• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.71-81
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• 2017

Purpose - Consumers heuristically have a specific stereotype on the price level of individual retail format because each format provides them with a different level of purchase satisfaction and emotional benefits. However, if price image which is consumers' overall impression of the aggregate price level of a retailer does not match with their expectations, its price level would be perceived as unfair. It will eventually lead to dissatisfaction and decreased revisit intention. Focused on department store and discount store, this study was designed to verify whether the price fairness plays a role of mediating effect on two influential relationships between price image and post-purchase satisfaction, and price image and repatronage intention. Research design, data, and methodology - A main survey was conducted to 140 students and 128 effective responses were used for the related analysis. T-test, factor analysis, reliability test, and mediated regression analysis were performed. Six hypotheses were developed to examine the mediating effect of price fairness on the two influential relationships between price image and post-purchase satisfaction, and price image and repatronage intention. It was also examined whether the price image of two different retail format is formed differently or not. Results - People perceived the price images of the two retail formats differently. Overall price level of department store is much higher than that of discount store. Analysis results showed that price image did not solely have a significant influence on post-purchase satisfaction unless price fairness as a mediating variable is added. Price fairness turned out to be having a significant influence on relationship between price image and repatronage intention. It influences on repatronage intention directly and also via price fairness. Conclusions - Post-purchase satisfaction can be achieved only if people perceive the price image as fair no matter how the price level is high or low according to traits of retail formats. If they think it's not fair, they would disapprove of the rightness for the price image, and also express their dissatisfaction with it. Consumers willingly make repeated visits to a store if they are convinced of appropriate price level which is perceived as fair, and if they experienced a satisfaction with overall benefits a particular store offered.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.30-35
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• 2007

Chinese hotel industry needs to continue consummation. Especially the physical environment direct or the indirect influence to the consumers has not caused the hotel managers enough attention. Chinese hotel industry also lacks to the physical environment whole perception and the understanding. This paper research purposes are: how through that improve the hotel physical hotels. And what's disparities between the Chinese hotel industry in the physical environment and the Western developed country, how needs to improve and so on. Therefore, this paper has mainly studied and analysis the hotel atmosphere, the hotel facility, the hotel cleanliness, the hotel position, customers' overall satisfaction, the repatronage which independent effect, relations and the importance of them in Chinese hotel industry. This paper have made 5 hypotheses to relations of the hotel atmosphere, the hotel facility, the hotel cleanliness, the hotel position and customer's overall satisfaction, the repatronage. We have carried on the questionnaire survey to four hotels, altogether send out to the 250 questionnaires, and have received 202 questionnaires. Through after these analyses, the 1 hypothesis cannot have the data support. Therefore, the conclusions are: the first, the good hotel atmosphere has the positive influence to the consumer overall perception; the second, the higher hotel cleanliness has the positive influence to the consumer overall perception; the third, the convenience hotel position has the positive influence to consumer's perception; the fourth, the consumers' higher overall satisfaction has the positive influence to consumer's repatronage. But the influence of the higher hotel facility to consumers' perception cannot have the enough support from the data.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.61-79
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• 2008

This paper studies on the influence of customers' perceived store crowding, shopping emotions, shopping value, and repatronage intention. The result is as follows. First, human crowding and spatial crowding influence two dimensions of shopping emotions: positive shopping emotions and negative shopping emotions. Especially human crowding influences positively on positive shopping emotions while spatial crowding influence positively on negative shopping emotions, which means that shoppers visiting stores feel negative shopping emotions toward spatial crowding, but that shoppers' crowding in stores can arose positive shopping emotions which intrigue interest and liveliness. Second, positive shopping emotions and negative shopping emotions influence two dimensions of shopping values: hedonic shopping value and utilitarian shopping value. Especially positive shopping emotion influences positively on utilitarian shopping value and hedonic shopping value while negative shopping emotion influence negatively on utilitarian shopping value and hedonic shopping value. Third, the result shows that shoppers' shopping values influences positively on repatronage intention.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.21-28
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• 2012

