• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.201-217
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• 2014

There is likely to be a fit problem when women aged in their 30s-40s purchase down-age clothing from brands that target women in their 20s. To identify the part of the lower body that causes the fit problem, the sizes and types of lower body of women in their 30s-40s were compared with those of women in their 20s. The data for this study was from the 2010 Size Korea survey of body measurements of 1675 female adults in their 20s-40s. To examine differences in the average sizes of the lower body between women in their 20s and 30s-40s, descriptive statistics and t-tests were conducted. Factor and cluster analysis were used to classify body types by age groups. On the whole, compared to women in their 30s-40s, women in their 20s were found to be higher for all height items and smaller for size, thickness and width items. The result of the Glycemic index analysis showed that the body type of women in their 20s was generally larger than that of women in their 30s-40s. In addition, women in their 20s had a large drop value compared to those in their 30s-40s, whereas flatness of body cross section was bigger in the group of women in their 30s-40s. Four factors related to the lower body type of female adults in their 20s-40s were identified in the factor analysis, and three categories of body type were identified by cluster analysis. A Type 1 individual had abdominal obesity and chubby lower limbs, Type 2 had short legs and slightly chubby lower limbs, and Type 3 had long legs and a skinny lower body. A significant number of women in their 30s-40s were included in the Type 1 group, which was the least common category for women in their 20s.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.27-37
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to provide for the basic data useful to the effective production and marketing of the brassiere befitting adult women's body shapes and preferences, and thereby, help them improve their apparel life. For this purpose, 563 Korean adult women aged between 20-59 were sampled to survey their practices of purchasing the brassieres and positively identify the factors affecting the practices and thereupon, determine the correlations among them by age group. Data is processed by a computer(SAS) and analyzed by using frequency, percentage, $\chi^2$-test, ANOVA, Duncan-test. The main results of this study are as follows; 1. The adult women tend to use such mass media as TV, magazines, catalogues and DM to decide for themselves which brassiere befits them most, and to check the brand-name(78.8%) or the sizes(93.4%), but more than 90% of them purchase their brassieres without trying on them. 2. The places of purchasing on which adult women rely most for their brassiere are department stores(32.6%), agencies(26.1%) and discount or pension shops(25.4%), while more than 90% of the sample women often visit bargain sale shops. The average number of brassieres possessed by our adult women is 5.7, and an adult women buys 2.6 brassiere costing 10-30 thousand wons a year on average and consumes a brassiere for the period from 6 months to 2 years. 3. It had been disclosed that the brand favored most by adult women is Venus(56.2%), followed by Vivien (17.6%), Wacoal(6.8%), Amie(2.5%) and Body Guard(2.3%). The most influential factors for the popularity of brands are fitting condition(40.3%) and design(23.8%), which suggests that consumers appreciate functionality and aesthetics. The most important reference affecting our women's choice of brassiere is size(64.4%), followed by design and functionality. The brassiere style favored most by adult women is a wire-type 3/4 cup brassiere made of thin material with sewing lines, while the most favorite color is white. In all, it has been found through this study that adult women's practices of buying their brassieres differ by age group, which may well suggest that brassiere production need to take such age-wise practices into consideration in setting up their brassiere production and marketing strategies.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.11-24
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• 2021

This study investigates the buying behavior pertaining to Japanese brands according to the degree of patriotism of consumers in their 20s. A survey of 235 university students was conducted; the survey questioned the basic purchasing attitudes of consumers in their 20s regarding outerwear and underwear and then surveyed the purchasing attitudes regarding U brand's (representative Japanese brand) outerwear and underwear. To detect the correlation between patriotism and U brand purchases, this study asked questions about patriotism and investigated basic personal information. The research results were as follows. First, there was a significant difference in consumer's purchasing attitude toward outerwear and underwear. When of consumers who are in their 20s purchase outerwear, its design was the most important factor, whereas when purchasing underwear, functionality was the most crucial factor. Second, it was confirmed that consumer's attitudes toward U brand's outerwear and underwear differed. Although the evaluation of U brand's outerwear design was not positive, the consumer tended to be satisfied with the price. U brand's score concerning the functionality of underwear products received a slightly positive response. Third, a total of 235 respondents were divided into a high- and low-patriotism-group based on questions about patriotism. There were significant differences in their attitudes toward clothing and consumer's purchasing behavior at U brand. Highly patriotic consumers thought negatively about U brand outerwear products in terms of price and product quality than low patriotic consumers; however, there was no significant difference only regarding design evaluation. For underwear products, low patriotic consumers were more positive about the price, design, and functionality of U brand products than high patriotic consumers.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.141-153
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• 2022

