• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.49-58
• /
• 2010

Corporate social responsibility has become a very important issue for researchers (Greenfield, 2004; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; McWilliams et al., 2006; Pearce & Doh 2005), and many consider it necessary for businesses to define their role in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). As a result, a significant number of retailers have adopted CSR as a strategic tool to promote their businesses. To this end, this study sought to discover U.S. consumers' attitudes and behavior in ethical purchasing and consumption based on their subjective perception and evaluation of a retailer. The objectives of this study include: 1) determine the participants awareness of retailers corporate social responsibility; 2) assess how participants evaluate retailers corporate social responsibility; 3) examine whether participants evaluation process of retailers CSR influence their attitude toward the retailer; and 4) assess if participants attitude toward the retailers CSR influence their purchase behavior. This study does not focus on actual retailers' CSR performance because a consumer's decision making process is based on an individual assessment not an actual fact. This study examines US college students' awareness and evaluations of retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR). Fifty six college students at a major Southeastern university participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 26 years old. Content analysis was conducted with open coding and focused coding. Over 100 single-spaced pages of written responses were collected and analyzed. Two steps of coding (i.e., open coding and focused coding) were conducted (Esterberg, 2002). Coding results and analytic memos were used to understand participants' awareness of CSR and their ethical purchasing behavior supported through the selection and inclusion of direct quotes that were extracted from the written responses. Names used here are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality of participants. Participants were asked to write about retailers, their aware-ness of CSR issues, and to evaluate a retailer's CSR performance. A majority (n = 28) of respondents indicated their awareness of CSR but have not felt the need to act on this issue. Few (n=8) indicated that they are aware of this issue but not greatly concerned. Findings suggest that when college students evaluate retailers' CSR performance, they use three dimensions of CSR: employee support, community support, and environmental support. Employee treatment and support were found as an important criterion in evaluation of retailers' CSR. Respondents indicated that their good experience with a retailer as an employee made them have a positive perception and attitude toward the retailer. Regarding employee support four themes emerged: employee rewards and incentives based on performance, working environment, employee education and training program, and employee and family discounts. Well organized rewards and incentives were mentioned as an important attribute. The factors related to the working environment included: how well retailers follow the rules related to working hours, lunch time and breaks was also one of the most mentioned attributes. Regarding community support, three themes emerged: contributing a percentage of sales to the local community, financial contribution to charity organizations, and events for community support. Regarding environments, two themes emerged: recycling and selling organic or green products. It was mentioned in the responses that retailers are trying to do what they can to be environmentally friendly. One respondent mentioned that the company is creating stores that have an environmentally friendly design. Information about what the company does to help the environment can easily be found on the company’s website as well. Respondents have also noticed that the stores are starting to offer products that are organic and environmentally friendly. A retailer was also mentioned by a respondent in this category in reference to how the company uses eco-friendly cups and how they are helping to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The respondents noticed that a retailer offers reusable bags for their consumers to purchase. One respondent stated that a retailer uses its products to help the environment, through offering organic cotton. After thorough analysis of responses, we found that a participant's evaluation of a retailers' CSR influenced their attitudes towards retailers. However, there was a significant gap between attitudes and purchasing behavior. Although the participants had positive attitudes toward retailers CSR, the lack of funds and time influenced their purchase behavior. Overall, half (n=28) of the respondents mentioned that CSR performance affects their purchasing decisions making when shopping. Findings from this study provide support for retailers to consider their corporate social responsibility when developing their image with the consumer. This study implied that consumers evaluate retailers based on employee, community and environmental support. The evaluation, attitude and purchase behavior of consumers seem to be intertwined. That is, evaluation is based on the knowledge the consumer has of the retailers CSR. That knowledge may influence their attitude toward the retailer and thus influence their purchase behavior. Participants also indicated that having CSR makes them think highly of the retailer, but it does not influence their purchase behavior. Price and convenience seem to surpass the importance of CSR among the participants. Implications, recommendations for future research, and limitations of the study are also discussed.

