• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.93-102
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• 2011

With the increasing interest in boosting conventional markets, many authors have paid considerable attention to the roles of shop owners, store image improvement, and how to attract or maintain customers. Nevertheless, it is not easy to find papers related to the relationship between shop owners and their contribution to trading areas, directly or indirectly, in the academic world. Accordingly, research for answering the following question has been initiated: what kind of roles do shopkeepers should play in revitalizing poor conventional markets? Based on the previous studies focusing on enhancing traditional markets, this research was approached from the new insights that have been obtained concerning how to boost conventional markets, that is, from the perspectives of a shop owner and a trader. Therefore, this research aims at identifying some resolutions associated with the roles of shop owners to enhance a shopping district in a specific area, classifying their business roles into a few categories, depending on the degree of their participation in improving the shopping environment. Compared with previous studies focusing on emphasizing the importance of improving customer services from a shopkeeper's perspective, this research provides a new insight as far as how to boost conventional markets. It is, furthermore, necessary to note how market participants, particularly shop owners as they are the key players, can contribute to rebuilding their business area together with their customers. As a research technique for effectively achieving the research goal, the authors adopted a documentation methodology based on a large amount of the existing literature for studying how to rebuild traditional markets. Concerned about the ways to revitalize conventional markets, many authors have proposed a variety of strategies, and have suggested more detailed action plans from a practitioner's perspective. By analyzing these research results, the authors will have accomplished the research aim. Rather than simply identifying the roles of shop owners, the author found that they had to understand their social contribution for enhancing their trading areas, as well as their functional roles, in forming a regional society. The conventional market should be, thus, regarded as the place to share regional culture. Consequently, the authors draw some conclusions from the research results. In order to answer the above question, it was found that the roles of shop owners have been considered as one of the most important ways for revitalizing traditional markets. With respect to their roles, it is evident that their business activities are closely related to the improvement of the trading area in terms of sociality, regional development, and market revitalization, by selling products or services to the customers visiting that area. In a word, this implies that shop owners have to actively take part in boosting conventional markets as a core player. Although the authors have properly achieved the research aim, this study has a limitation, like most other research, in adopting a documentation method. Because the research is based on existing data results provided by the prior research conducted a long time ago, whether the research findings are applicable in a contemporary market should be re-examined in future research from a practitioner's perspective, rather than from an academic's perspective.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.263-268
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to monitor and compare the contamination levels of total aerobic bacteria, coliform groups and Escherichia coli from fruit-vegetable salad (FS), aquatic hard-boiled food (AF) and salt-fermented fishery product with spices (SP). The samples of ready-to-eat food were 25 FS, 11 AF and 7 SP. The contamination levels of total aerobic bacteria in FS, AF and SP were $4.56\sim7.45\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (FS), $2.43\sim7.03\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (AF), respectively. The contamination levels of coliform groups were $4.51\sim6.71\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (SP). $4.00\sim6.66\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (FS), $1.70\sim5.20\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (AF), respectively. The contamination levels of E. coli were $2.50\sim4.42\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (SP), $0\sim3.58\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (FS), $1.11\sim4.68\;log_{10}$ CFU/g (AF), respectively. The difference of completed packaging salad and instant packaging salad are not different about contamination levels. In conclusion, the results of this study indicated that the hygienic levesl of salads, hard-boiled foods and salted fishes were very poor. So our government need to improve the control plan for food safety from manufacturing process to market.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.453-459
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• 2018

This study was performed to investigate the contamination levels of heavy metals (such as lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury) and aflatoxin (such as $B_1$, $B_2$, $G_1$ and $G_2$) in commercial herbs for food and medicine. The concentrations of the heavy metals were measured by the ICP-MS and a mercury analyzer. The aflatoxins were analyzed by a HPLC-florescence coupled with photochemical derivatization. The detection ranges of the lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury were found to be 0.006~4.088 mg/kg, 0.002~2.150 mg/kg, ND~0.610 mg/kg and ND~0.0139 mg/kg respectively. Among the total samples, the 3 samples (2.6%) were not suitable for the specification of cadmium by the MFDS (Ministry of Food and Drug Safety). The 13 samples of the total 117 samples were aflatoxin positive (11.1%). The amount of aflatoxin $G_1$ was $0.7834{\mu}g/kg$ in the Puerariae Radix and aflatoxin $G_2$ were $0.3517{\mu}g/kg$, $0.4881{\mu}g/kg$ in two samples of the Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma, respectively. The aflatoxins $B_2$ and $G_1$ were simultaneously detected in the 10 Angelicae Gigantis Radix. The detection ranges of aflatoxins $B_2$ and $G_1$ were $0.2324{\sim}1.0358{\mu}g/kg$ and $0.7552{\sim}1.6545{\mu}g/kg$ respectively in Angelicae Gigantis Radix. The results of the current study suggest that continuous monitoring is needed for the proactive management of commercial herbs for food and medicine safety.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.1-25
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• 2008

