• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.215-223
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• 1998

The main purpose of this study was to investigate if and how country-of-origin as product characteristics and attitude toward imported brand and brand familiarity as consumer characteristics have impacts on consumer satisfaction with imported apparel. Disconfirmation paradigm was used as a theoretical framework. 570 consumers who had buying experiences of imported apparel were interviewed in department stores. The results showed that the most influential factor on consumer satisfaction with imported apparel was perceived clothing product performance. Country-of-origin and expectations had little effects. Country-of-origin appeared effective on consumer satisfaction only in the case of European products. Consumers were satisfied less as their expectations level were high, which indicated expectations had contrast effects on clothing satisfaction.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.923-936
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• 2012

Apparel companies define their target customers to integrate consumers' needs into their product development processes. The sizing standards play a significant role in ready-to-wear garment business. Consumers' body build and sizes are different according to gender, age, and body type. The consumers' morphological feature of the one geographical area has changed with immigration, aging, and lifestyle change. In this study the way of defining body types in the standard garment sizing systems published in USA., UK, Germany, Japan, and Korea were compared. The results of this study show that most of the systems classified the body types by the index value. The chest-waist drop value was used for men's body type classification. Women's body types were defined by hip proportion. The hip-bust drop value was used for it. German and European garment sizing systems provide a wide range of men's body types. US men's garment sizes are developed for very conservative body type. US women's garment sizing system has had clearly defined women's body types. The Misses body types projected in the US garment sizing system had changed as women's waist girth got bigger compared to the past. In 2011 the US Misses sizes were divided into Curvy Misses size and Straight Misses size by the hip-waist drop value. The Curvy Misses sizes have smaller waist girth and larger hip girth than the Straight Misses sizes.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.121-130
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• 2020

Purpose: In this study we investigate the determinants of private label (PL) purchase intention in South Korea. Private labels are becoming more and more popular in America and European countries. However, there are not enough studies focusing on PL within the South Korean market. Therefore, the present study has been written in order to understand more about consumers' purchase intention of store brand in the South Korean market. Many characteristics and aspects of consumers and brand's behavior have been reviewed in order to bring relevant results. Research design, data and methodology: Data was collected using a quantitative survey of Korea retail store's consumer. We analyzed using multiple regression method to test the hypothesis. We analyzed how and why do consumers have a strong intention to purchase the PL. Results: a) Trust towards retailer influences the PL purchase intention of customers; b) brand awareness has an impact on the PL purchase intention of customers; c) perceived quality has an impact on the PL purchase intention; d) Price-quality relationship influences on the PL purchase intention. However, there is no direct effect of some of the factors of determinant. Conclusion: For private label products in the Korean market, trust in sellers and brand awareness influences the purchase of PL products.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.139-156
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate various information relating to research on the dimensions of clothing used in the sale of products via the internet that used to target global SPA((Specialty Store Retailer of Private Label Apparel) brands sold in Korea. A total of 12 SPA brands including seven global SPA brands and five national. SPA brands were surveyed in this study. Brands were chosen net sales and consumer preferences the last three years. In all SPA brands, literal size designation such as S, M, L and numeric size designation such as 0, 2, 4 or 32, 34, 36 etc. were mixed, but in case of Jean, the size codes mark waist circumference were dominant. European size codes were more common in case of European brands while literal codes were more dominantly used for American size codes with in the US brands. By reviewing the measurement information of the body and product size, the product measurement methods of UNIQLO, FOREVER 21 and TOPTEN were much more accountable and excellent than other brands. However, most of the others didn't offer proper information such as pictograms or figures about measurement methods relating body sizes and product sizes. In addition, most of global SPA brands offered size conversion chart which consumers could reference, however of none of the national SPA brands offered a conversion size chart on their website. Regardless of the type of clothing, the coverage of clothing size was higher than in global SPA brands such as H&M GAP compared to national SPA brands. In particular, 8seconds did not present apparel size ranges that fit consumers' individual clothes sizes.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.359-367
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• 2015

Purpose: This article summarizes the trends in recent research publications in relation to post-harvest technology for drying, storage, and quality, between 2005 and 2015. Methods: As of S eptember 7, 2015, a s earch query using two keywords, drying and agriculture, on the Web of Science (Registered trademark of Thomson Reuters) resulted in 3749 articles that were published between 2005 and 2015. However, the review was restricted to research articles published in the journals Transactions of the ASABE (American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers) and Biosystems Engineering: Journal of European Agricultural Engineering. Results: The total number of articles in the two journals related to drying, storage, and quality was 500, 319, and 885, respectively. The number of articles related to drying, storage, and quality was 250, 177, and 250, respectively, in Transactions of the ASABE. The number of articles related to drying, storage, and quality was 250, 142, and 283, respectively, in Biosystems Engineering. Conclusions: A shift in research focus from drying and storage to quality in Transactions of the ASABE might reflect a shift toward quality-conscious consumers. It seems that ASABE members are more focused on articles related to post-harvest technologies on quality than their European counterparts. Articles were cited based on their abstract content. Readers should read the full articles for more details.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.18-48
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• 2004