This study tried to understand the structural relationship of consumer characteristics on consumer emotions and satisfaction in online shopping. First, consumer characteristics derived various tendencies through previous studies. Next, consumer emotion was defined as positive and negative emotions in the six purchasing processes from information search to use, and satisfaction was defined as the overall satisfaction of the purchasing experience. To this end, this study measured consumer satisfaction and positive/negative emotions in the six consumption processes in their 20s and 40s with online clothing shopping experience within the last month. Finally, structural equation modeling(SEM) was conducted. As a result, the model fit was good, and impulse purchase tendency, conspicuous consumption tendency, innovation tendency, and trendy shopping tendency only affected negative emotions. On the other hand, it was confirmed that information search tendency, hedonic shopping tendency, and economic shopping tendency directly affect positive emotions and indirectly affect consumer satisfaction. Through this, implications for improving the consumer experience in online shopping were presented by identifying consumer characteristics and enhancing consumer emotions.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.57-63
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• 2009

With an exponential increase in electronic commerce (e-commerce), marketers are attempting to gain a competitive advantage by emphasizing service quality and post interaction service aspects, which leads to customer satisfaction or behavioral consequence. Particularly for apparel, service quality is one of the key determinants in encouraging customer e-loyalty, and hence the success of apparel retailing in the context of electronic commerce. Therefore, this study explores e-service quality (E-SERVQUAL) factors and their unique effects on e-loyalty for apparel online shopping based on Parasuraman et al' s (2005) framework. Specific objectives of this study are to identify underlying dimension of E-SERVQUAL, and analyze a structural model for examining the effect of E-SERVQUAL on e-loyalty for online apparel shopping. For the theoretical framework of service quality in the context of online shopping, literatures on traditional and electronic service quality factors were comparatively reviewed, and two aspects of core and recovery services were identified. This study hypothesized that E-SERVQUAL has an effect on e-loyalty; customer satisfaction has a positive effect on e-service loyalty for apparel online shopping; and customer satisfaction mediates in the effect of E-SERVQUAL on e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on literatures. A total of 252 usable questionnaires were obtained from online consumers who had purchase experience with online shopping for apparel products and reside in standard metropolitan areas, in the United States. Factor analysis (e.g., exploratory, confirmatory) was conducted to assess the validity and reliability and the structural equation model including measurement and structural models was estimated via LISREL 8.8 program. Findings showed that the E-SERVQUAL of shopping websites for apparel consisted of five factors: Compensation, Fulfillment, Efficiency, System Availability, and Responsiveness. This supports Parasuraman (2005)'s E-S-QUAL encompassing two aspects of core service (e.g., fulfillment, efficiency, system availability) and recovery related service (e.g., compensation, responsiveness) in the context of apparel shopping online. In the structural equation model, there are five exogenous latent variables for e-SERVQUAL factors; and two endogenous latent variables (e.g., customer satisfaction, e-loyalty). For the measurement model, the factor loadings for each respective construct were statistically significant and were greater than .60 and internal consistency reliabilities ranged from .85 to .88. In the estimated structural model of the e-SERVEQUAL factors, the system availability was found to have direct and positive effect on e-loyalty, whereas efficiency had a negative effect on e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. However, fulfillment was not a significant predictor for explaining consequences of E-SERVQUAL for apparel online shopping. This finding implies that perceived service quality of system available was likely to increase customer satisfaction for apparel online shopping. However, it was not supported that e-loyalty was determined by service quality, because service quality has an indirect effect on e-loyalty (i.e., repurchase intention) by mediating effect of value or satisfaction in the context of online shopping for apparel. In addition, both compensation and responsiveness were found to have a significant impact on customer satisfaction, which influenced e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. Thus, there was significant indirect effect of compensation and responsiveness on e-loyalty. This suggests that the recovery-specific service factors play an important role in maximizing customer satisfaction levels and then maintaining customer loyalty to the online shopping site for apparel. The findings have both managerial and research implications. Fashion marketers can establish long-term relationship with their customers based on continuously measuring customer perceptions for recovery-related service quality, such as quick responses to problem and returns, and compensation for customers' problem after their purchases. In order to maintain e-loyalty, recovery services play an important role in the first choice websites for consumers to purchase clothing. Given that online consumers may shop anywhere, a marketing strategy for improving competitive advantages is to provide better service quality, maximize satisfaction, and turn to creating customers' e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. From a researcher's perspective, there are some limitations of this research that should be considered when interpreting its findings. For future research, findings provide a basis for the further study of this important topic along both theoretical and empirical dimensions. Based on the findings, more comprehensive models for predicting E-SERVQUAL's consequences can be developed and tested. For global fashion marketing, this study can expand to a cross-cultural approach into e-service quality for apparel by including multinational samples.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.61-81
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• 2007

