• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.21-40
• /
• 2000

The retail trades in many countries have changed recently according to the high quality, diversification, and marked individuality of consumer needs. Under the continually competing system of the WTO agreement, corporations based in the USA and the EU try to raise their market share in other countries so it is inevitable for Korean retail enterprises to compete with them. This paper is aimed at contributing to the efficient growth for Korean retail trade from the analysis of the development process in retail trade and its changing locations comparing Korea and the USA. Retailers in the USA have practiced diversified marketing strategies considerably in order to survive in a rapidly changing retailing environment. American retailing, which has the most advanced marketing system in the world, has been of growing concern to marketing strategies in Korea. The following is a brief summary of this study. 1. Speedy and higher quality consumption is needed in accordance with the great increase in the single-family household and the female labor force participation both in Korea and in the USA. Senior citizens have become a new consumer group due to the aging population. In the future the retail trade will switch over to diversified retail formats and internet shopping as countries are transformed into information and communication societies. 2. In Korea, the former retail system characterized by markets and department stores has been greatly changed since the late 1980s with emphasis on high quality and convenience in consumption behaviors, with large domestic enterprises and foreign distribution corporations participating in Korean retailing. In the USA, retailing mergers and takeovers by major retails, bankruptcies, and extra-large shopping centers have emerged since the late 1980s. Recently, the USA retailing formats have been changed from the lower price-oriented discount types to the large scale theme parks. Much emphasis was put on entertainment, resorts, and convention centers. On the other hand, non-store types, such as the internet shopping, the CATV shopping, as well as catalog and mail-order sales are drastically increasing, although the proportion of their sales is low up to now. 3. In Korea, most of the retail facilities are concentrated in Seoul and the Metropolitan Region, and the distribution ratio of facilities came to 52% in 1997. The periodic markets, traditional markets which open on a periodic basis, are located mainly in Chollanam-do and Kyungsangbuk-do. The large-sized discount stores have expanded their locations to the over-crowded apartment complexes in new towns, located in the Metropolitan Region, and the large provincial cities, unlike the suburban locations in the USA. Therefore we needed to give attention to the locational relations in retail facilities between Seoul & the Metropolitan Region and rural settlement areas. In the USA, urban areas grew quickly with the development of the automobile in the 1920s, and the location of stores changed from a dispersed style centering around rural areas to a centralized one in urban areas. There is an accelerated growth for suburban areas, which have grown rapidly since 1950. As the membership warehouse clubs were introduced in the 1970s, the decentralization of location was more intensified. On the other hand, inner cities were revitalized by rearranging existing facilities to cope with suburban areas. And the location-free virtual retailing & TV shopping are also growing every year. 4. In view of the above, the continuous and desirable development devices in Korean retail trade are summarized as follows: First, the countermeasures against economies of scale, increase in retailing sales, and rise of a employment percentage in retailing are in need. Second, a scheme of lowering the proportion of food retail sales, and increasing a ratio of durable goods sales need to be worked out. Third, the original ideas are needed to apply positively information, communication and technology to retailing, to graft the traditional types on modem ones based on the social culture. Fourth, strategies are needed to strengthen the competitiveness of our retail trade through cooperation and chains of smaller retailers, the large enterprises participating in the distribution industry. Fifth, in order to realize the above, the retail industry, the administration, and the academic world should support the retail segment with concern and a practical strategy plan.

• Proceedings of the Korean DIstribution Association Conference
• /
• 2003.05a
• /
• pp.215-224
• /
• 2003

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.217-231
• /
• 2012

In the past, companies should make enormous facility investment and acquire a right to do business in order to join communication markets, but now they can do business without important facilities, such as communication networks. Such a movement to ease regulations about companies which want to newly join the communication industry is expected not only to change a competition frame of the mobile communication market but also to greatly affect the entire communication industry. Through this study aiming to look into a way to calculate a reasonable wholesale price related to the government's introduction of the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) system, I came up with a following result. I applied the operating profit percentage and the ratio of operating gain to cost to the cost plus model and retail minus model, respectively, to calculate the wholesale price and found that when I calculated with the cost plus model applying the operating profit percentage, I could get the highest wholesale price. On the other hand, I got the lowest wholesale price with the retail minus model by applying the operating profit percentage. Division of expenses and calculation of profit percentage are important factors in calculating the wholesale price and such results are expected to help accurate calculation of the MVNO wholesale price.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.21 no.12
• /
• pp.113-125
• /
• 2023

