• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.227-243
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• 2014

Vietnam has a population of about 1% of the current annual growth rate of young population is more than half of the total population has the potential to be a total purchase. Vietnam as consumers to choose Korea cosmetics, attach importance to quality, reliability, origin and prefer excellent to high quality, functional and be relieved as the brand of the developed countries. Korean cosmetics are getting very popular and it is among the five largest exporter of cosmetics to Vietnam and raising the name proudly in current. In this study, the north of Vietnam (Ha noi, Bac Ninh, Hai Duong, Hai Phong, Phu Tho), a resident of 20-60 as consumers. Survey research method has adopted the Internet and Survey period was from September 2013 to May 2014 was performed. As a result, the total 163 respondents was obtained. The study provides useful information for people hopes to advance through the Vietnam or companies, entered the cosmetics.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.387-395
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• 2015

This study analyzed the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) of purchase behaviors and attributes for Hangwa. The data for this study were collected over 10 days from April 10 through April 19, 2013. For empirical research, married women over the age of 20 in Gwangju with buying experience of Hangwa were surveyed. A total of 172 questionnaires were completed and statistically analyzed by SPSS 18.0 package. Analysis rate was 96.6%. To review Hangwa purchase behaviors, most respondents bought Hangwa four or five times per year for memorial services or ancestral rites. Respondents bought Hangwa at big supermarkets and the types of Hangwa bought were Yukwa and Yakgwa. Their average expenses were 20,000 to 30,000 won per purchase. Among purchase attributes of Hangwa, respondents considered the importance of 'sanitation' (4.76 points) a top priority, followed by 'origin' (4.75 points), 'quality' (4.74 points), 'taste' (4.57 points) and 'appearance' (3.82 points). However in the case of satisfaction, 'sanitation' (3.85 points) was the most satisfying aspect, followed by 'package' (3.82 points), 'amount' (3.80 points), 'appearance' (3.51 points) and 'taste' (3.41 points). According to the IPA results, 'quality' and 'origin' purchase attributes, should be quickly improved. 'Sanitation' and 'taste' should be maintained. This survey found that satisfaction levels for Hangwa purchase attributes had a significant influence on overall satisfaction (F=29.11, p<.001), and especially 'taste' ($\beta$=.42, t=6.69, p<.001) had a meaningful effect on overall satisfaction. In addition, satisfaction levels for Hangwa purchase attributes affected repurchase intention (F=20.05, p<.001). From these results, Hangwa manufacturers should make efforts in product development to induce customers satisfaction and repurchase intention.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.203-216
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to investigate the preference of Korean traditional food and kimchi among different age groups in order to find a way to increase kimchi consumption. For this study, data from 15 male respondents(5.2%) and 271 female respondents(94.8%) was used. Age distribution of total respondents were in their 20's(21.8%), 30's(32.7%), 40's(32.7%) and 50's(11.6%), which showed the rate of 40's was very high. Most of the groups showed similar rates over the question on "have to eat kimchi" and "don't need to eat kimchi", but the elders' preference was high while the youngers' was relatively low. Therefore, the preference of kimchi has a small gap between the age groups, but all of them like kimchi in general.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.459-464
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• 2017

This study aims to provide basic materials for marketing strategies of cosmeceuticals by investigating customers' recognition and satisfaction about cosmeceuticals targeting 161 adult men and women in their 20s to 50s and living in Seoul, Korea and then analyzing what should be improved for customers. According to the survey, many customers prefer cosmeceuticals due to the professionalism recognized by hospitals, the recommendation by doctors and the scientific image, though the recognition about cosmeceuticals is low among customers in their 40s or older because they are unfamiliar with the term. The survey also shows that the satisfaction about cosmeceuticals is very high in that 94.41% out of 49.85% total users said they were willing to repurchase them, while 72.22% out of 50.15% total nonusers said they wanted to purchase them. The greater knowledge about skin, the higher the interest in cosmetics and the aesthetic practice rate. When it comes to comparing cosmeceutical users and nonusers in choosing cosmetic products, the greater knowledge about skin, more nonusers consider brand recognition (r=.222, p<.05) and cosmetic ingredient (r=.245, p<.005); and more users convenience (r=.162, p<.05). Now that total customers' awareness of cosmeceuticals remains low yet, therefore, it is considered necessary to steadily promote them, enhance repurchase factors, and come up with strategies differentiated from ordinary cosmetics.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.27-57
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• 2004