Recently, use of foreign models and foreign language in advertising is a general trend in Korea even though the effect has not been well-known..Most of the previous research shows rather an opposite effect claiming marketing communication is more effective when higher congruity between marketing communication and consumer's cultural values are achieved. However, the introduction of global culture due to the expansion of new media such as Internet or cable television makes the congruity not the best choice of marketing strategy. In addition, use of highly attractive models in advertising to increase the effect of advertising is general. However, recent studies show that targeted women audience tend to compare themselves to the highly attractive models and do experience negative sentiment. Bower (2001) proved the difference between 'comparer' and 'noncomparer' when women face highly attractive models. The results show that a comparer who has an intention to compare highly attractive model (HAM) with herself has a significantly negative effect on model expertise, product argument, product evaluation and buying intention. Therefore, HAM is not always a good choice and model attractiveness plays a role in the processing other cues or changing the advertising effect from result of processing other cues. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the use of foreign language on the advertising response of the audience with regard of the model attractiveness. For the empirical study, the virtual advertising using foreign models (HAM, NAM), brand names and slogans(Korean, English) were used as stimuli. The respondents of each stimulus were 75('HAM-Korean'), 75('NAM-Korean'), 66('HAM-English') and 66 ('NAM-English') respectively. To establish the effect of marketing communication, the attitude for media(AM), the attitude for product(AP), targetedness(TD), overall quality(OQ), and purchase intention(PI) with 7 point likert scale were measured. The manipulation was verified to check the difference between HAM attractiveness assessment (m=3.27) and NAM attractiveness assessment (m=5.12). The mean difference was statiscally significant (p<.05). As a result, all consequences were significantly changed with model attractiveness, and overall quality evaluation(OQ) were significantly changed with language. The interaction effect from model attractiveness and language was significant on attitude toward the product(AP) and purchase intention(PI). To analyze the difference, the mean values and standard deviation of consequences were compared. The result was more positive when model attractiveness was high for all consequences. For language effect, the assessment was more positive when English was used for OQ. Considering model attractiveness and language simultaneously, HAM-Korean was more positive for AP and PI, and NAM-English was more positive for AP and PI. In other words, the interaction effect was confirmed by model attractiveness and language. As mentioned above, use of foreign models and foreign language in advertising was explained by cultural match up hypothesis (Leclerc et al. 1994) which claimed that culture of origin effect. In other words, in advertising, use of same cultural language with the foreign model could make positive assessment for OQ. But this effect was moderated by model attractiveness. When the model attractiveness was low, the use of English makes PI high because of the effect of foreign language which supported the cultural match up hypothesis. When the model attractiveness was low, the use of Korean made AP and PI high because the effect of foreign language was diluted. It was a general notion that the visual cues got processed before (Holbrook and Moore, 1981; Sholl et al, 1995) compared to linguistic cues. Therefore, when consumers were faced HAM, so much perception was already consumed at processing visual cues making their native language of Korean to strongly and positively connected with the advertising concept. On the contrary, when consumers were faced with NAM, less perception was consumed compared to HAM, making English to accompany cultural halo effect which affected more positively. Therefore, when foreign models were employed in advertising, the language must be carefully selected according to the level of model attractiveness.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.129-142
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• 2016

