• The International Journal of Costume Culture
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.141-152
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• 2009

In this study, the business structure and characteristics of buying offices used by buyers for apparel productions through global sourcing were analyzed in specifics. Data were acquired through in-depth interviews of twelve merchandisers at representative apparel buying offices. The results of this study can be summarized as following. The business structure of a buying office varied depending on the functions, the item characteristics of products to be manufactured or the characteristics of the major buyers who were the customers. Overall, teams were formed by brands or organizations were formed by functions. Functional teams were divided within each brand team when business teams were divided by brands and personnel was divided by brands occasionally within each functional team when business teams were divided by functions. Business teams were composed of MR which managed the overall business about orders such as factory sourcing, price decision and production management and teams with various specialized skills. The teams with specialized skills were composed of Technical team, Fabric Development team, Colorist team, Quality Assurance (QA) or Quality Control (QC) team, Logistics team, Factory Audit team, and etc. For the future directions on the improvements, ways to increase international competitiveness of buying offices need to be researched and many expressed the opinion that it would be effective to move the offices to countries close to buyers or manufacturing locations as most buyers demand lower prices and shorter lead time than before and it is increasing trend for buyers and factories to do business directly without buying offices in the middle.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1086-1097
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• 2009

Consumers have more choices for apparel products as e-shopping grows. This study examines the importance of apparel product attributes and classifies online apparel buyers into groups based on product attribute evaluation in various choice sets. For the empirical research, the online survey was conducted and Latent Gold Choice 4.0 was used for the choice-based conjoint analysis. Five consumer segments are found based on the choice selection of product attributes. The importance of product attributes (online shopping mall, brand, price, and style) and the preference of each product attribute level were different across segments. This research improves the knowledge of the purchasing behavior of online apparel buyers and provides proper attribute combinations of apparel e-shopping for each consumer segment.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.146-153
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine understanding consumers' purchasing intention toward sustainable apparel regarding buying experience, majors, and age. A random sample of 172 undergraduate students completed a questionnaire that contained measures of demographic information, past sustainable buying experiences, and purchasing intentions toward sustainable apparel. Based on literature review, three research questions were proposed. For data analysis, descriptive statistics and t-test were used. Based on these results, this research provided acceptable information based upon the consumer's purchasing intentions toward sustainable apparel, after being placed into groups of buyers and non-buyers. Buyers had more willing to purchase sustainable apparel than non-buyers. Also the results revealed that fashion majors hold a higher level of significance than non-fashion majors and their intentions to purchase sustainable apparel. Finally, older students (over 21 years old) have more purchasing intentions toward sustainable apparel than younger students (under 21 years old). Based on these results, some implications for educators and marketers would be suggested.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.85-109
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• 2004

Supplier quality management (SQM) is considered as a proactive approach in the buyers' perspective to seek for continuous supply quality improvement and collaborative ongoing alliance between buyers and suppliers. Therefore, it is important for the buyers to understand their circumstances for managing their suppliers, and thereby to search for an improved way to rectify managerial deficiencies, if any. This paper aims to identify the critical factors of SQM, and then propose a hierarchical framework which can facilitate the assessment of their SQM performance in the buyers' perspective and also serve as a working tool for managing supply quality performance.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.105-123
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• 2006

Previous research on two-sided markets has, for the most part, concentrated on indirect network externalities between buyers alto sellers. This paper considers direct competition effect among sellers and among buyers as well as indirect network externalities. We develop an analytic model of C2C e-marketplaces and examine whether a monopolistic incumbent could successfully deter new entry into its market. We find that the effect of the number of sellers or buyers on the price of goods depends on whether sellers have decided to sell the goods using an auction or fixed pricing rule and on the characteristics of the goods. We argue that when the effect of the number of sellers on the price of goods is significantly larger than that of buyers, there is a high possibility of entry. In particular, we show that entry becomes more difficult to deter as fixed-price format is adopted more frequently or the proportion of collectables is relatively low.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.129-138
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• 2014

This paper is to analyze the cycle time of the vendor in a single-vendor multi-buyers supply chain. The vendor is the manufacturer and the buyers are the retailers. The cycle time of the vendor is the elapse time from the beginning time of the production to the beginning time of the next production. The cycle time of the vendor that minimizes the total cost in a supply chain is analyzed. The cost factors are the production setup cost and the inventory holding cost of the vendor, the ordering cost and the inventory holding cost of the retailers. The cycle times of the vendor obtained with the costs of the vendor is compared with those obtained with the costs of the vendor and the retailers. Various numerical examples are tested if the cycle times of the vendor for both methods are the same.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.155-172
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to investigate factors which can lead small buyers to participate in a Reverse Aggregation Electronic Market (RAEM). Five factors including search, selection, price, delivery, and Internet literacy were selected as possible factors which are expected to influence small buyers' participation in a RAEM. This paper focused on a RAEM of the Korean automotive industry in which the third party aggregator formed a group of small automobile repair shops (ARS) and amassed buying power for them by building a buyer' oriented electronic market (EM). Survey data were collected from small ARS in South Korea. The results of the empirical analysis indicated that fast delivery and support for Internet illiteracy are potential incentives that could influence buyers' decisions to join a RAEM.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.47
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• pp.101-112
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• 1999

This study examined 1) retail buyer's reasons for buying imported apparel and brand license business and 2) types of information sources which they searched for the businesses 3) types of product/vendor selective criteria Seventy subjects of one hundred samples responded. They were designers merchandisers of apparel companies and buyers of department stores. The results of empirical studies were summarized as follows: 1) Buyers & merchandisers recognized domestic market responses as the most important information source for selecting foreign brand. The critical problem of buying and brand license was deficiency of professionals in fashion retail 2) Buyers & merchandisers primarily recognized brand identity and exclusive style of the product when selecting puoduct or vendor. 3) Buyers & merchandisers primarily recognized return policy and good delivery of the vendor when selecting vendor 4). There were relationships among incormation sources selective criteria of product/vendor and buyer's characteristics.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.321-328
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• 2004

The purpose of this study were to investigate the differences of shopping value, promotional affects and product characteristics between buyers and non-buyers, and to examine the most influenced variable on purchasing behaviors of fashion products in CATV home-shopping. We collected data from 595 consumers related to CATV home-shopping in Busan. Data were analyzed by factor analysis, t-test, ${\chi}^2$-test and discriminant analysis. Results showed that there are significant differences between buyers and non-buyers of shopping value demographic characteristics, promotional affects and product characteristics. Especially, shopping value perceived by consumers(e.g., practical value and hedonic value) and product characteristics(e.g., response of others) discriminated whether consumers purchased the fashion products of CATV home-shopping or not. We discussed the implications of results to encourage the purchasing behavior of fashion products in CATV home-shopping.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.167-189
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• 2004

Cooperative and integrative partnerships between buyers and suppliers are very important for effective operations. Such partnerships should be based on various information technologies developed in recent years. Therefore, we investigated the relationship among IT performance, IT infrastructure and supply chain performance in buyer-supplier linkage using exploratory examination. This analysis is based on survey results of buyer-supplier practitioners in Korean electronics industry. Specifically, we used factor analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis. Major findings are as follows. First. buyers' IT performance contributed to enhance their operational & financial performance, and satisfaction. Second, buyers' IT infrastructure improved their financial performance and satisfaction but showed mixed effects on operational performance. Third, suppliers' operational performance enhanced buyers' operational & financial performance, and satisfaction. Fourth, suppliers' IT performance strengthened their operational & financial performance, and satisfaction. Fifth, suppliers' IT infrastructure showed positive relationships with operational performance and satisfaction.