Purpose: Support policies for small and medium-sized retailers (SMSRs) have been promoted in various ways over the past 20 years, but they are generally regarded as unsuccessful. The purpose of this study is to analyze the process and impact of policy changes, identify the reasons for the lack of success, and explore policy alternatives. Research design, data and methodology: This study explored major policies in various categories such as the retail industry, traditional markets, and Micro-Enterprises from the mid-1990s to the present. It also analyzed the short- and long-term impacts of major policies at the retail format level like SMSRs, using data from Statistics Korea's service industry survey. Results: This research found that sudden shifts in policy philosophy conflicted with the existing market structure and reduced the effectiveness of policies. It also found that policies aimed at improving competitiveness at the SMSRs-level had some effect, while polices aimed at supporting expenses at the individual store-level were difficult to achieve their intended purpose. Conclusions: The failure of the policy to support SMSRs is fundamentally due to the late response and conflicts between policies. It was also not successful due to the policy's focus on individual store-level expenses and maintaining employment rather than structural improvements of SMSRs format.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.15 no.6
• /
• pp.77-96
• /
• 2017

Purpose - This study aims to develop correspondence strategies to the environment change in domestic retail store types. Recently, new types of retails have emerged in retail industries. Therefore, trade area platform has developed focusing on the speed of data, no longer trade area from district border. Besides, 'trade area smart' brings about change in retail types with the development of giga internet. Thus, context shopping is changing the way of consumers' purchase pattern through data capture, technology capability, and algorithm development. For these reasons, the sales estimation model has been shown to be flawed using the notion of former scale and time, and it is necessary to construct a new model. Research design, data, and methodology - This study focuses on measuring retail change in large multi-shopping mall for the outlook for retail industry and competition for trade area with the theoretical background understanding of retail store types and overall domestic retail conditions. The competition among retail store types are strong, whereas the borders among them are fading. There is a greater need to analyze on a new model because sales expectation can be hard to get with business area competition. For comprehensive research, therefore, the research method based on the statistical analysis was excluded, and field survey and literature investigation method were used to identify problems and propose an alternative. In research material, research fidelity has improved with complementing research data related with retail specialists' as well as department stores. Results - This study analyzed trade area survival and its pattern through sales estimation and empirical studies on trade areas. The sales estimation, based on Huff model system, counts the number of households shopping absorption expectation from trade areas. Based on the results, this paper estimated sales scale, and then deducted modified probability model. Conclusions - In times of retail store chain destruction and off-line store reorganization, modified Huff model has problems in estimating sales. Transformation probability model, supplemented by the existing problems, was analyzed to be more effective in competitiveness business condition. This study offers a viable alternative to figure out related trade areas' sale estimation by reconstructing new-modified probability model. As a result, the future task is to enlarge the borders from IT infrastructure with data and evidence based business into DT infrastructure.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.77-87
• /
• 2015

Purpose - This study aims to investigate the current state of distribution terminology usage by retailers and consumers nationwide, and to suggest a practical improvement plan for its standardization. The Korean distribution industry is closely related to consumers' daily lives. However, in reality, there exists a gap among producers, distributors, and consumers in terms of the definition, understanding, and perception of the terminology. Therefore, standardizing this terminology is essential for more smooth communication. This paper suggests the necessity of committing overall research and survey activities to the actual conditions of using Korean distribution terminology by organizations and their respective management situations, and further, the necessity of probing the problem and its measures in line with the objective and mission of the "Fundamental Law of the Korean Language." Research design, data, and methodology - This study's scope is limited to wholesale and retail including some information systems. First, the study covers most written material including lexicons and glossary of distribution terminology, university textbooks and teaching material for national certificate of qualification, and related laws and ordinances. Second, the survey covers retailers' management situations by store format. The retailers used as the sample for the survey include department stores, discount stores, SSM, and convenience stores. Altogether, 20 specialists were interviewed in their respective sectors or retail formats. Finally, the project team surveyed a sample of 1,300 consumers nationwide on 50 distribution terms mainly used by consumers, including those about awareness, understanding, usage, and attitude. Results - In total, 1,249 terms are drawn through literature research including distribution terminology used in the related literature, glossary and lexicons, distribution terminology in textbooks, and legal terminology. A classified table comprises four large categories including general distribution, distribution marketing, distribution information, and merchandise. The results of the three-step research including literature survey, field survey of retailers, and consumer survey were advised to be screened by academia (retail associations, faculty etc.), retailers (major retail management by store format), retail specialists and consultants, consumers, and Korean linguists. In total, 1,300 questionnaires for 50 terms of the distribution terminology closely associated with consumers were distributed to subjects nationwide. Conclusions - The desired and expected results from this study are summarized from three perspectives as follows: First, from retailers' perspective, a new concept, or coinage of new terms of the distribution industry stems from advanced countries such as America and Europe. However, the original meaning and definition are diluted and distorted with changes in the language users' situations and context. This study provides basic guidelines for standardization of distribution terms used among various retail formats in most daily life situations that consumers encounter. Second, from the nation's perspective, this study suggests optimal choices of distribution terminology in the context of laws and ordinances regarding concerned Ministries. Last, from the consumers' perspective, this paper enables consumers to understand and use distribution terms properly in their daily life.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.1-20
• /
• 1995

