• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.237-255
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• 2010

The Korean Pharmacist Law has limited the sales of medicine to pharmacies. This has caused difficulty in purchasing medicine late at night or on holidays, which has limited the range of customers' selections and accelerated customers' discomfort, accordingly. Also, the rapid progress of aging has quickly boosted medical expenses for seniors, and has served as a factor that aggravates the budget of national medical insurance. Meanwhile, advanced countries, including the USA and Japan, have allowed the sales of general medicine, of which the safety and efficacy have been tested, in general retail stores such as convenience stores or super markets from the perspective of supporting self-medication. In particular, Japan, which has a strong tendency of pursuing safety in the world, diversified sales channels for general medicine in order to control quickly rising medical expenses. As a result, Japan has achieved the effect of easing various regulations as follows in the economic and social fields. First, the increasing distribution channels of general medicine from pharmacies to general retail stores provoked a potential demand, which also expanded related markets. Second, the competition between sales channels resulted in the reduction of the price of medicine. Third, the growing sales channels of medicine have extended the options of consumers and, subsequently, the convenience in the use of consumers has increased. Fourth, the creation of a competitive environment owing to the diversification of sales channels has accelerated an effort to enhance corporate competitiveness. Fifth, the foundation of enhancing the financial soundness of medical expenses has been prepared through the formation of a self-medication environment. In 2000, the Korean population aged 65 or over exceeded 7%, and it is anticipated to be over 14% by 2018; thus, the increase of national medical expenses will be sped up. As a way of being prepared for the era of aging, we, just as other advanced countries, need to create a self-treatment environment by diversifying the sellers of general medicine, and, thus, reduce spending on personal medical expenses, enhance the financial soundness of national medical insurance, and, further, promote the welfare of consumers.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2015

Purpose - This is a comparative study of the market development and characteristics of Ulsan in South Korea, Fukuoka in Japan, and Yanji in China, which are major East Sea Rim cities with adjacent areas of similar natural characteristics of the sea and the country. Particularly, it considers these aspects while focusing on the evolution of networks that appear in the distribution system and at the same time examining the institutions of market activation and regulations that are handled by the central and the local government and the changing logistics due to the development of transportation and the concern of food safety, using a meso-analysis approach. Research design, data, and methodology - The study used a historical and comparative approach with a focus on case studies. It made use of various materials such as local newspaper articles, reports, literature, interviews with experts, discussions with local merchants, discussions with customers, and so forth. Results - In the case of Fukuoka, from the 1960s, due to the entry of supermarkets, supermarkets expanded and they have now come to a dominant market position in the current market. They offer a convenient and comfortable environment while providing a large mall offering a variety of educational and cultural activities for customers to meet the customers' needs, such as the preferences of Korean tourists, who appear to prefer Japanese foods. The Fukuoka City Central Wholesale Market has been exporting fruits and vegetables as well as seafood products to Korea, China, and so forth. In the case of Ulsan, as in the early 2000s, due to the expansion of supermarkets, the traditional markets have been shrinking and further, the modernization of traditional markets was conducted under the auspices of the Small Business Administration. In addition to the large discount malls, the expansion of SSM is expected to further drive the small trader bay. Shopping malls, department stores, and traditional markets contend with each other in Yanji, China, but a large number of citizens appear to prefer traditional markets and imported milk in the supermarket after the melamine scandal in China. Recently, the WanYuan (萬源) wholesale market has been partially completed and made an attempt to become a logistics hub in Northeast Asia. Conclusions - For the development of Korea's retail industry, it is important to offer the government with proposals regarding desired regulation. On the other hand, in order to enable the business of traditional markets, it requires an association for cultural tourism. At present, it would be better to provide a venture fund for the youth rather than infrastructure support. This study emphasizes the importance of institutions and policy to develop networks in the East Sea Rim. Future studies should conduct a survey on customers, managers, and merchants more carefully and systematically to understand the market situation while considering the size of the city and its evolution of markets, as well as policies and institutions.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.73-79
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• 2014