Customer product reviews have become one of the important factors for purchase decision makings. Customers believe that reviews written by others who have already had an experience with the product offer more reliable information than that provided by sellers. However, there are too many products and reviews, the advantage of e-commerce can be overwhelmed by increasing search costs. Reading all of the reviews to find out the pros and cons of a certain product can be exhausting. To help users find the most useful information about products without much difficulty, e-commerce companies try to provide various ways for customers to write and rate product reviews. To assist potential customers, online stores have devised various ways to provide useful customer reviews. Different methods have been developed to classify and recommend useful reviews to customers, primarily using feedback provided by customers about the helpfulness of reviews. Most shopping websites provide customer reviews and offer the following information: the average preference of a product, the number of customers who have participated in preference voting, and preference distribution. Most information on the helpfulness of product reviews is collected through a voting system. Amazon.com asks customers whether a review on a certain product is helpful, and it places the most helpful favorable and the most helpful critical review at the top of the list of product reviews. Some companies also predict the usefulness of a review based on certain attributes including length, author(s), and the words used, publishing only reviews that are likely to be useful. Text mining approaches have been used for classifying useful reviews in advance. To apply a text mining approach based on all reviews for a product, we need to build a term-document matrix. We have to extract all words from reviews and build a matrix with the number of occurrences of a term in a review. Since there are many reviews, the size of term-document matrix is so large. It caused difficulties to apply text mining algorithms with the large term-document matrix. Thus, researchers need to delete some terms in terms of sparsity since sparse words have little effects on classifications or predictions. The purpose of this study is to suggest a better way of building term-document matrix by deleting useless terms for review classification. In this study, we propose neutrality index to select words to be deleted. Many words still appear in both classifications - useful and not useful - and these words have little or negative effects on classification performances. Thus, we defined these words as neutral terms and deleted neutral terms which are appeared in both classifications similarly. After deleting sparse words, we selected words to be deleted in terms of neutrality. We tested our approach with Amazon.com's review data from five different product categories: Cellphones & Accessories, Movies & TV program, Automotive, CDs & Vinyl, Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry. We used reviews which got greater than four votes by users and 60% of the ratio of useful votes among total votes is the threshold to classify useful and not-useful reviews. We randomly selected 1,500 useful reviews and 1,500 not-useful reviews for each product category. And then we applied Information Gain and Support Vector Machine algorithms to classify the reviews and compared the classification performances in terms of precision, recall, and F-measure. Though the performances vary according to product categories and data sets, deleting terms with sparsity and neutrality showed the best performances in terms of F-measure for the two classification algorithms. However, deleting terms with sparsity only showed the best performances in terms of Recall for Information Gain and using all terms showed the best performances in terms of precision for SVM. Thus, it needs to be careful for selecting term deleting methods and classification algorithms based on data sets.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 2009

The marketing environment has become competitive to an extent that requires firms to target their products at markets that span national boundaries. However, competitive clout cannot be achieved in global consumer markets unless firms thoroughly understand and adequately respond to the core values and needs of those consumers. Brand equity is one of the most important assets to a company. Especially in sportswear markets, brand equity is the crucial value added to a product by its brand name. Factors such as country of origin also influence customer's attitude towards brand equity. Therefore, this paper discusses the relationship between country of origin effect and brand equity, and how they influence consumers' loyalty for respective brands. This paper focused on the sports shoes market, because it is an increasing area of opportunity for world manufacturers. The objectives of this study were the following. (1) Test the effect of country of origin on brand equity. (2) Test how brand equity influences consumers' brand loyalty. (3) Find whether there are differences in the effects of country of origin and brand equity among the three countries. (4) Find whether there are differences in the effects of country of origin and brand equity among the different lifestyles. Based on the review of literature results, the hypotheses are concluded as the following: H1-a: Country image has positive influence on country of origin. H1-b: Product perception has positive influence on country of origin. H2-a: Perceived quality has positive effect on brand equity. H2-b: Perceived price has positive effect on brand equity. H3: Country of origin has positive effect on brand equity. H4: Brand equity has a positive impact on brand loyalty. Research model was constructed (see Fig. 1). After data analysis, the following results were concluded: sports shoes purchase behavior showed significant differences among Korean, Chinese, and American consumers for favorite brand, purchased brand, purchased place, information usage, and favorite sports games. The results of this study also extend the research of the relationship among country of origin, brand equity and brand loyalty to the sports shoes market. Brand equity was proven to have a significant relationship with brand loyalty for all countries. The factors which can influence brand equity are different for different countries. The third finding of this paper is that we identified different three lifestyles, adventurer, follower, and laggard, for Korean, Chinese and American consumers. Without the nationality boundary, seeing the emergence of a new group of consumers who have similar preferences and buy similar brands is more important. All of the consumers consider brand equity to keep their brand loyalty. Perceived price is the only factor which can influence brand equity for adventurers; brand is more important for them. The laggards were not influenced by any factor. All of the factors expect perceived price are important for the followers. Marketing managers should consider brand equity when introducing their brand into a new market. Also localization is the basic strategy that all the sports shoes companies should understand. But as a global brand, understanding the same characteristics for each country is more important to build global strategy.