Studies on brand loyalty have been classified into two approaches; the behavioral approach and the attitudinal approach. The main topics of both approaches have been customers' loyal or nonloyal attitude toward brands and the rate of repurchase generating process. However, previous research has overlooked dynamic and in-depth aspects of brand loyalty. With a qualitative research perspective, the present study adds insight to the current research on brand loyalty, concerning the disregarded aspects of brand, based on phenomenological interviews. On the foundation of consumer-brand relationship types suggested by Fournier(1998), this study examines various kinds of relationship types between Korean consumers and their preferred beer brands. Findings show different aspects and dynamic essence of brand loyalty through the analysis of these relationships. Moreover, a variety of sources of brand loyalty were identified. It was concluded that "actual" brand loyalty and "apparent" brand loyalty may not coincide at all times. In addition, consumers' life events and life themes were identified as important determinants of brand loyalty.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.63-72
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• 2018

Purpose - This work analyzes, in detail, the specification of vector error correction model (VECM) and thus examines the relationships and impact among seven economic variables for USA - balance on current account (BCA), index of stock (STOCK), gross domestic product (GDP), housing price indices (HOUSING), a measure of the money supply that includes total currency as well as large time deposits, institutional money market funds, short-term repurchase agreements and other larger liquid assets (M3), real rate of interest (IR_REAL) and household credits (LOAN). In particular, we search for the main explanatory variables that have an effect on stock and real estate market, respectively and investigate the causal and dynamic associations between them. Research design, data, and methodology - We perform the time series vector error correction model to infer the dynamic relationships among seven variables above. This work employs the conventional augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) unit root techniques to test for stationarity among seven variables under consideration, and Johansen cointegration test to specify the order or the number of cointegration relationship. Granger causality test is exploited to inspect for causal relationship and, at the same time, impulse response function and variance decomposition analysis are checked for both short-run and long-run association among the seven variables by EViews 9.0. The underlying model was analyzed by using 108 realizations from Q1 1990 to Q4 2016 for USA. Results - The results show that all the seven variables for USA have one unit root and they are cointegrated with at most five and three cointegrating equation for USA. The vector error correction model expresses a long-run relationship among variables. Both IR_REAL and M3 may influence real estate market, and GDP does stock market in USA. On the other hand, GDP, IR_REAL, M3, STOCK and LOAN may be considered as causal factors to affect real estate market. Conclusions - The findings indicate that both stock market and real estate market can be modelled as vector error correction specification for USA. In addition, we can detect causal relationships among variables and compare dynamic differences between countries in terms of stock market and real estate market.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.31-42
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• 2014