Purpose - The Korean government has revised the distribution industry development law to regulate large-scale retailer operations to protecting medium- and small-scale retailers and traditional markets. According to the revised law, large-scale retailers must follow regulations on operating hours and compulsory store closures two days per month. Based on the revised distribution industry development law, most local governments regulate operation hours and they have adopted compulsory closure programs for large-scale retail stores. However, it is argued that fresh food producers suffer from a decrease in sales based on the compulsory closure of stores operated by large-scale retailers. Large-scale retailers reduce their fresh food orders from agricultural and fishery producers because of the compulsory store closures. Fresh food producers also suffer from a decrease in prices because reduced orders lead to a decrease in auction prices based on the availability of excess goods in wholesale markets. This paper investigates the effects of operation regulations for large-scale retailers on agricultural producers by surveying agricultural and fishery producer organizations. Research design, data, methodology - A survey was conducted on 117 producer organizations of fruits and vegetables, cereals, fisheries, and livestock products from September 10 to October 4, 2012. Survey items are annual sales, shares of sales accounted for by large-scale retailers, reduction of orders and prices from large-scale retailers, methods to deal with the sales reduction, unfair trade practices of large-scale retailers, opinion of the large-scale retailer regulations, and so on. The average sales of the sampled producer organizations are 13.7 billion won and the average share of sales accounted for by large-scale retailers is 35.4%. Results - Survey results show that the sample producer organizations' sales decreased 10.1% because of the compulsory closures of stores operated by large-scale retailers. It is estimated that the total sales of producer organizations decreased 371.2 billion won because of the regulations on the operation of large-scale retailers. In addition to the direct effect of a sales decrease due to order reduction, agricultural and fishery producer organizations suffered from the secondary effect of price reduction in wholesale markets. When orders from large-scale retailers decreased, most agricultural and fishery producer organizations shipped redundant products to wholesale markets, decreasing auction prices. It was estimated that the price received decreased 21.9% when sold in other marketing channels. As producer organization sales decreased, it was reported that the labor force employed by producer organizations also decreased by 15.1%. Therefore, we can conclude that the regulations for large-scale retailer operations resulted in negative impacts on agricultural producers. Conclusions - Although the sales reduction due to the regulations for large-scale retailer operations are not great, the cumulative effects due to the continued compulsory closure of stores operated by large-scale retailers could be great. This paper suggests governmental programs that could help agricultural producer organizations to find new and effective marketing channels such as direct marketing, farmers' markets, exports, Internet shopping, and so on.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.127-139
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• 1991

1. The purpose of this study was to recommend ways of more efficient pheasant farm business management and promoting the demand of pheasant foods by reviewing the current pheasant farm business management and the general pattern of consumption of pheasant foods. The study was conducted on the basis of the field survey covering 83 pheasant feeders and 283 consumers. 2. Majority of pheasant feeders, 86.8%(n=72), utilized broiler feed for pheasant rearing because of high price of exclusive pheasant feed. 3. In case of producing 1,000 heads of 5 month-old pheasant, the primary production cost per head was roughly calculated at about 5,530 Won. And 40.3% of primary production cost was consisted of feed cost and 12.9% was depreciation cost for facillities including artificial incubator equipments. 4. 81.1%(n=51) of whole surveyed feeders disposed of 1-4 week-old birds directly to the new feeders and 6%(n=6) sold them to the middlemen who were almost pioneering pheasant feeders. 5. 48.9%(n=138) of the surveyed consumer respondents have taken the pheasant foods once and several times, and the others never once. And 50.6%(n=69) of the respondents who had taken the pheasant foods were satisfied with the tastes. 6. The surveyed consumers were asked whether they knew the nutritional value of pheasant foods and 47.3(n=136) recognized it positively and 37.5%(n=106) negatively. 7. To increase the pheasant farm income and promote the demand of pheasant foods. followings are recommended. - Production cost should be reduced by cooperative utilization of facilities and equipments at farm level, and exclusive pheasant feed of good quility should be developed and supplied to the feeders at a low price. - Pheasant marketing and pricing system should be improved to prevent consumers from price disorder of retail shop including pheasant food reataurants and to popularize the pheasant foods. - Various type of menu of pheasant foods should be developed not only to satisfy consumers in tastes but also to solve the seasonality of pheasant supply. But it is preferable that this action is led by pheasant feeders and their cooperative organization, espectially through vertical intergration system owned by pheasant feeders. - Generic, pioneering advertisement and promotion should be carried out to promote primary demend of pheasant foods. It would be preferable that these primary demend advertising and promoting activities shuld be sponsored by pheasant feeders and government together. And their activities should be supported by institutional regulation.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.93-99
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• 2015