While recent economic stagnation has left consumers dispirited, rapid growth has been seen in the domestic coffee industry recently. With the growth in coffee consumption, a tremendous increase in the number of specialty coffee shops has been seen in the domestic coffee market. The expectation that markets specializing in coffee will continue to grow for a long time will cause existing enterprises to expand their shops and increase the rate of entry of new shops. Intense competition in the domestic coffee market will force companies to create a competitive advantage through differentiated marketing strategies. This paper focuses on how the shopping value and repatronage intention of customers using coffee shops is affected by service quality. Moreover, this paper intends to examine the service quality that is critical for the successful management of relationships and the values that are important to consumers. For these purposes, the discriminative effect of service quality on shopping value was analyzed and the effect of utilitarian and hedonic value on repatronage intention was reviewed. The results of this study are detailed below. First, interaction and outcome quality can positively affect the hedonic value, whereas environment quality is not meaningful for utilitarian value. Considering the relative effect on utilitarian value outcome, the effect of outcome quality is greater than that of interaction. This result shows that the role of outcome quality is most important for improving utilitarian value. Second, outcome and environment quality positively affect hedonic value; however, interaction quality does not meaningfully increase hedonic value. These results indicate that customers recognize hedonic value on the basis of their evaluation of the service outcomes and the background to delivery service. In particular, it was revealed that the relative effect of outcome quality on hedonic value is greater than that of environment quality. Third, both utilitarian value and hedonic value had a positive effect on repatronage intention. The relative influence of the hedonic value is that the shopping value affects the repatronage intention more than the utilitarian value. These results mean that customers recognize coffee shops as spaces for satisfying utilitarian and hedonic values, and they place more importance on the benefits of the emotional experience than functional needs. Finally, this study suggests that output quality is more important than other service factors, and the results of this paper give some implications to the coffee shop industry that customers seek utilitarian needs based on economic value and place more weight on hedonic value, such as that offered by relationship media.

• The International Journal of Costume Culture
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.15-23
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• 2002

The purpose of the study was to examine how shoppers perceive and are influenced by crowding in apparel retail environment. Because shopping occurs in a spatially defined environment within a relatively short time, both crowding and the consequences of experiencing it are very important to retailers and researchers. The study explores the consequences of retail crowding in terms of shoppers' perception of store image, shopping enjoyment, and repurchase intention across two retail types, department stores and wholesale markets. The result showed that if shoppers perceived lower level of crowding, they perceived more positive store image, and spent more time in department stores. However, interestingly, retail crowding didn't influence store image of wholesale markets. Rather, if shoppers perceived higher level of crowding in wholesale markets, they had higher level of shopping enjoyment and repurchase intention. This can be interpreted as shoppers consider the crowding of retail environment as a token of attractive shopping places in terms of better deals and good quality in case of wholesale markets.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.29-62
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• 2012

As distribution environment is changing rapidly and competition is more intensive in the channel of distribution, the importance of retailer image and retailer equity is increasing as a different competitive advantages. Also, consumers are not functionally oriented and that their behavior is significantly affected by the symbols such as retailer image which identify retailer in the market place. That is, consumers do not choose products or retailers for their material utilities but consume the symbolic meaning of those products or retailers as expressed in their self images. The concept of self-image congruence has been utilized by marketers and researchers as an aid in better understanding how consumers identify themselves with the brands they buy and the retailer they patronize. Although self-image congruity theory has been tested across many product categories, the theory has not been tested extensively in the retailing. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of self image congruence between retailer image and self image of consumer on retailer equity such as retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to find out whether retailer-self image congruence can be a new antecedent of retailer equity. In addition, this study tries to examine how four-dimensional retailer equity constructs (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) affect customers' repatronage intention. For this study, data were gathered by survey and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study was 254. The reliability of the all seven dimensions was estimated with Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability values and average variance extracted values. We determined whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity and discriminant validity by Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted values exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the AMOS 18.0. As expected, the image congruence hypotheses were supported. The greater the degree of congruence between retailer image and self-image, the more favorable were consumers' retailer evaluations. The all two retailer-self image congruence (actual self-image congruence and ideal self-image congruence) affected customer based retailer equity. This result means that retailer-self image congruence is important cue for customers to estimate retailer equity. In other words, consumers are often more likely to prefer products and retail stores that have images similar to their own self-image. Especially, it appeared that effect for the ideal self-image congruence was consistently larger than the actual self-image congruence on the retailer equity. The results mean that consumers prefer or search for stores that have images compatible with consumer's perception of ideal-self. In addition, this study revealed that customers' estimations toward customer based retailer equity affected the repatronage intention. The results showed that all four dimensions (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) had positive effect on the repatronage intention. That is, management and investment to improve image congruence between retailer and consumers' self make customers' positive evaluation of retailer equity, and then the positive customer based retailer equity can enhance the repatonage intention. And to conclude, retailer's image management is an important part of successful retailer performance management, and the retailer-self image congruence is an important antecedent of retailer equity. Therefore, it is more important to develop and improve retailer's image similar to consumers' image. Given the pressure to provide increased image congruence, it is not surprising that retailers have made significant investments in enhancing the fit between retailer image and self image of consumer. The enhancing such self-image congruence may allow marketers to target customers who may be influenced by image appeals in advertising.