• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.117-141
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• 2006

Daily sales volume in retailers seems to be changed because of five-days-work in a week resulting in growth of leisure time in Korea recently. The day of the week effect of sales volume that can not be theoretically explained, which sales pattern varies depending on days systematically and consistently, is so important. Especially the day of the week effect of sales volume exists in which retail branch and the extents of the day of the week effect from the perspective of marketing in retailing is very important. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether the day of the week effect of sales volume exists in men's clothing retailers and if so, there is difference in daily sales volume. There was insufficient researches in the field of anomaly such as the day of the week effect of sales volume in marketing. For this reason, this study has drawn upon research findings of finance, general demand theory, and previous studies of the day of the week effect in stock markets. In doing so, these works are referenced in theoretical background and applicability in retailing market of this study. This study empirically investigated the day of the week effect of sales volume through the revenues of a men's clothing retailers (P company) in past five years. As the result of this study, the day of the week effect of sales volume existed in men's clothing retailers and the day of the week effect showed positive from Monday to Sunday, which means Sunday, the biggest. Also, the day of the week effect by season was different. The result of this study is expected to provide some helpful evidence that offers effective operational strategies to retailers.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.309-318
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• 2018

In this study, we investigated subjective perceptions of one retailer's PB products for large retailers by applying the Q methodology to examine subjective trends of consumers who purchased and experienced PB products at home. In this study, we examine how HMR-type PB products developed and released by large retailers according to the demographically changing social structure represent the meaning and subjective acceptance of PB products in a single licensee through Q methodological studies. The purpose of this paper is to propose various direction and improvement plan of food product development and release for one license of large distribution company in the future. Based on these research problems, five types of type analysis results were derived. Specifically, the first type (N = 5): Brand image trust type, the second type (N = 5): NB product preference type, the third type(N = 2): Easy cooking preference type, and fourth type (N = 2): Pursuing taste for price type and fifth type (N = 2): Quantitative pursuit for price type.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1-32
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• 2011

I. Introduction: In Chinese electronics industry, the local wholesalers are still dominant but power is rapidly swifting from wholesalers to retailers because in recent foreign big retailers and local mass merchandisers are growing fast. During such transient period, conflicts among channel members emerge important issues. For example, when wholesalers who have more power exercise influence strategies to maintain status, conflicts among manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer will be intensified. Korean electronics companies in China need differentiated channel strategies by dealing with wholesalers and retailers simultaneously to sell more Korean products in competition with foreign firms. For example, Korean electronics firms should utilize 'guanxi' or relational quality to form long-term relationships with whloesalers instead of power and conflict issues. The major purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of conflict, dependency, and influence strategies between local Korean-products-selling retailers and wholesalers on performance in Chinese electronics distribution channels. In particular, this paper proposes effective distribution strategies for Korean electronics companies in China by analyzing moderating effects of 'Guanxi'. II. Literature Review and Hypotheses: The specific purposes of this study are as follows. First, causes of conflicts between local Korean-products-selling retailers and wholesalers are examined from the perspectives of goal incongruence and role ambiguity and then effects of these causes are found out on perceived conflicts of local retailers. Second, the effects of dependency of local retailers upon wholesalers are investigated on local retailers' perceived conflicts. Third, the effects of non-coercive influence strategies such as information exchange and recommendation and coercive strategies such as threats and legalistic pleas exercised by wholesalers are explored on perceived conflicts by local retailers. Fourth, the effects of level of conflicts perceived by local retailers are verified on local retailers' financial performance and satisfaction. Fifth, moderating effects of relational qualities, say, 'quanxi' between wholesalers and retailers are analyzed on the impact of wholesalers' influence strategies on retailers' performances. Finally, moderating effects of relational qualities are examined on the relationship between conflicts and performance. To accomplish above-mentioned research objectives, Figure 1 and the following research hypotheses are proposed and verified. III. Measurement and Data Analysis: To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 97 retailers who are selling Korean electronic products located around Central and Southern regions in China. Covariance analysis and moderated regression analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. IV. Conclusion: The following results were drawn using structural equation modeling and hierarchical moderated regression. First, goal incongruence perceived by local retailers significantly affected conflict but role ambiguity did not. Second, consistent with conflict spiral theory, the level of conflict decreased when retailers' dependency increased toward wholesalers. Third, noncoercive influence strategies such as information exchange and recommendation implemented by wholesalers had significant effects on retailers' performance such as sales and satisfaction without conflict. On the other hand, coercive influence strategies such as threat and legalistic plea had insignificant effects on performance in spite of increasing the level of conflict. Fourth, 'guanxi', namely, relational quality between local retailers and wholesalers showed unique effects on performance. In case of noncoercive influence strategies, 'guanxi' did not play a role of moderator. Rather, relational quality and noncoercive influence strategies can serve as independent variables to enhance performance. On the other hand, when 'guanxi' was well built due to mutual trust and commitment, relational quality as a moderator can positively function to improve performance even though hostile, coercive influence strategies were implemented. Fifth, 'guanxi' significantly moderated the effects of conflict on performance. Even if conflict arises, local retailers who form solid relational quality can increase performance by dealing with dysfunctional conflict synergistically compared with low 'quanxi' retailers. In conclusion, this study verified the importance of relational quality via 'quanxi' between local retailers and wholesalers in Chinese electronic industry because relational quality could cross out the adverse effects of coercive influence strategies and conflict on performance.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.71-99
