• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.55-78
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• 2011

Recently strategic alliance between business firms has become prevalent to overcome increasing competitive threats and to supplement resource limitation of individual firms. As one of allianced sales promotion activities, a new type of discount program, so called "Alliance Card Discount", is introduced with the partnership of credit cards and loyalty cards. The program mainly pursues short-term sales growth by larger discount scheme while spends less through cost share among alliance partners. Thus this program can be regarded as cost efficient discount promotion. But because there is no solid evidence that it can really deliver profitable sales growth, an empirical study for its effects on sales and profit should be conducted. This study has two basic research questions concerning the effects of allianced discount program ; 1)the possibility of sales increase 2) the profitability of the discount driven sales. In F&B industry, sales increase mainly comes from increased guest count. Especially in family restaurants, to increase the number of guests we need to enlarge the size of visitor group (number of visitors for one group) because customers visit by group in a special occasion. And because they pay the bill by group(table), the increase of sales per table is a key measure for sales improvement. The past researches for price & discount sensitivity and reference discount rate explain that price sensitive consumers have narrow reference discount zone and make rational purchase decision. Differently from all time discount scheme of regular sales promotions, the alliance card discount program only provides the right to get discount like discount coupon. And because it is usually once a month opportunity given by the past month usage level, customers tend to perceive alliance card discount as a rare chance to get. So that we can expect customers try to maximize the discount effect when they use the limited discount opportunity. Considering group visiting practice and low visit frequency of family restaurants, the way to maximize discount effect should be the increase the size of visit group. And their sensitivity to discount and rational consumption behavior defer the additional spending for ordering high price menu, even though they get considerable amount of savings from the discount. From the analysis of sales data paid by alliance discount cards for four months, we found the below. 1) The relation between discount rate and number of guest per table is positive : 25% discount results one additional guest 2) The relation between discount rate and the spending per guest is negative. 3) However, total profit amount per table is increased when discount rate is increased. 4) Reward point accumulation & redemption did not show any significant relationship with the increase of number of guests. These results suggest that the allianced discount program substantially contributes to sales increase and profit improvement by increasing the number of guests per table. Though the spending per guest is decreased by discount rate increase, the total amount of profit per table is improved. It seems the incremental profit by increased guest count offsets the profit decrease. Additional intriguing finding is the point reward system does not have any significant impact on the increase of number of guest, even if the point accumulation & redemption of loyalty program are usually regarded as another saving offers by customers. In sum, because it is proved that allianced discount program with credit cards and loyalty cards is effective to both sales drive and profit increase, the alliance card program could be recommended as strategically buyable program.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.527-536
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to predict changing traffic environments and related economic effects by reflecting the changed KTDB and socio-economic indicators pertaining to Mulgeum station, a general railway stop, when it is confirmed as a KTX stop. To analyze the data of this study, socioeconomic indicators and the general status of transportation facility operations were investigated with reference to related statistical data, centered on the country overall and on Yangsan city in particular. In addition, we investigated and referenced the railroad facility construction plan and train operation plan, which are national high-level plans related to land development and transportation network construction. Currently, there are only ITX trains (4 times/day) and Mugunghwa trains (29 times/day) that stop at Mulgeum station in Yangsan, meaning that passengers cannot use KTX trains in the Yangsan area. In particular, the need for a KTX stop at Mulgeum station has been continuously raised because train users in the Yangsan area have inconvenient transportation in that they must travel 40 minutes to Ulsan station or 30 minutes to Gupo station to use the KTX. As a result of analyzing railroad transportation demand that will change in the future as the KTX stop at Mulgeum station is confirmed, the number of passengers boarding and arriving at Mulgeum station is predicted to be 1,674 passengers/day by 2025. In addition, the numbers of train passengers that are converted from Ulsan and Gupo stations due to the stop at Mulgeum station are predicted to be 594 passengers/day boarding and 562 passengers/day arriving by 2025. In the future, if Yangsan citizens use the KTX Mulgeum station, the access time to Mulgeum station can be shortened to 22 minutes from 65 minutes, and it is predicted that the inconvenience of transferring between railroads will be resolved, with the waiting time for transfers reduced by up to a maximum of 40 minutes. Therefore, the economic effect of creating a KTX stop at Mulgeum station was analyzed to be B/C=1.823 when general railroad operating costs are not taken into account and B/C=2.127 when general railroad operating costs are considered. In conclusion, when using KTX trains to visit the Seoul Metropolitan Area, it takes 2 hours and 43 minutes to use Mulgeum station without using Ulsan station or Gupo station, which is considered to be very effective for reducing travel times and improving the economic feasibility of this development; it is also expected that Yangsan city will be able to improve accessibility and mobility to the Seoul Metropolitan Area by breaking free from the disgrace of being a remote location given its link to KTX in the future.