Purpose - It has been argued that the regulations restricting entry and opening hours of General Super Markets and Super Super Markets have not been as effective as expected. In contrast, the win-win item scheme that appeared recently has the advantage that it could raise the effectiveness of the system in that win-win items are in principle resigned on the basis of bilateral agreements. This study analyzes the win-win item agreement made between Homeplus at Hap-jung and small traditional markets to examine the practical effectiveness of the win-win item scheme. While existing literature studying the regulatory effects have concentrated on the restrictions around store entry or opening hours of large retailers, it can be said that there have been few empirical studies on the effect of win-win items agreement with large retailers. Research design, data, and methodology - Homeplus at Hap-jung made a win-win items agreement with nearby small traditional market traders in 2013. In accordance with this voluntary agreement, Homeplus started by limiting its sales to 15 win-win items. The survey was conducted through one-on-one interviews, April 14 to May 2, 2014, by a professional public opinion research agency. The interviews were targeted at small business retailers in the nearby traditional market. We divided the traditional markets near Homeplus at Hap-jung where the win-win item agreement was achieved into two groups, win-win item agreement markets and non win-win item agreement markets, to compare the performance difference between the two groups. Results - To determine the change in sales of the 15 win-win items, we examined the performance difference between the two groups using two criteria (compared with similar items, and compared to sales volume a year ago). The results show that the individual sales of win-win items in the win-win item agreement markets are more likely to increase than in the non win-win item agreement markets. Total sales volume of individual stores in the agreement markets also showed a more significant increase compared to a year ago than those in non win-win item agreement markets. Conclusions - Contrary to the existing retail regulations that have one-sided and uniform characteristics, it can be pointed out that the win-win item scheme has the effect of increasing the success of the system itself because it is done on the basis of mutual agreement between General Super Markets and traditional markets. The empirical results of this study can be said to support this conjecture. For the successful settlement of a win-win items agreement, the following points should be reviewed. First, it requires a great effort from the selection process of win-win items in order to improve the effectiveness of the agreement. Second, the existing General Super Markets customers should be introduced to the traditional markets or small shops to increase the sales of win-win items. Therefore, voluntary effort is essentially required from the traditional markets to engage customers.

• Journal of forensic and investigative science
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.5-19
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• 2006

Data mining is an information extraction activity to discover hidden facts contained in databases. Using a combination of machine learning, statistical analysis, modeling techniques and database technology, data mining finds patterns and subtle relationships in data and infers rules that allow the prediction of future results. Typical applications include market segmentation, customer profiling, fraud detection, evaluation of retail promotions, and credit risk analysis. Law enforcement agencies deal with mass data to investigate the crime and its amount is increasing due to the development of processing the data by using computer. Now new challenge to discover knowledge in that data is confronted to us. It can be applied in criminal investigation to find offenders by analysis of complex and relational data structures and free texts using their criminal records or statement texts. This study was aimed to evaluate possibile application of data mining and its limitation in practical criminal investigation. Clustering of the criminal cases will be possible in habitual crimes such as fraud and burglary when using data mining to identify the crime pattern. Neural network modelling, one of tools in data mining, can be applied to differentiating suspect's photograph or handwriting with that of convict or criminal profiling. A case study of in practical insurance fraud showed that data mining was useful in organized crimes such as gang, terrorism and money laundering. But the products of data mining in criminal investigation should be cautious for evaluating because data mining just offer a clue instead of conclusion. The legal regulation is needed to control the abuse of law enforcement agencies and to protect personal privacy or human rights.