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• 2010

Most of studies on patriotism in the marketing area have focused on ethnocentric tendencies observed in consumption behaviors. On the contrary, there have been few empirical studies on how patriotism in the general sense, indicating affection for, attachment to, and pride in the country, influences consumers' evaluation of domestic and foreign products. Given the current situation that marketing activities appealing to people's patriotism is increasing, this is somewhat surprising. Thus, this study examined empirically how patriotism influences people's evaluation of domestic and foreign products. In addition, we tested whether consumer ethnocentrism works as an intervening variable in the relation between patriotism and product evaluation. The empirical analysis was conducted through a questionnaire survey of undergraduate and graduate students at universities in Seoul. The survey asked about the respondents' patriotism, consumer ethnocentrism, domestic product evaluation, foreign product evaluation, and demographical characteristics. In foreign product evaluation, the respondents were requested to evaluate Chinese and Japanese products. Email was used to send and recover the questionnaires, and 135 replies were used in the analysis. Major findings from the empirical analysis are as follows. First, a significant relationship was observed between patriotism and domestic product evaluation. That is, patriotic participants evaluated domestic products more favorably. On the other hand, no significant relationship was observed between patriotism and foreign product evaluation(See Table 1-1 and 1-2). Next, the effect of patriotism on domestic product evaluation was mediated by consumer ethnocentrism. However, whether the effect of patriotism on domestic product evaluation is mediated by consumer ethnocentrism partially or fully was different according to product(See Table 2-1 and 2-2). Lastly, we tried to analyze the relation between consumer ethnocentrism and product evaluation and comparing the results with findings of previous researches. According to the results, a significant relationship was observed between consumer ethnocentrism and domestic product evaluation but not between consumer ethnocentrism and foreign product evaluation. The meanings of this study are as follows. First, there have been few marketing studies that investigated the relation between patriotism and product evaluation. Thus, this study is meaningful in that it supplemented the limitation of previous research. Second, consumer ethnocentrism was found to mediate the relation between patriotism and domestic product evaluation. Considering the absence of previous research that examined the role of consumer ethnocentrism as an intervening variable, this study is significant in that it expanded the scope of research on consumer ethnocentrism. Third, from the practical aspect, the results of this study suggest that marketing appealing to patriotism is effective in stimulating consumers' purchase and consumption of domestic products. Accordingly, such a marketing strategy is expected to be effective in protecting domestic markets from imported goods and overseas brands and to increase demands for domestic products and brands. However, there is the question of whether the effect of patriotism based marketing strategies in promoting demand for domestic products would persist. That is, this study could not find a significant relation between patriotism and foreign product evaluation, and this means that the increase in patriotism for the home country does not damage people's view to the quality of foreign products negatively. Accordingly, without change in people's perception of foreign products, it is highly likely that the increase in demand for domestic products or brands induced by patriotism elevated at a specific time or situation may not last long. Fourth, the results of this study suggest that the patriotism level may influence consumers' choice behavior toward retailers strongly connected to a specific country or region. That is, consumers with high level patriotism may hesitate or avoid using a retailer associated with some foreign country. Fifth, according to the results of this study, when people's patriotism is stimulated by a specific social situation or event, it can be an opportunity for domestic franchise brands to increase their market performance such as sales and market share and, at the same time, for foreign franchise brands to experience adversities. Therefore, during a period like the Olympic Games or the World Cup when people's sense of belonging or attachment to their country is heightened, domestic franchise brands need to make marketing activities that may lead market opportunities to substantial results and foreign franchise brands to cope with such adversities. Sixth, consumers' brand choice is often made in retail stores. It has been demonstrated by numerous studies that in store stimuli such as point of purchase display can affect consumers' behavior. Considering this, domestic brands facing competition with foreign brands should make continuous efforts to enhance the market performance of their products through developing in store stimuli that can stimulate consumers' patriotism. Finally, based on the major findings of this study, both academic and practical issues were discussed. Suggestions for future studies were provided.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.63-92
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• 2012

