• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.143-167
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• 2006

Despite the popularity of e-commerce, the understanding of preferred product types for information searches and purchase on the internet are not sufficient. This paper studies the effect of risk perception on information search behavior through online only, offline only, and on-offline together. Specially, this study classifies product types into search goods, experience goods, and credence goods. The study attempts to determine how the relationship between the perceived risk and the information search is influenced by the product knowledge level. The results show that the higher the risk perceptions about experience goods and credence goods, the more the consumer searches information through online and offline together when the consumer's knowledge level is low. When the consumer's knowledge level is high, however, the higher the risk perception regarding search goods, the more the consumer searches information through online only.

• Archives of design research
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• v.18 no.2 s.60
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• pp.173-188
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• 2005

Design has become a buzzword in the marketing community these days and has been considered as an important success factor for business. Unfortunately, however, little research to date has been conducted on consumer responses to brand logo designs, which visualize brand identities. This article reports the findings from an experimental study which examined consumer evaluations of logo designs through conjoint analysis. The study explored potential factors which would give rise to the differences of consumer preferences. The results indicate that in the case of cognitive brand concepts, search goods show high elaborateness and low symmetry, experience goods show high associativeness, and credence goods show low elaborateness and high symmetry in the logo design characteristics. Affective brand concepts reveal different results in the logo design characteristics: search goods indicate high elaborateness and low associativeness, experience goods show low naturalness, and credence goods show low elaborateness and high associativeness. Implications of the results are discussed from a theoretical and practical standpoint.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.41-61
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• 2008

Although the size of the organic food market in Korea has increased significantly, its further development is hampered by the information asymmetry between the producers and consumers of organic food. It isn't just about revitalizing the market; it's also about Korean farmers surviving an era of trade liberalization. In order to produce more value-added products, the information asymmetry issue has to be resolved regarding the organic food market and other agricultural credence goods such as Han-woo(Korean beef). Therefore, measuring information asymmetry has become a central issue. One way to measure asymmetry is to use Game Theory. However, in practice, estimating payoffs at the industry level is hard to accomplish, and even when it is possible, the reliability of the estimated payoffs is not guaranteed. As an alternative, the concept of Information Entropy(disorder level of information), developed by Shannon(1948), was used in this study. It is proposed that this measure should be used when assessing the level of information asymmetry in the Korean organic food market. Using recent data, it was found that information entropy in the Korean organic food market has been decreasing constantly since 2003. Therefore, it was proposed that measures should be adopted by the government to improve the certification system of organic food.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.169-189
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• 2006

The product categories that can be sold on-line are expanding. It is interesting to see which product categories have more sales possibilities on internet. Small-sized firms' products have low distribution coverage, low brand recognition, bigger dispersion in the perception on the values which consist of quality vs. price, and higher possibilities of perceived purchase risks. Since on-line shopping is supposed to provide opportunities to small-sized firms that have low distribution and brand power, it is quite necessary to evaluate the fitness of on-line sales for small-sized firms' product categories. There are virtually no research studies on the on-line sales for small-sized firms' product categories. In this study, based on the integration of SEC, FCB, and related concepts, we develop new theoretical framework and test the fitness of on-line sales for small-sized firms' product categories by conducting empirical analysis. The empirical results on 17 product categories show that SEC, FCB, purchase risks, brand factors are somewhat related. Unlike previous studies, since the fitness of SEC and on-line sales are not clearly shown, we need to consider those problems within inter-related multiple frameworks. That is, it is necessary to evaluate the fitness of on-line sales after defining the product categories within the integrated multiple frameworks rather than within the single framework.