Health policies in many countries have come under critical scrutiny in recent years. This is because of increasing national health expenditures. Also many persons in health sector have been the perception that resources allocated to health services are not always deployed in an optimal fashion. And they believe that the scope of resources in health services is limited, there is need to search for ways of using existing resources more efficiently. A further concern has been the desire to ensure access to healthcare of various groups on an equitable basis. In some European countries this has been linked to a wish to enhance patient choice and to make service providers more responsive to consumers, while Korea integrated health insurance funds into single fund in 2000. Many European countries are under considerable pressure to review and restructure their health care systems. There are several reasons of pressure to reform. There are demographic changes, pattern of disease change, advances in medical sciences will also give rise to new demands within the health services, public expectations of health services are rising as those who use services demand higher standards of care. These circumstances require the change of health care delivery system based on hierarchical regionalism, which was basis of health care delivery since 1920s. Korea is also under similarly pressure to restructure our own health care systems. We will have good learning from OECD experiences. In this paper we reviewed and compared among OECD countries' various experiences.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.40-45
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to investigate how to develop the Korean textile pattern design that can respond properly to the demand of consumers. This is very important to maintain a steady growth of the Korean textile and clothing industry. To serve this purpose, this study conduct surveys (through questionnaires) of European textile design industries centering around Italian textile design industry. The survey result shows that in most European textile pattern design studios, the "repeat" process is not necessarily considered as a part of the textile pattern design process and, in fact, the price of textile pattern design with the "repeat" is 30% higher than the price of textile pattern design without the "repeat". The survey result also exhibits that the inclusion of the "repeat" in the textile pattern design process could limit the ability of expressing creative ideas. As a proposal for the development of Korean textile pattern design, this study suggests that the "repeat" process should be separated from the textile design process and specialized as an independent area of the pattern design.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.207-215
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• 2015

Safety' can be used in a variety of ways and may also have different meanings when used in theoretical field and routinely used. In this paper, the 'safety' means that human injury, fire or physical accident condition does not occur while used by the end-user. The meaning of safety may be different by era and culture. Even in contemporary era, the meaning can be used differently by country, region and culture. As the rights of consumers are increasingly reinforced, we can expect the acceptable risk or safety level can rise higher. In this paper, the R-map of Japan and the European risk assessment guidelines (RAPEX) were reviewed considering domestic incidents database status and its applicability. Because it is difficult to make a model based on a R-map, a revised model was developed mainly based on European Assessment Model with a combination of the important characteristics of Japan model R-map. Also utilizing this revised model, the availability as a new risk assessment model was confirmed by comparing the test results for the same scenarios to the other risk assessment model (RAPEX/RAG).

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.661-670
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• 2007

To investigate the market potential for developing Gochujang(a traditional Korean hot pepper soybean paste) products in the UK including the European market, a qualitative consumer study utilizing focus groups was conducted on the $23rd{\sim}25^{th}$ of May, 2005. The focus group approach utilizes small groups of consumers and is very effective in determining the ways in which a product can be used, by examining consumer perceptions on the overall sensory properties of a product as well as variations in taste, flavour, and texture. A series of six consumer group studies were carried out in three different locations around the UK. Each group involved approximately eight respondents(a total of 48 respondents) and ran for at least 90 minutes. The respondents were recruited by specific criteria to achieve a cross-section of ages and genders. All respondents purchased, prepared, and ate home-cooked Oriental/Far Eastern cuisine. Consumer reactions to Gochujang in its traditional form, and in manufactured products, were explored in terms of appearance, texture, flavour, and taste the consumers' perceived uses and applications for products were also examined. Many consumers were familiar with ethnic cuisines such as Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Indian, and Tex/Mex, already preparing these foods using various convenience products at home at least twice a week. However, Korean cuisine was not mentioned by any of the respondents. The Gochujang sauce presented during the interview had broad based appeal mainly as a dipping sauce, and to a lesser degree as a marinade. Traditional Gochujang has the potential to inspire consumers who are looking for novel and authentic world cuisine products. From the sensory evaluations of various prototypes developed according to consumer reactions during the focus group interviews, three prototypes(a sauce for chicken, dipping sauce type, and BBQ sauce type) were determined for further consumer preference studies.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.29-40
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• 2021

Purpose: In this study, with the transaction amount of foreign direct Purchase and foreign direct sales increasing, South Korea is in a situation where foreign direct sales are focused on China. We looked at the impact of consumer innovation and site characteristics on repurchase ability among the characteristics of overseas direct purchase consumers as a way to make direct overseas sales to various overseas countries. Research design, data and methodology: Consumer innovativeness consists of four variables: functional, hedonistic, social, and cognitive, and the site characteristics consisted of four variables: product price, product assortment, convenience, and service. The study was conducted on consumers with foreign direct purchase experience, and was finally used in 252 additional analyses. Results: The main findings of this study were first, that the impact on the degree of re-purchase among consumer innovativeness of foreign direct purchase consumers had a significant impact in the order of cognitive innovativeness, hedonistic innovativeness, and functional innovativeness. Social innovativeness did not affect the degree of re-purchase. Second, site characteristics have been found to have a significant impact on the degree of re-purchase in order of product assortment, commodity price, and service. Convenience did not affect the degree of re-purchase. Conclusions Taken together these results can be called the biggest characteristic of the cognitive innovativeness of the consumer's inclination to use the overseas direct purchase, the price or quick response of the goods sold on the site is a factor that affects the re-purchase, above all it is important to have a variety of products. We will present this element as a way to make direct sales abroad to various countries. In addition, foreign direct purchase is a lot of transactions in China, the United States, EU, but the share of China is high in foreign direct sales, and the U.S. and EU have a very low performance, it is important to consider the reasons why they prefer Korean products in China to study the social and cultural characteristics of U.S. and European consumers in the future, and to support and active marketing that companies and sellers can increase sales.