This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective responses. Information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) emotional state model in the present study as a conceptual framework. The results of an online survey of 335 mobile phone users in the U.S. indicated the positive effects of arousal and information relevancy on pleasure. In addition, there was a significant relationship between pleasure and intention to use a LBMSS. However, the relationship between dominance and pleasure was not statistically significant. The results of the present study provides insight to retailers and marketers as to what factors they need to consider to implement location-based mobile shopping services to improve their business performance. Extended Abstract : Location aware technology has expanded the marketer's reach by reducing space and time between a consumer's receipt of advertising and purchase, offering real-time information and coupons to consumers in purchasing situations (Dickenger and Kleijnen, 2008; Malhotra and Malhotra, 2009). LBMSS increases the relevancy of SMS marketing by linking advertisements to a user's location (Bamba and Barnes, 2007; Malhotra and Malhotra, 2009). This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective response. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship among information relevancy and affective variables and their effects on intention to use LBMSS. Thus, information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) model and generated the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1. There will be a positive influence of arousal concerning LBMSS on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 2. There will be a positive influence of dominance in LBMSS on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 3. There will be a positive influence of information relevancy on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 4. There will be a positive influence of pleasure about LBMSS on intention to use LBMSS. E-mail invitations were sent out to a randomly selected sample of three thousand consumers who are older than 18 years old and mobile phone owners, acquired from an independent marketing research company. An online survey technique was employed utilizing Dillman's (2000) online survey method and follow-ups. A total of 335 valid responses were used for the data analysis in the present study. Before the respondents answer any of the questions, they were told to read a document describing LBMSS. The document included definitions and examples of LBMSS provided by various service providers. After that, they were exposed to a scenario describing the participant as taking a saturday shopping trip to a mall and then receiving a short message from the mall. The short message included new product information and coupons for same day use at participating stores. They then completed a questionnaire containing various questions. To assess arousal, dominance, and pleasure, we adapted and modified scales used in the previous studies in the context of location-based mobile shopping service, each of the five items from Mehrabian and Russell (1974). A total of 15 items were measured on a seven-point bipolar scale. To measure information relevancy, four items were borrowed from Mason et al. (1995). Intention to use LBMSS was captured using two items developed by Blackwell, and Miniard (1995) and one items developed by the authors. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS 19.0 and LISREL 8.72. A total of usable 335 data were obtained after deleting the incomplete responses, which results in a response rate of 11.20%. A little over half of the respondents were male (53.9%) and approximately 60% of respondents were married (57.4%). The mean age of the sample was 29.44 years with a range from 19 to 60 years. In terms of the ethnicity there were European Americans (54.5%), Hispanic American (5.3%), African-American (3.6%), and Asian American (2.9%), respectively. The respondents were highly educated; close to 62.5% of participants in the study reported holding a college degree or its equivalent and 14.5% of the participants had graduate degree. The sample represents all income categories: less than $24,999 (10.8%), $25,000-$49,999 (28.34%), $50,000-$74,999 (13.8%), and $75,000 or more (10.23%). The respondents of the study indicated that they were employed in many occupations. Responses came from all 42 states in the U.S. To identify the dimensions of research constructs, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using a varimax rotation was conducted. As indicated in table 1, these dimensions: arousal, dominance, relevancy, pleasure, and intention to use, suggested by the EFA, explained 82.29% of the total variance with factor loadings ranged from .74 to .89. As a next step, CFA was conducted to validate the dimensions that were identified from the exploratory factor analysis and to further refine the scale. Table 1 exhibits the results of measurement model analysis and revealed a chi-square of 202.13 with degree-of-freedom of 89 (p =.002), GFI of .93, AGFI = .89, CFI of .99, NFI of .98, which indicates of the evidence of a good model fit to the data (Bagozzi and Yi, 1998; Hair et al., 1998). As table 1 shows, reliability was estimated with Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability (CR) for all multi-item scales. All the values met evidence of satisfactory reliability in multi-item measure for alpha (>.91) and CR (>.80). In addition, we tested the convergent validity of the measure using average variance extracted (AVE) by following recommendations from Fornell and Larcker (1981). The AVE values for the model constructs ranged from .74 through .85, which are higher than the threshold suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). To examine discriminant validity of the measure, we again followed the recommendations from Fornell and Larcker (1981). The shared variances between constructs were smaller than the AVE of the research constructs and confirm discriminant validity of the measure. The causal model testing was conducted using LISREL 8.72 with a maximum-likelihood estimation method. Table 2 shows the results of the hypotheses testing. The results for the conceptual model revealed good overall fit for the proposed model. Chi-square was 342.00 (df = 92, p =.000), NFI was .97, NNFI was .97, GFI was .89, AGFI was .83, and RMSEA was .08. All paths in the proposed model received significant statistical support except H2. The paths from arousal to pleasure (H1: ${\ss}$=.70; t = 11.44), from information relevancy to intention to use (H3 ${\ss}$ =.12; t = 2.36), from information relevancy to pleasure (H4 ${\ss}$ =.15; t = 2.86), and pleasure to intention to use (H5: ${\ss}$=.54; t = 9.05) were significant. However, the path from dominance to pleasure was not supported. This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective responses. Information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) emotional state model as a conceptual framework. The results of the present study support previous studies indicating that emotional responses as well as cognitive responses have a strong impact on accepting new technology. The findings of this study suggest potential marketing strategies to mobile service developers and retailers who are considering the implementation of LBMSS. It would be rewarding to develop location-based mobile services that integrate information relevancy and which cause positive emotional responses.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.247-269