Purpose - Recently, a variety of activities for practicing the continuing management of domestic and foreign companies have been conducted and further, corporate social responsibility for maximizing the value of stakeholders such as customers, cooperative companies, and the local community emerges as a key business strategy. Accordingly, the issue of whether corporate image and customer value through corporate social responsibility activities positively affect customer loyalty and customer attitude is investigated in this study. Research design, data, and methodology - Corporate social responsibility activities are classified into legal and moral activities, environmental protection activities, economic activities, and community service activities; further, customer values are classified into emotional value, functional value, and social value, to determine the parameters. In addition, the strategic approach direction of social responsibility activities is justified as a strategy for effectively achieving the expected results that corporations seek by proving the effect of these parameters on customer loyalty. Results - The study results can be summarized as follows. First, legal and moral activities, environmental protection activities, economic activities, and community service activities are four types of CSR activities affecting meaningful improvements in corporate image. Second, legal and moral activities affect factors that meaningfully improve customer value, including factors such as emotional value, functional value, and social value, while environmental protection activities affect improvements in the factor of social value only. Third, corporate image affects meaningful improvements in customer value. Fourth, corporate image affects improvements in customer loyalty positively. Fifth, the three factors of customer value, that is, emotional value, functional value, and social value affect meaningful improvements in customer loyalty. Sixth, customer value acts to partly mediate the effect of companies' CSR activities on customer loyalty. As shown in the study results above, it was verified that CSR activities affect meaningful improvements in corporate image and customer value and, in turn, corporate image and customer value affect meaningful improvements in customer loyalty. In addition, it was verified that customer value acts to partly mediate the effects of companies' CSR activities on customer value. Conclusions - Accordingly, the results of this study suggests as follows. First, it was clearly verified that customers' recognition of CSR efforts has a positive effect on corporate image, customer value, and loyalty because CSR activities improve the relationships between customers and corporations by providing customers with value. Second, it was suggested that corporations implement social contribution activities strategically according to the theory that the higher the rate of CSR activities, the better the corporate image and repurchase intention would be, which is a theory verified through practical analysis. Corporations should do this by constructing positive relationships from the value perceived by customers. To summarize the study results in a brief manner, it is suggested by the results of the study that a corporation should conduct CSR more actively to make customers recognize the positive image of their products and services.

• FLOWER RESEARCH JOURNAL
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.209-215
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• 2018

The survey conducted with 120 florists in Korean domestic flower shops to investigate the use and awareness of floral preservatives in Korea. As a result, only 19.8% of the domestic florists use floral preservatives frequently in their shops, whereas 45.5% do not use them at all, suggesting very low use frequency. Korean domestic florists considered the use of floral preservatives mostly for storing cut flowers to preventing bacteria growth. For the reasons not to use floral preservatives, 51.4% of the Korean domestic florists did not value its usefulness, showing a lack of awareness of floral preservatives. However, 44.2% of the florists who had the experience with floral preservatives satisfied with the effect of floral preservatives, and 49.5% of the respondents positively answered to recommend floral preservatives to others. General awareness on floral preservatives among Korean domestic florists was positive. 50.5% of the florists with the experience with the floral preservative had the high intention to re-purchase the flower preservatives. The low use frequency and lack of recognition of floral preservatives in Korea were likely due to very few floral preservative brands and little advertising. However, the high satisfaction level and repurchase intention rate shown by the florists indicates that increasing advertising and education for the floral preservatives would improve the accessibility and awareness of the products and their effects increasing the opportunity to use floral preservatives among Korean domestic florists, further enhancing consumers' satisfaction by improving the cut flower quality and its vase life.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.269-277
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• 2010