• Information Systems Review
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.49-73
• /
• 2010

The lack of customer satisfaction and trust remains a key barrier to electronic commerce. From the standpoint of online merchants, it is critical to build consumer trust by lessening sources of apprehensions and uneasiness associated with online transactions. This paper explores the relationships between customer satisfaction and intermediary's trustworthiness factors in B2C e-marketplaces. It also aims at examining the effects of consumer characteristics, including propensity to trust and Internet shopping self-efficacy, upon trust and purchase intentions. To meet the research objectives, an empirical study has been conducted by surveying 223 active e-marketplace buyers in Korea. The findings of the present research indicate that customer satisfaction positively affects all the three attributes of trustworthiness (i.e., competence, benevolence, and integrity), and more specifically it has a quite strong association with benevolence. In addition, propensity to trust has no significant influence on trust or purchasing intentions, and only affects benevolence and integrity with no direct effect on competence. Finally, Internet shopping self-efficacy was found to affect both trust and purchasing intentions, suggesting that e-marketplaces seek an online strategy designed to strengthen loyalty for customers with high self-efficacy, while they use a strategy to improve the usability and usefulness of their website to attract customers with low self-efficacy. The paper concludes with implications and directions for future research.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
• /
• v.6 no.6
• /
• pp.221-229
• /
• 2015

This study aims to identify and analyze the main factors that determine the properties and buying behavior in the premium bottled select and analyze the degree of impact on the relevant variables are premium water demand. When applied to the truncated negative binomial model to derive the study results: The results of estimating the variables that affect the demand for premium mineral water are as follows. Premium bottled water demand of this group my purchases with a choice between buying behavior variables are significantly higher than the relative population. To also do a good ingredient water, it appeared to be on a statistically significant positive effect on the demand for the more groups you purchase a premium bottled water for the purpose of receiving special feeling, just buy purpose is called to drinking water does not significantly affect to be analyzed. Among demographic characteristics it showed that demand for premium bottled water purchases are significantly higher in women than in men, professional / clerical job, such as the military, college graduates were more consumer research as significant in comparison to the relative population. Taste and package design factors of premium bottled mineral water among the select attribute factors are having a significant positive impact on the purchasing demand, local conditions and cost factors have been estimated to be insignificant.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.125-151
• /
• 2008

Both companies and consumers are highly interested in on-line customer reviews which enable consumers to share their experience and knowledge about products. In this study, after classifying real reviews into context units and deriving categories, we analyzed differences between categories based on channel(manufacturers' homepage/ shopping mall), product attribute(search/experience) and price(high/low). The method to derive categories is based on roughly adopting constructs of ACSI model and elaborate and repetitive classification of real reviews. We set up the classification category with 3 levels. Level 1 consists of product and service, level 2 consists of function, design, price, purchase motive, suggestion/user-tip and recommendation/repurchase in product and AS/up-grade and delivery/others in service and level 3 is composed of details of level 2 of category. We could find remarkable differences between channels in all 8 items of level 2 of category. As the number of context units in homepage is more than in shopping mall, we found reviews in homepage is more concrete. Moreover, overall satisfaction in review was higher at homepage's. Also, in product attribute dimension, we found different patterns of reviews in design, purchase motive, suggestion/user-tip, recommendation/repurchase, AS/up-grade and delivery/others and no difference in overall customer's satisfaction. In price dimension, we found differences between high and low price in design, price and AS/up-grade and no difference in overall customer's satisfaction.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.28 no.12 s.138
• /
• pp.1554-1561
• /
• 2004

