• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2011

One of the major reasons for fierce competition among firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Due to such changes in the marketing environment, differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important in the race to gain a competitive advantage. Price discount is one of the popular promotion strategies that most retailers use, especially to increase sales, but offering a price discount does not always lead to the expected result. If marketers apply an identical price-promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in products and consumer preferences, the discounted price itself may make people skeptical about the quality of the product. Moreover, the changes in perceived value may appear differently depending on factors such as consumer involvement. This implies that variables such as the level of consumer involvement, brand loyalty, and external reference prices, in reality, would have different effects on how consumers perceive the value of price discounts. The variables that affect consumers' perceived values and buying decisions are diverse and complicated. Several studies have examined the effects of such variables as external reference price, selling price, and brand on consumers' perceived value of products. Results have not shown consistent patterns. Therefore, we must note that the factors affecting consumers' value perceptions and buying behaviors are diverse and that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what that variable is. This study focused on the level of consumer involvement as a salient variable that supposedly affects the perceived value of a product, willingness to buy, and search intentions. We tried to examine whether a price discount affects the perceived value-such as perceived acquisition value and perceived transaction value-in different ways depending on the level of consumer involvement. In addition, we proposed managerial implications that marketers need to consider as a whole, for instance, product attributes, brand loyalty, and involvement and then established a differentiated pricing strategy, case by case, in order to effectively enhance consumers' perceived values. As a result, we found that perceived transaction value positively affects perceived acquisition value and when discounting the price of a high-involvement product enhances the consumer's willingness to buy, but perceived acquisition value does not affect the search intentions significantly. In the case of discounting prices of low-involvement products, on the other hand, the perceived transaction value has a positive effect on the willingness to buy, but the negative effect of perceived acquisition value on the search intentions was not significant. We suppose that people doubt a product's quality because of a declined perceived quality derived from a price discount. Even though the price discount enhanced the transaction value, people eventually increased their level of searching for additional product information. From the results of this study, we suggest that marketers ought to establish an appropriate value-enhancing strategy based on the understanding of which perceived value consumers rely on more when they conduct purchasing behavior because consumers perceive the degree of importance of acquisition value or transaction value differently, depending on their level of involvement.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.55-76
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• 2012