Previous studies have shown that the most important factor affecting customer loyalty in the service industry is service quality. However, on the subject of whether service quality has a direct or indirect effect on customer loyalty, scholars' views apparently vary. Some studies suggest that service quality has a direct and fundamental influence on customer loyalty (Bai and Liu, 2002). However, others have shown that service quality not only directly affects customer loyalty, it also has an indirect impact on customer loyalty by influencing customer satisfaction and perceived value (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000). Currently, there are few domestic articles that specifically address the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry. Moreover, research has studied customer loyalty as a whole variable, rather than breaking it down further into multiple dimensions. Based on this analysis, this paper summarizes previous study results, establishes an effect mechanism model among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry, and presents a statistical test on model assumptions by using customer investigation data from Heilongjiang Mobile Company. It provides theoretical guidance for mobile service management based on the discussion of the hypothesis test results. For data collection, the sample comprised mobile users in Harbin city, and the survey was taken by random sampling. Out of a total of 300 questionnaires, 276 (92.9%) were recovered. After excluding invalid questionnaires, 249 remained, for an effective rate of 82.6 percent for the study. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficient was adapted to assess the scale reliability, and validity testing was conducted on the questionnaire from three aspects: content validity, construct validity. and convergent validity. The study tested for goodness of fit mainly from the absolute and relative fit indexes. From the hypothesis testing results, overall, four assumptions have not been supported. The ultimate affective relationship of service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty is demonstrated in Figure 2. On the whole, the service quality of the communication industry not only has a direct positive significant effect on customer loyalty, it also has an indirect positive significant effect on customer loyalty through service quality; the affective mechanism and extent of customer loyalty are different, and are influenced by each dimension of service quality. This study used the questionnaires of existing literature from home and abroad and tested them in empirical research, with all questions adapted to seven-point Likert scales. With the SERVQUAL scale of Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988), or PZB, as a reference point, service quality was divided into five dimensions-tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy-and the questions were simplified down to nineteen. The measurement of customer satisfaction was based mainly on Fornell (1992) and Wang and Han (2003), ending up with four questions. Based on the study’s three indicators of price tolerance, first choice, and complaint reaction were used to measure attitudinal loyalty, while repurchase intention, recommendation, and reputation measured behavioral loyalty. The collection and collation of literature data produced a model of the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in mobile communications, and China Mobile in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province was used for conducting an empirical test of the model and obtaining some useful conclusions. First, service quality in mobile communication is formed by the five factors mentioned earlier: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. On the basis of PZB SERVQUAL, the study designed a measurement scale of service quality for the mobile communications industry, and obtained these five factors through exploratory factor analysis. The factors fit basically with the five elements, indicating the concept of five elements of service quality for the mobile communications industry. Second, service quality in mobile communications has both direct and indirect positive effects on attitudinal loyalty, with the indirect effect being produced through the intermediary variable, customer satisfaction. There are also both direct and indirect positive effects on behavioral loyalty, with the indirect effect produced through two intermediary variables: customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. This shows that better service quality and higher customer satisfaction will activate the attitudinal to service providers more active and show loyalty to service providers much easier. In addition, the effect mechanism of all dimensions of service quality on all dimensions of customer loyalty is different. Third, customer satisfaction plays a significant intermediary role among service quality and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, indicating that improving service quality can boost customer satisfaction and make it easier for satisfied customers to become loyal customers. Moreover, attitudinal loyalty plays a significant intermediary role between service quality and behavioral loyalty, indicating that only attitudinally and behaviorally loyal customers are truly loyal customers. The research conclusions have some indications for Chinese telecom operators and others to upgrade their service quality. Two limitations to the study are also mentioned. First, all data were collected in the Heilongjiang area, so there might be a common method bias that skews the results. Second, the discussion addresses the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty, setting customer satisfaction as mediator, but does not consider other factors, like customer value and consumer features, This research will be continued in the future.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.33-58
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• 2008