This paper studies the comparative advantage of competitive and specialized regional industries which are manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, servies in the metropolitan area-Seoul, Inchun, Kyunggi-do of Korea, For the analysis of industries, the coefficient of specialization, the indices of competitiveness of labor and value-added, the growth rate are simultaneously examined under the criteria of the number of workers, value of shipment, value-added, This comperative synthetic analysis is different from the traditional approaches. This paper shows that the perfectly competitive advantage of specialized industries satisfying all of three criteria are 'other business related activities', 'recreational, cultural and sporting activities' in Seoul, 'machinery and outfits, n.e.c', 'retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles, repair of personal and household goods' in Inchun. We conclude that each should strategically develop the region-oriented specialized industry which has the comparative advantage. It is the reason why the concentration of industry in necessary for the leading of regional industry under the weaken local public finance. Moreover, such an industy should provide the increase of employment and income from the viewpoint of the activation of regional economy. The potential-specialized competitive industry requires the advanced structure of production under the criteria of value-added. For the development of the metropolitan area's economy, the highly advanced technology industry including computer and electronics should be induced through the loosening of metropolitan regulation. Research center(science park) supported by th private-public sector should be built for the increase of technology sector should be built for the increase of technology power of the small and medium enterprises, Also it is necessary that the small and medium enterprises strategically make the cooperative-large group in order to avoid the disadvantage from the size.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
• /
• v.13 no.6
• /
• pp.917-925
• /
• 2011

Flagship store opening is one of the most frequently reported retail news in which it is widely used to promote a new store opening. The purpose of this study was to explore the flagship stores on media reports. Flagship store cases were collected from the news article database of the largest internet portal in Korea. A total of 210 cases were collected and content-analyzed. Though various business types of flagship stores were observed, most were in fashion. The most common characteristic of the flagship cases was the location of the prime sites in a metropolitan city. Global luxury and designer fashion brands met most characteristics, but many flagship stores were not more than a brand-owned store. The flagship store term is emphasized with dramatic expressions and various promotional events for media interests and in turn for marketing communication effect.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.18 no.7
• /
• pp.27-36
• /
• 2020

Purpose: The study examines how emotional leadership affects employee attitude towards work engagement. Leader legitimacy perception is chosen as the mediating variable to understand the effect of emotional leadership on employee work engagement. Research design, data and methodology: The research model is based on theory and empirical research findings in order to examine the mediating effect of leader legitimacy perception on the relationship between the manager's emotional leadership and employee work engagement. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 188 employees of domestic retail distributors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and survey data confirmed the construct, and the hypothesis was tested by using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results: a) Emotional leadership has positive influence on leader legitimacy; b) Leader legitimacy is positively related to work engagement; c) Leader legitimacy mediates a positive relationship between emotional leadership and work engagement. However, there is no direct effect on work engagement (of employees) from emotional leadership standpoint. Conclusion: Based on the empirical results, implications and future research directions are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.71-85
• /
• 2016

Service channel environments have changed dramatically with the advent of new, online digital channels. This article studies the effects of perceived multi-channel service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty in the banking industry and the moderating role of age, which is a characteristic of customers. The objective is to identify the quality factors that affect the overall satisfaction and loyalty of a multi-channel customer. A quantitative study was conducted on 900 customers, with the main targets being users of the nine primary Korean retail banks. Results show that perceived service quality of the physical environment, human service, Internet banking, mobile banking, and ATM has a positive influence on overall satisfaction and loyalty. Age moderates the relationship among physical environment quality, human service, and customer loyalty.