Most people prefer to choose zero-cost products they may get without paying any money. The 'zero-cost effect' can be explained with a 'zero-cost model' where consumers attach special values to zero-cost products in a different way from general economic models (Shampanier, Mazar and Ariely 2007). If 2 different products at the regular prices of ￦200 and ￦400 simultaneously offer ￦200 discounts, the prices will be changed to ￦0 and ￦200, respectively. In spite of the same price gap of the two products after the ￦200 discounts, people are much more likely to select the free alternative than the same product at the price of ￦200. Although prior studies have focused on the 'zero-cost effect' in isolation of other factors, this study investigates the moderating effects of a self-regulatory resource and a construal level on the selection of free products. Self-regulatory resources induce people to control or regulate their behavior. However, since self-regulatory resources are limited, they are to be easily depleted when exerted (Muraven, Tice, and Baumeister 1998). Without the resources, consumers tend to become less sensitive to price changes and to spend money more extravagantly (Vohs and Faber 2007). Under this condition, they are also likely to invest less effort on their information processing and to make more intuitive decisions (Pocheptsova, Amir, Dhar, and Baumeister 2009). Therefore, context effects such as price changes and zero cost effects are less likely in the circumstances of resource depletion. In addition, construal levels have profound effects on the ways of information processing (Trope and Liberman 2003, 2010). In a high construal level, people tend to attune their minds to core features and desirability aspects, whereas, in a low construal level, they are more likely to process information based on secondary features and feasibility aspects (Khan, Zhu, and Kalra 2010). A perceived value of a product is more related to desirability whereas a zero cost or a price level is more associated with feasibility. Thus, context effects or reliance on feasibility (for instance, the zero cost effect) will be diminished in a high level construal while those effects may remain in a low level construal. When people make decisions, these 2 factors can influence the magnitude of the 'zero-cost effect'. This study ran two experiments to investigate the effects of self-regulatory resources and construal levels on the selection of a free product. Kisses and Ferrero-Rocher, which were adopted in the prior study (Shampanier et al. 2007) were also used as alternatives in Experiments 1 and 2. We designed Experiment 1 in order to test whether self-regulatory resource depletion will moderate the zero-cost effect. The level of self-regulatory resources was manipulated with two different tasks, a Sudoku task in the depletion condition and a task of drawing diagrams in the non-depletion condition. Upon completion of the manipulation task, subjects were randomly assigned to one of a decision set with a zero-cost option (i.e., Kisses ￦0, and Ferrero-Rocher ￦200) or a set without a zero-cost option (i.e., Kisses ￦200, and Ferrero-Rocher ￦400). A pair of alternatives in the two decision sets have the same price gap of ￦200 between a low-priced Kisses and a high-priced Ferrero-Rocher. Subjects in the no-depletion condition selected Kisses more often (71.88%) over Ferrero-Rocher when Kisses was free than when it was priced at ￦200 (34.88%). However, the zero-cost effect disappeared when people do not have self-regulatory resources. Experiment 2 was conducted to investigate whether constual levels influence the magnitude of the 'zero-cost effect'. To manipulate construal levels, 4 different 'why (in the high construal level condition)' or 'how (in the low construal level condition)' questions about health management were asked. They were presented with 4 boxes connected with downward arrows. In a box at the top, there was one question, 'Why do I maintain good physical health?' or 'How do I maintain good physical health?' Subjects inserted a response to the question of why or how they would maintain good physical health. Similar tasks were repeated for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th responses. After the manipulation task, subjects were randomly assigned either to a decision set with a zero-cost option, or to a set without it, as in Experiment 1. When a low construal level is primed with 'how', subjects chose free Kisses (60.66%) more often over Ferrero-Rocher than they chose ￦200 Kisses (42.19%) over ￦400 FerreroRocher. On contrast, the zero-cost effect could not be observed any longer when a high construal level is primed with 'why'.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.1-27
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• 2012

Many companies have recently become interested in using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook as a new channel to communicate with their customers. For example, companies often offer "special deals" (e.g., coupons, discounts, free samples, etc.) to their customers who participate in promotions or events on social networking sites. Companies often make important announcements on their products or services on social networking sites. By doing so, customers are encouraged to continue to have relationships with companies on social networking sites and to recommend the companies' presence on social networking sites to other potential customers. Moreover, customers who keep close relationships with companies on social networking sites often provide the companies with valuable suggestions and feedback. For instance, Starbucks has more than 2 million followers on Twitter, and often receive suggestions and feedback for their product offerings and services from the followers on Twitter. Although companies realize potential benefits of using social networking sites as a channel to communicate with their customers, it appears that many companies have difficulty forging long-lasting relationships with customers on social networking sites. It is often reported that many customers who had followed companies on Twitter later stopped following them for various reasons. Therefore, it is an important issue to understand what motivates customers to continue to keep relationships with companies on social networking sites. Nonetheless, due attention has yet paid to this issue until recently. This study intends to contribute to our understanding on customers' intention to continue to follow companies on Twitter and to spread positive word-of-mouth about companies on Twitter. Specifically, we identify seven potential factors that customers perceive as important in evaluating their experience with companies on Twitter. The seven factors include similarity, receptivity, interactivity, ubiquitous connectivity, enjoyment, usefulness and transparency. We posit that the seven perception factors can affect the two types of satisfaction, emotional and cognitive, which can in turn influence on customers' intention to follow companies on Twitter and to spread positive word-of-mouth about companies on Twitter. Research hypotheses formulated in this study were tested with data collected from a questionnaire survey administered to customers who had been following companies on Twitter. The data was analyzed with the partial least square (PLS) approach to structural equation modeling. The results of data analysis based on 177 usable responses were generally supportive of our predictions for the effects of the seven factors identified and the two types of satisfaction. In particular, out results suggest that emotional satisfaction was strongly influenced by perceived similarity, perceived receptivity, perceived enjoyment, and perceived transparency. Cognitive satisfaction was significantly influenced by perceived similarity, perceived interactivity, perceived enjoyment, and perceived transparency. While cognitive satisfaction was found to have significant and positive effects on both continued following and word-of-mouth intentions, emotional satisfaction had a significant and positive effect only on word-of-mouth intention.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.777-787
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• 2020