In the U.S., outdoor enthusiasts such as golfers have been focused on skin cancer prevention practices since their outdoor activities lead to extensive sun exposure during peak sun hours. The purposes of this study were to investigate golfers current sun protection behaviors and five attributes and their impacts on the intention to adopt UV specialized clothing based on Rogers' theory. UV specialized clothing as a preventive innovation is related to sun protection behaviors. However, there has been little effort to explain the intention to adopt a preventive innovation regarding health-related practices. With a convenience sampling method, a total of 158 useful questionnaires were collected. Ninety one percent were male golfers, and their age ranged from 16 to 80 years old(mean age=30 years). About $25\%$ reported to practice sun protection behaviors. About $70\%$ disagreed on the relative advantage, compatibility, observability, and triability of UV specialized shirts and reported the low intention to purchase it. Current sun protection behaviors and five attribute variables were entered in the multiple regression equation to explain the dependent variable of intention to adopt the innovation. Triability was the best predictor of the intention to adopt UV specialized shirts, followed by current sun protection behaviors, compatibility, and relative advantage. With four predictors, $45\%$ of the variance of intention to adopt was explained. The present study provides how the golfers current sun protection behaviors play important roles in explaining the intention to adopt the preventive innovation. Physical and functional features of UV specialized clothing were also significantly associated with their intentions to adopt it.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.49-57
• /
• 2014

Purpose - Theorists and researchers in the area of customer satisfaction generally agree that product satisfaction intervenes between expectancy disconfirmation and various post-purchase cognitive states including attitude and behavioral intention. Studies in a variety of settings have supported the effect of expectation and its disconfirmation on satisfaction, but only a small number of studies address the cognitive consequences of satisfaction decisions and none report data on choice processes such as brand selection. This study examines the influence of satisfaction and its determinants on behavioral intention and product preference in eight coffee shops across the country. Generally it was found in both overall and summed attribute analyses that satisfaction was a function of expectation and disconfirmation, that intention was a function of satisfaction, and that preference was influenced by satisfaction and disconfirmation, the latter having the greater effect. Research design, data, and methodology - The main objective of this study was to assess the dimensions of consumer selection and satisfaction in choosing a coffee shop. In order to achieve this objective, a study of coffee shops across the country was conducted. This study comprised in-depth questionnaires distributed to coffee shop customers. A survey was conducted from September 1, 2011 to September 30, 2011, involving franchise coffee shop, independently owned coffee shop, and roastery coffee shop customers. Results - Hypothesis 1-1, which states that coffee shop choice attributes differ based on the type of coffee shop, is accepted. It has a significance level of 0.05, according to choosing properties of coffee shop by convenience of transportation, varieties of beans, residence of the owner (manager), information, and relationships. Hypothesis 1-2, which states that satisfaction with the choice factor differs depending on the type of coffee shops, is accepted. The P-values for cleanliness and varieties of beans were 0.04 and 0.00, respectively, and have a significance level of 0.05, according to the satisfaction with the chosen coffee shop. Hypothesis 2-1, which states that the importance of the choice attributes in coffee shop selections differs based on the demographic characteristics of the customers, is accepted. According to the t-test result, convenience of parking and residence of the owner (manager) are significant. Hypothesis 2-2, which states that satisfaction with the choice factor will differ depending of the type of coffee shop, is accepted. According to the t-test result, convenience of parking and residence of the owner (manager) are significant. Conclusions - This study has shown that intention to revisit a certain shop is most likely correlated to satisfaction in all cases. In order to offer subsequent developments for coffee shops, this study also identifies relations between customer satisfaction and selection by finding significant factors. In order to maximize customers' satisfaction, coffee shops should analyze and satisfy customers' needs and wants in terms of coffee service. While the findings do not generalize beyond the mall sampling procedure used here, we have hopefully identified a close approximation of the process of satisfaction decisions used by consumers generally.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.183-200
• /
• 2009

Collaborative Filtering is one of the most used recommender systems. However, basically it cannot be used to recommend new products to customers because it finds products only based on the purchasing history of each customer. In order to cope with this shortcoming, many researchers have proposed the hybrid recommender system, which is a combination of collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. Content-based filtering recommends the products whose attributes are similar to those of the products that the target customers prefer. However, the hybrid method is used only for the limited categories of products such as music and movie, which are the products whose attributes are easily extracted. Therefore it is essential to find a more effective approach to recommend to customers new products in any category. In this study, we propose a new recommendation method which applies centrality concept widely used to analyze the relational and structural characteristics in social network analysis. The new products are recommended to the customers who are highly likely to buy the products, based on the analysis of the relationships among products by using centrality. The recommendation process consists of following four steps; purchase similarity analysis, product network construction, centrality analysis, and new product recommendation. In order to evaluate the performance of this proposed method, sales data from H department store, one of the well.known department stores in Korea, is used.