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• 2007

In recent years, one of the major reasons for the fierce competition amongst firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares and customer acquisition rate in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Because of this change in recent marketing environment, the differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important to gain competitive advantage. Price promotion is the favorite strategy that most retailers use to achieve short-term sales increase, induce consumer's brand switch, in troduce new product into market, and so forth. However, if marketers apply or copy an identical price promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in product and consumer preference, it will cause serious problems because discounted price itself could make people skeptical about product quality, and the changes of perceived value might appear differently depending on other factors such as consumer involvement or brand attitude. Previous studies showed that price promotion would certainly increase sales, and the discounted price compared to regular price would enhance the consumer's perceived values. On the other hand, discounted price itself could make people depreciate or skeptical about product quality, and reduce the consumers' positivity bias because consumers might be unsure whether the current price promotion is the retailer's best price offer. Moreover, we cannot say that discounted price absolutely enhances the consumer's perceived values regardless of product category and purchase situations. That is, the factors that affect consumers' value perceptions and buying behavior are so diverse in reality that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what variable was used or how experiment conditions were designed. Majority of previous researches on the effect of price-comparison advertising have used consumers' buying behavior as dependent variable. In order to figure out consumers' buying behavior theoretically, analysis of value perceptions which influence buying intentions is needed. In addition, they did not combined the independent variables such as brand loyalty and price discount rate together. For this reason, this paper tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception. And we provided with theoretical and managerial implications that marketers need to consider such variables as product attributes, brand loyalty, and consumer involvement at the same time, and then establish a differentiated pricing strategy case by case in order to enhance consumer's perceived values properl. Three research concepts were used in our study and each concept based on past researches was defined. The perceived acquisition value in this study was defined as the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of the product will be positively influenced by the benefits buyers believe they are getting by acquiring and using the product, and negatively influenced by the money given up to acquire the product. And the perceived transaction value was defined as the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. Lastly, the brand loyalty was defined as favorable attitude towards a purchased product. Thus, a consumer loyal to a brand has an emotional attachment to the brand or firm. Repeat purchasers continue to buy the same brand even though they do not have an emotional attachment to it. We assumed that if the degree of brand loyalty is high, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value will increase when higher discount rate is provided. But we found that there are no significant differences in values between two different discount rates as a result of empirical analysis. It means that price reduction did not affect consumer's brand choice significantly because the perceived sacrifice decreased only a little, and customers are satisfied with product's benefits when brand loyalty is high. From the result, we confirmed that consumers with high degree of brand loyalty to a specific product are less sensitive to price change. Thus, using price promotion strategy to merely expect sale increase is not recommendable. Instead of discounting price, marketers need to strengthen consumers' brand loyalty and maintain the skimming strategy. On the contrary, when the degree of brand loyalty is low, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value decreased significantly when higher discount rate is provided. Generally brands that are considered inferior might be able to draw attention away from the quality of the product by making consumers focus more on the sacrifice component of price. But considering the fact that consumers with low degree of brand loyalty are known to be unsatisfied with product's benefits and have relatively negative brand attitude, bigger price reduction offered in experiment condition of this paper made consumers depreciate product's quality and benefit more and more, and consumer's psychological perceived sacrifice increased while perceived values decreased accordingly. We infer that, in the case of inferior brand, a drastic price-cut or frequent price promotion may increase consumers' uncertainty about overall components of product. Therefore, it appears that reinforcing the augmented product such as after-sale service, delivery and giving credit which is one of the levels consisting of product would be more effective in reality. This will be better rather than competing with product that holds high brand loyalty by reducing sale price. Although this study tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception, there are several limitations. This study was conducted in controlled conditions where the high involvement product and two different levels of discount rate were applied. Given the presence of low involvement product, when both pieces of information are available, it is likely that the results we have reported here may have been different. Thus, this research results explain only the specific situation. Second, the sample selected in this study was university students in their twenties, so we cannot say that the results are firmly effective to all generations. Future research that manipulates the level of discount along with the consumer involvement might lead to a more robust understanding of the effects various discount rate. And, we used a cellular phone as a product stimulus, so it would be very interesting to analyze the result when the product stimulus is an intangible product such as service. It could be also valuable to analyze whether the change of perceived value affects consumers' final buying behavior positively or negatively.