Previous research has presupposed that the evaluation of consumer who received any recovery after experiencing product failure should be better than the evaluation of consumer who did not receive any recovery. The major purposes of this article are to examine impacts of product defect failures rather than service failures, and to explore effects of recovery on postrecovery product attitudes. First, this article deals with the occurrence of severe and unsevere failure and corresponding service recovery toward tangible products rather than intangible services. Contrary to intangible services, purchase and usage are separable for tangible products. This difference makes it clear that executing an recovery strategy toward tangible products is not plausible right after consumers find out product failures. The consumers may think about backgrounds and causes for the unpleasant events during the time gap between product failure and recovery. The deliberation may dilutes positive effects of recovery efforts. The recovery strategies which are provided to consumers experiencing product failures can be classified into three types. A recovery strategy can be implemented to provide consumers with a new product replacing the old defective product, a complimentary product for free, a discount at the time of the failure incident, or a coupon that can be used on the next visit. This strategy is defined as "a rewarding effort." Meanwhile a product failure may arise in exchange for its benefit. Then the product provider can suggest a detail explanation that the defect is hard to escape since it relates highly to the specific advantage to the product. The strategy may be called as "a strengthening effort." Another possible strategy is to recover negative attitude toward own brand by giving prominence to the disadvantages of a competing brand rather than the advantages of its own brand. The strategy is reflected as "a weakening effort." This paper emphasizes that, in order to confirm its effectiveness, a recovery strategy should be compared to being nothing done in response to the product failure. So the three types of recovery efforts is discussed in comparison to the situation involving no recovery effort. The strengthening strategy is to claim high relatedness of the product failure with another advantage, and expects the two-sidedness to ease consumers' complaints. The weakening strategy is to emphasize non-aversiveness of product failure, even if consumers choose another competitive brand. The two strategies can be effective in restoring to the original state, by providing plausible motives to accept the condition of product failure or by informing consumers of non-responsibility in the failure case. However the two may be less effective strategies than the rewarding strategy, since it tries to take care of the rehabilitation needs of consumers. Especially, the relative effect between the strengthening effort and the weakening effort may differ in terms of the severity of the product failure. A consumer who realizes a highly severe failure is likely to attach importance to the property which caused the failure. This implies that the strengthening effort would be less effective under the condition of high product severity. Meanwhile, the failing property is not diagnostic information in the condition of low failure severity. Consumers would not pay attention to non-diagnostic information, and with which they are not likely to change their attitudes. This implies that the strengthening effort would be more effective under the condition of low product severity. A 2 (product failure severity: high or low) X 4 (recovery strategies: rewarding, strengthening, weakening, or doing nothing) between-subjects design was employed. The particular levels of product failure severity and the types of recovery strategies were determined after a series of expert interviews. The dependent variable was product attitude after the recovery effort was provided. Subjects were 284 consumers who had an experience of cosmetics. Subjects were first given a product failure scenario and were asked to rate the comprehensibility of the failure scenario, the probability of raising complaints against the failure, and the subjective severity of the failure. After a recovery scenario was presented, its comprehensibility and overall evaluation were measured. The subjects assigned to the condition of no recovery effort were exposed to a short news article on the cosmetic industry. Next, subjects answered filler questions: 42 items of the need for cognitive closure and 16 items of need-to-evaluate. In the succeeding page a subject's product attitude was measured on an five-item, six-point scale, and a subject's repurchase intention on an three-item, six-point scale. After demographic variables of age and sex were asked, ten items of the subject's objective knowledge was checked. The results showed that the subjects formed more favorable evaluations after receiving rewarding efforts than after receiving either strengthening or weakening efforts. This is consistent with Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky (1995) in that a tangible service recovery could be more effective that intangible efforts. Strengthening and weakening efforts also were effective compared to no recovery effort. So we found that generally any recovery increased products attitudes. The results hint us that a recovery strategy such as strengthening or weakening efforts, although it does not contain a specific reward, may have an effect on consumers experiencing severe unsatisfaction and strong complaint. Meanwhile, strengthening and weakening efforts were not expected to increase product attitudes under the condition of low severity of product failure. We can conclude that only a physical recovery effort may be recognized favorably as a firm's willingness to recover its fault by consumers experiencing low involvements. Results of the present experiment are explained in terms of the attribution theory. This article has a limitation that it utilized fictitious scenarios. Future research deserves to test a realistic effect of recovery for actual consumers. Recovery involves a direct, firsthand experience of ex-users. Recovery does not apply to non-users. The experience of receiving recovery efforts can be relatively more salient and accessible for the ex-users than for non-users. A recovery effort might be more likely to improve product attitude for the ex-users than for non-users. Also the present experiment did not include consumers who did not have an experience of the products and who did not perceive the occurrence of product failure. For the non-users and the ignorant consumers, the recovery efforts might lead to decreased product attitude and purchase intention. This is because the recovery trials may give an opportunity for them to notice the product failure.