• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.81-94
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• 2010

The online shopping environment has radically changed consumer shopping behavior. Without the actual physical shopping experience in a brick-and-mortar store, consumers make purchasing decisions over the Internet. They make an effort to obtain product information not only from online merchants, but also from previous purchasers in order to make an informed decision. Accordingly, customer comments are expected to have a significant impact on decisions to purchase goods and services online. This paper focuses on one type of electronic word-of-mouth, the online consumer review. It derives several motivations why customers post product reviews on shopping mall sites. Customer motives were identified through an in depth one-on-one interview with twenty female respondents conducted twice from June $17^{th}$ to September $11^{th}$, 2009. The interviews lasted between 40 and 60 minutes. The results showed that consumers write product reviews based on six motivations: to receive a reward or remuneration for writing a product review, to share information with other customers, to improve the quality of goods and services, to reduce customer dissatisfaction, to recommend products and services, and to derive pleasure.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.41-50
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• 2017

Purpose - Online product review has become a crucial part of the online retailer's market performance for a wide range of products. This research aims to investigate how an individual reviewer's review frequency and timing affect her/his average attitude toward products. Research design, data, and methodology - To conduct reviewer-level analysis, this study uses 42,172 posted online review messages generated by 6,941 identified reviewers for 59 movies released in the South Korea from July 2015 to December 2015. This study adopts Tobit model specification to take into account the censored nature and the selection bias arising from the nature of J-shaped distribution of movie rating. Results - Our estimation results support that the negative impact of review frequency and timing on valence. Furthermore, review timing has an inverted-U relationship with the user's average valence and enhance the negative effect of review frequency. Conclusions - This study contributes to the growing literature on the understanding how eWOM is generated at the individual consumer level. On the basis of the main empirical findings, this study provides insights into building a recommendation system in online retail store based on the consumer's review history data - frequency, timing, and valence.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.89-99
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• 2018

Purpose - In this study, we discuss the current status and barriers of digital transformation focused on small businesses. More specifically, this study consists of two studies. The purpose of study 1 is to investigate the effect of digitization of small businesses on the sales of stores and the number of visiting customers. The purpose of Study 2 is to examine the status and obstacles of online channels use by small businesses. Research design, data, and methodology - In Study 1, we will examine the changes in sales and visitor numbers of stores that are rapidly adapting to digital transformation among small business. For this, we utilize the actual situation of store management survey conducted by the Small Enterprise and Market Service. Specifically, multiple regression equations were used to determine whether blogs and online shopping malls were operating, and the proportion of credit cards to sales as independent variables and sales and number of visiting customers as dependent variables. Next, in Study 2, we surveyed the 15 small business owners in the latest survey on the actual situation of store management survey conducted in 2015, and conducted an in-depth interview to examine the barriers to the use of online channels by small business. Results - As a result of study 1, it is found that the small business who run the blogs have higher sales and visits than the small business who do not. However, there is no difference in the sales and the number of visiting customers between the stores that operate the online shopping malls and those that do not. Second, the higher the proportion of credit cards, the higher the sales and the number of visiting customers. In study 2, we analyzed the barriers to the expansion of online channels by in-depth interviews. Interviews show that barriers to access to online channels are limited by search neutrality, high commission burden, and low bargaining power. These problems are caused by the insufficiency of small business compared to online and mobile portal and O2O platform vendors. Conclusions - This study suggests that small business who have difficulty in establishing direct online channels need digital transformation of small business. In addition, when using such an external platform, we have identified the problems that small business face.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.671-688
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• 2018

This study investigates the characteristics of VR stores that emerged as new fashion communication media. Two case studies on Hyundai and eBay VR Department stores were conducted along with a discussion of the function and meaning of the fashion VR store. The results showed that both stores provide novel shopping experiences; however, the two were differentiated in terms of production method and technology implementation level. Functional aspects such as providing shopping efficiency and purchasing service was insufficient in both stores. Instead, they were complementing by means of product rotation, recommendation system, voice guidance, or linkage with an online shopping mall. In experiential aspects, both stores provided a strong sense of immersion. Hyundai VR store enhanced immersion with a high resolution image of a real offline store; however, it lacked in the ability to provide multisensory stimulation such as kinetic sense or auditory stimulation. The eBay VR Department store intensified the immersion experience by providing auditory stimulation as well as visual stimulation that enhanced the speed and distance sense through the utilization of animation. However, the extent of experience was limited in terms of agency and transformation because of the low interactivity found in both store systems.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.10
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• pp.165-185
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• 2002