Ⅰ. Introduction Retailers in the 21st century are being told that future retailers are those who can execute seamless multi-channel access. The reason is that retailers should be where shoppers want them, when they want them anytime, anywhere and in multiple formats. Multi-channel access is considered one of the top 10 trends of all business in the next decade (Patricia T. Warrington, et al., 2007) And most firms use both direct and indirect channels in their markets. Given this trend, we need to evaluate a channel equity more systematically than before as this issue is expected to get more attention to consumers as well as to brand managers. Consumers are becoming very much confused concerning the choice of place where they shop for durable goods as there are at least 6-7 retail options. On the other hand, manufacturers have to deal with category killers, their dealers network, Internet shopping malls, and other avenue of distribution channels and they hope their retail channel behave like extensions of their own companies. They would like their products to be foremost in the retailer's mind-the first to be proposed and effectively communicated to potential customers. To enable this hope to come reality, they should know each channel's advantages and disadvantages from consumer perspectives. In addition, customer satisfaction is the key determinant of retail customer loyalty. However, there are only a few researches regarding the effects of shopping satisfaction and perceptions on consumers' channel choices and channels. The purpose of this study was to assess Korean consumers' channel choice and satisfaction towards channels they prefer to use in the case of electronic goods shopping. Korean electronic goods retail market is one of good example of multi-channel shopping environments. As the Korea retail market has been undergoing significant structural changes since it had opened to global retailers in 1996, new formats such as hypermarkets, Internet shopping malls and category killers have arrived for the last decade. Korean electronic goods shoppers have seven major channels : (1)category killers (2) hypermarket (3) manufacturer dealer shop (4) Internet shopping malls (5) department store (6) TV home-shopping (7) speciality shopping arcade. Korean retail sector has been modernized with amazing speed for the last decade. Overall summary of major retail channels is as follows: Hypermarket has been number 1 retailer type in sales volume from 2003 ; non-store retailing has been number 2 from 2007 ; department store is now number 3 ; small scale category killers are growing rapidly in the area of electronics and office products in particular. We try to evaluate each channel's equity using a consumer survey. The survey was done by telephone interview with 1000 housewife who lives nationwide. Sampling was done according to 2005 national census and average interview time was 10 to 15 minutes. Ⅱ. Research Summary We have found that seven major retail channels compete with each other within Korean consumers' minds in terms of price and service. Each channel seem to have its unique selling points. Department stores were perceived as the best electronic goods shopping destinations due to after service. Internet shopping malls were perceived as the convenient channel owing to price checking. Category killers and hypermarkets were more attractive in both price merits and location conveniences. On the other hand, manufacturers dealer networks were pulling customers mainly by location and after service. Category killers and hypermarkets were most beloved retail channel for Korean consumers. However category killers compete mainly with department stores and shopping arcades while hypermarkets tend to compete with Internet and TV home shopping channels. Regarding channel satisfaction, the top 3 channels were service-driven retailers: department stores (4.27); dealer shop (4.21); and Internet shopping malls (4.21). Speciality shopping arcade(3.98) were the least satisfied channels among Korean consumers. Ⅲ. Implications We try to identify the whole picture of multi-channel retail shopping environments and its implications in the context of Korean electronic goods. From manufacturers' perspectives, multi-channel may cause channel conflicts. Furthermore, inter-channel competition draws much more attention as hypermarkets and category killers have grown rapidly in recent years. At the same time, from consumers' perspectives, 'buy where' is becoming an important buying decision as it would decide the level of shopping satisfaction. We need to develop the concept of 'channel equity' to manage multi-channel distribution effectively. Firms should measure and monitor their prime channel equity in regular basis to maximize their channel potentials. Prototype channel equity positioning map has been developed as follows. We expect more studies to develop the concept of 'channel equity' in the future.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.29-64
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• 2011

Overview of Research: Product availability is one of important competences of store to fulfill consumer needs. If stock-outs which means a product what consumer wants to buy is not available occurs, consumer will face decision-making uncertainty that leads to consumer's negative responses such as consumer dissatisfaction on store. Stockouts was much studied in the field of academia as well as practice in other countries. However, stock-outs has not been researched at all in Marketing and/or Distribution area in Korea. The main objectives of this study are to find out determinants of consumer responses such as Substitute, Delay, and Leave(SDL) when consumer encounters out-of-stock situation and then to examine the effects of these factors on consumer responses. Specifically, this study focuses on situational characteristics(e.g., purchase urgency and surprise), store characteristics (e.g., product assortment and store convenience), and consumer characteristics (e.g., brand loyalty and store loyalty). Then, this study empirically investigates relationships these factors with consumers behaviors such as product substitution, purchase delay, and store switching.