With the development of the Internet and the spread of mobile devices, the online market is growing rapidly. As the number of customers using online shopping malls explodes, research is being conducted on the analysis of usage behavior from customer data, personalized product recommendations, and service development. Thus, this paper seeks to analyze the overall process of online shopping malls through process mining, and to identify the factors that influence users' purchases. The data used are from a large online shopping mall, and R was the analysis tool. The results show that customer activity was most prominent in categories with event elements, such as unconventional discounts and monthly giveaway events. On the other hand, searches, logins, and campaign activity were found to be less relevant than their importance. Those are very important, because they can provide clues to a customer's information and needs. Therefore, it is necessary to refine the recommendations from related search words, and to manage activity, such as coupons provided when customers log in. In addition to the previous discussion, this paper proposes various business strategies to enhance the competitiveness of online shopping malls and to increase profits.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.809-850
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• 2012

A linkage of emissions trading schemes among Korea, China and Japan demonstrates overall increase in gross domestic product (GDP). However, it also demonstrates reductions in household consumption, and the impact of integration could be very unbalanced between the countries. In particular, the reductions in domestic marginal costs are high in both Korea and Japan. Therefore, household consumptions in the two countries decrease despite increases in GDP because Korea and Japan will be purchasers of emissions rights. China, on the other hand, will experience the opposite. The unbalanced impacts on real household consumptions are intensified when emission credits are allocated via paid auctions instead of free allocation. This was demonstrated to be the case because the circumstances of three countries are intensified when using a paid emissions credit allocation scheme, and their differences could potentially hinder the cooperation between the three countries. Under the free allocation scheme, the emission trading schemes' unbalanced impacts on consumption could be mitigated, but unavoidable negative impacts of free allocation schemes are also serious. Based on the analysis results, Korea, China, and Japan will individually face complicated impacts if their carbon markets are integrated. Although the GDP of three countries will increase as a result of carbon market integration, the benefits of integration will surely be unbalanced, and the three countries will experience negative impacts in terms of actual consumption or employment. In particular, increases in income and consumption, reductions in employment, and energy dependence by credit purchasers (Japan and Korea) and production reduction and possibility of offshoring faced by revenue producing countries (China) could serve as a barrier to carbon market integration. To maximize the positive influences of carbon market integration while reducing the risks of negative side effects, the development and application of complimentary policy tools, such as import duties or discounts for emissions credits, are required.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.1991-2001
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• 2009

This study provides basic information that is needed to build marketing strategies related to consumer brand-switching, through the investigation of consumer motivations for brand-switching, as determined by the types of fashion products. The study was implemented by a descriptive survey method using a questionnaire. The survey was conducted during the period of May $11^{th}$ through July $5^{th}$ 2008. A total of 184 completed responses were analyzed. All respondents were from the Seoul area and between the ages of 20 and 31. Factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha coefficients, one-way ANOVA and Duncan test were employed for the analysis of data. Significant differences were found in brand-switching motives according to the types of fashion products. For clothing, shift behavior occurred more often in conjunction with the attributes of the products itself, such as design, color, price, size, and fiber content. In general, clothes more than shoes, were likely subject to brand-switching most often on the basis of situational factors. On the other hand, for shoes, more brand-switching activities occurred because of non-product attributes, such as discounts, coupons, desire for a change, and wearing of friends. In light of the results, there is a need to differentiate brand related marketing strategies with respect to clothing and shoes. For clothing, efforts focusing on the improvement of the product attributes will be more effective in minimizing brand-switching. There is also a need to improve instructions for increasing the product understanding of salespersons as well as the ability to give advice in accordance with personal consumer characteristics. With regard to shoes, greater efforts should be given to promotional activities, and the desire of consumers for a change in order to prevent brand-switching of customers.