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

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.163-172
• /
• 2012

Collaborative filtering which is used explicit method in a existing recommedation system, can not only reflect exact attributes of item but also still has the problem of sparsity and scalability, though it has been practically used to improve these defects. This paper proposes the personalized recommendation system using RFM method and k-means clustering in u-commerce which is required by real time accessablity and agility. In this paper, using a implicit method which is is not used complicated query processing of the request and the response for rating, it is necessary for us to keep the analysis of RFM method and k-means clustering to be able to reflect attributes of the item in order to find the items with high purchasablity. The proposed makes the task of clustering to apply the variable of featured vector for the customer's information and calculating of the preference by each item category based on purchase history data, is able to recommend the items with efficiency. To estimate the performance, the proposed system is compared with existing system. As a result, it can be improved and evaluated according to the criteria of logicality through the experiment with dataset, collected in a cosmetic internet shopping mall.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.33-49
• /
• 2014

Environmental concern has been an important issue for a few decades, and the extent of consumer demand for eco-friendly consumption has been increased. This study seeks to investigate consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for eco-friendly cosmetics. This study evaluates how much more a consumer is willing to pay for eco-friendly cosmetics and examines significant factors influencing consumers' WTP for eco-friendly cosmetics. Consumers' WTP is measured using four different ecofriendly cosmetics: low-priced skin care cosmetics, low-priced makeup cosmetics, high-priced skin care cosmetics, and high-priced makeup cosmetics. This study uses the contingent valuation method (CVM) to estimate consumer's WTP for eco-friendly cosmetics. Survey questions were designed using both dichotomous choice and payment card method of CVM. Through face to face interviews and on-line surveys, the data were collected from women between 20 and 49 years old residing in Seoul and Kyeonggi area, Korea, in May 2010. A total of 226 questionnaires (132 from interviews and 94 from on-line) were included for the analytical sample in this study. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, T-test and Log-Logit analysis. The findings are as follows: First, the WTP measured by dichotomous choice method was estimated using the Log-Logit analysis. The results showed that the estimated WTP for low-priced skin care cosmetics was 19,152 won, which was 27.7% higher than the reference price, 15,000 won. For low-priced makeup cosmetics, the estimated WTP was 18,524 won, and its green premium was 21.0%. The estimated WTP for high-priced skin care cosmetics was 59,128 won, which was 18.3% higher than the reference price, 50,000 won. For high-priced makeup cosmetics was 57,666 won, and its green premium was 15.3%. Second, the WTP measure by payment card method was estimated using descriptive analysis. The results showed that the respondents were willing to pay 17,955 won for low-priced skin care cosmetics, which was 19.7% higher than the reference price, 15,000 won and 17,595 won for low-priced makeup cosmetics, which was 17.3% higher than the reference price. For high-priced skin care cosmetics, the average WTP was 56,950 won which was 13.9% higher than the reference price, 50,000 won. For high-priced makeup cosmetics, the average WTP was 55,650 won, which was 11.3% higher than the reference price. Overall, the WTP was higher in order of low-priced skin care, low-priced makeup, high-priced skin care, and high-priced makeup. It means that consumers decide degree of premium based on the price and the attributes of eco-friendly products. Third, the findings showed that age, monthly income, and having children or not were statistically significant factors that influenced consumers' willingness to pay for eco-friendly cosmetics. Other explanatory variables such as education, marital status, job, purchase experience of eco-friendly products, and environmental concerns did not show any statistical significance. The major contribution of this study is the investigation of the value of green attributes of the products by using CVM. Unlike most previous researches, this research used two methods of CVM, the dichotomous choice and the payment card, so it enhanced the reliability of research. According to this study, consumers showed price sensitivity when they pay green premium. These findings can be used as useful information to establish marketing strategies for green cosmetics.