. H5-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand familiarity on perceived quality. H6: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. H7: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer trust. H8: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H9: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer trust. H10: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H11: Customer trust has a positive effect on customer loyalty. Results from analyzing main effects of research model is shown as