The extant study on virtual store loyalty has not been comprehensive and has focused on identifying limited variables such as design, product value, contents, communication, security, that have influence on virtual store loyalty. Their limited perspectives have frequently yielded empirical studies with fragmented results and contributed to the research with low explanation. This paper thus examines the effects of virtual store image, satisfaction and trust on loyalty. The study results confirm that virtual store image have significant effects on satisfaction, trust, and loyalty. Also, satisfaction and trust directly influence vitrual store loyalty. This study contributes to the understanding of the role of virtual store providers in online shopping situation.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.61-77
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• 2008

This study proposes new fashion brand evaluation criteria. In developing the criteria, we emphasize the following considerations: first, the object of the evaluation should be the brand rather than the products or store second, the "new" brand should be the "new" brand from the consumer's perspective finally, only fashion brands available in department store are included to examine the relationship between evaluation criteria and consumers' relationship quality perception with a department store. Our data analysis of an online survey panel sample of 537 female consumers produced six new fashion brand evaluation criteria: merchandise power, in-store communication, brand/company image, salesperson, VMD, and assortment variety. New fashion brand evaluation criteria factors include both brand attributes and store attributes. Brand-related evaluation criteria are merchandise power, assortment variety, and brand/company images, whereas store-related criteria are VMD, salesperson, and in-store communication. The associations among brand evaluation criteria, brand attitudes, and the consumers' relationship quality with department store were tested by regression analysis.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.358-368
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• 2015

The study is focused on analyzing the SNS using characteristics of the people surveyed, as for the SNS acceptance channel of the food service corporations, accounted voluntarily for 71%. The SNS food service information regarding information of menu, location of store, price, coupon, taste evaluation, event, promotion, reservation and store atmosphere was researched. The most preferred information sharing for SNS food service were researched and found Facebook, blog and others in increasing order. The most preferred media to obtain SNS food service information were smart phone, desktop computer and others. The result of verifying differences in the perceived ease of use were also evaluated according to the food service corporation of SNS using characteristics of the people and was found: the longer period of SNS use, longer was access time: more number of visiting times, higher perceived ease of use. As for the difference in the perceived service value: longer the period of SNS use, more preferred was the blog: the more number of visiting times, the higher perceived service value. As for the difference in the online mouth-to-mouth intention: longer the period of SNS use, longer was access time: the more number of visiting times, the higher online mouth-to-mouth intention. Therefore, these research results provide useful implications in the working-level aspects such as providing basic data and the academic approach of the study, when the food service corporations establish marketing strategies through SNS.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.399-406
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate reputation and the profitability. In this study, Big Data Analysis was conducted for Hyundai Motor, Shinsegae Department Store, SK Telecom, and Amorepacific to solve research problems. The results of this study show that the effect of each corporate reputation on the profitability is different according to the company. For products such as Hyundai Motor and Amorepacific that are used directly by consumers, the corporate reputation formed by the comments was more influential. In addition, distribution Service company such as Shinsegae Department Store showed more influence by online news. On the other hand, SK Telecom did not have a significant effect on profitability. Based on the results, this study emphasizes the importance of online news and comments on corporate reputation management, and aims to contribute to establishing an efficient reputation management strategy by examining the relationship between corporate reputation and profitability.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.282-296
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• 2012

This study identified the types of motives for reading consumer reviews of apparel products for online stores and classified shoppers into the groups based on motives. Data were collected from eleven Korean women by a focus group interview and from 313 females by an online survey. Respondents were in their 20s' and 30s' with significant experience reading consumer reviews of apparel products for online stores. The seven motives found by interviews were reduced to four types of motives by factor analysis: Right product choice and judgment of product value, risk reduction, saving time and money, and fun/killing time. The motive for the right product choice and judgment of product value was the highest and the motive for fun/killing time was the lowest. Consumers were classified into four groups based on motives: Utilitarian shoppers (25.8%), shopping-task oriented shoppers (36.8%), multiple-motive shoppers (19.7%), and moderate-motive shoppers (17.7%). There were significant differences among age groups and the amount of reading reviews posted on a product and the duration of reading reviews for online stores. In addition, managerial implications were developed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.763-783
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• 2015

Online customer reviews (i.e., electronic word-of-mouth) has gained considerable interest over the past years. However, a knowledge gap exists in explaining the mechanisms among the factors that determine the product sales in online retailing environment. To fill the gap, this study adopts a principal-agent perspective to investigate the effect of customer reviews and customer incentives on product sales in online retail stores. Two customer review factors (i.e., average review ratings and the number of reviews) and two customer incentive factors (i.e., price discounts and special shipping offers) are used to predict product sales in regression analysis. The sales ranking data collected from the video game titles at Amazon.com are used to analyze the direct effects of the four factors and the interaction effects between customer review and customer incentive factors to product sales. Result reveals that most relationships exist as hypothesized. The findings support both the direct and interaction effects of customer reviews and incentive factors on product sales. Based on the findings, discussions are provided with regard to the academic and practical contributions.