• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.110-122
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• 2001

The purposes of this study was to examine the present situation of merchandise assortment and informations in internet fashion shopping mall. Merchandise assortment dimensions were width and depth. Merchandise assortment factors for apparel were style, size, and color. Merchandise informations were investigated using price and fabric contents. The data were collected from 11 internet fashion site to investigate styles. colors, sizes. price and fabric contents. The data analysed with frequency. crosstab analysis, $\chi$$^{2}$-test. The results were as follow : 1. Upper items(37.5%) as T, knits, shirts, and blouses were offered more style than bottom items(13.5%) as skirts, pants. 2. The 36.4% of styles offered one color. Basic color as black, white, grey, beige, ivory was 38.1%. 3. The 54.4% of merchandises carried same size. 4. Fiber contents was made up of cotton(44.2%). hemp & rayon(22.5%), and synthetic (33.3%). 5. The 75.1% of merchandise was relatively low price of below 50,000 won, the 24.9% of merchandise was rather high price of more than 50.000 won.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.107-120
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• 2011

The increased availability of store brand suppliers now provides retailers with opportunities to create their own lines of vertically differentiated multiple store brands within a product category. As the number of store brands increase, the retailer's shelf space becomes more crowded, which may force the retailer to consider dropping some national brands from its assortment. Despite these trends, the problem of product line design in a vertically differentiated product category has been analyzed mainly from a manufacturer's perspective in the marketing literature and it is not known to what extent the findings of the existing product line design literature provide applicable strategic guidelines for the new problem faced by retailers. In this study, we address this deficiency in the literature and conduct an in-depth study of the retailer's strategic design of a line of store brands and its assortment decision within the context of retail category management. We analyze the retailer's decision about not only how to design a line of store brands but also which national brand to drop from its assortment. The results of our analysis are as follows. First, if the retailer has to drop one of national brands from its assortment, it is the best for the retailer to drop the low-quality national brand rather than the high-quality national brand. Second, the retailer has to position the high-quality store brand relatively close to the high-quality national brand, remained on its shelf, in terms of quality so as to maximize the size of retail margin from the national brand. On the other hand, the retailer should set the quality of the low-quality store brand at a lower level than that of the low-quality national brand to increase the total category demand by attracting more price sensitive consumers. By doing so, the retailer can also minimize cannibalization between two store brands. Lastly, our analysis shows that the introduction of a line of store brands improves consumer welfare by increasing real values of all products on the shelf.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.283-290
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to investigate the shopping condition of Dongdaemoon Shoppingmall. A depth interview was administered to eight consumers aged 10s through 30s who had shopping experiences at Dongdaemoon Shoppingmall. The contents of interview were about the reasons of preference for Dongdaemoon Shoppingmall, the merchandise categories purchased, assortment, price, shopping environment, and service offered by Dongdaemoon Shoppingmall. The results of this study were as follows: The reasons of consumers' Dongdaemoon Shoppingmall preference were reasonable price, variety of merchandise assortment, easy catch of fashion trend, entertainment place, and opening hour at nighttime. The mainly purchased items were casual and fashionable clothes. Children's wear was mainly bought item by housewives too. The unique design, similar merchandises sold at department stores and new style in early adoption of fashion cycle were perceived as positive aspects, but copied merchandises and large quantity of same merchandise as negative aspects. The fixed price system was not trusted by consumers. Consumers' complaints about shopping condition were crowded pathways and shopping booths, the lacks of facilities such as fitting room, toilet, lounge area, sales persons' service, and difficulty of using credit cards. From these results, some implications for marketing strategies and practices might be suggested. In order to improve the design variety of merchandises, marketers and apparel manufacturers should make efforts by managing merchandise planning, production, selling, and promotion cooperatively. Fixed price system, acceptance of credit cards, and merchandise return/exchange service should be improved. The training the salespersons was the most important and basic step and easy way to get to successful business.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.745-758
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• 2008

In this paper, we examined the trend information collected by apparel industries to develop fashionable products. We also investigated the product development process of a swimwear industry, ELLE Swimwear, through in-depth interviews. The results are as follows; 1. The apparel industries were collecting information about a fashion trend, international exhibitions and fairs, world collections, and a market trend to develop fashionable products. 2. As the swimwear consumers are spreaded in all ages, the launching of more specialized swimwear brand with ages is required. 3. These days, swimwear is not only an item of sportswear but also being a fashionable product on street. Therefore, the industries should try to develop a various assortment of swimwear capable of coordinating with multi-mix instead of developing a separate item. 4. To design and produce swimwear satisfying functional, sensual and cultural performance, the development of new materials and patterns are required. 5. Nurturing of swimwear pattern specialists dealing with CAD is urgently required. 6. Turning of understanding about the importance of VMD and more attractive marketing strategies by a specialized team are also required.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.629-644
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• 2018

Global fast fashion brands have been popular and most of them have entered the Korean market. With their success, Korean apparel companies launched domestic fast fashion brands; however, recently they have become fiercely competitive, and consumers are demanding better design and quality and cheaper prices than before. The purpose of this study is to explore consumer purchasing behavior of the global as well as domestic fast fashion brands sold in Korea and to suggest marketing strategies for the brands sold in Korea. The study includes interviewing 61 Korean consumers to ask about their purchasing behavior and experiences. This study found four themes from these in-depth interviews: 1) demand of product glocalization which considers both globalization and localization for better style, quality, and assortment plan, 2) satisfaction with the reasonable price range of fast fashion brands but dissatisfaction with price discrimination among countries, 3) importance of easy, comfortable, and convenient accessibility to fast fashion brands, and 4) preference for good brand reputation related to corporate social responsibility(CSR) and nationality. From these four themes, this study developed the four elements of the marketing mix: product, price, accessibility, and reputation to adapt to a new marketing environment that emphasizes the development of information technology, consumer-centric marketing, and corporate ethics. The findings of this research could contribute useful information to both global and domestic fashion companies as well as consumers.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.273-289
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• 2021

This study aimed to examine the appearance of heated clothing in relation to fashion trends by analyzing constructive components of clothing using product images and actual products. A total of 91 images of domestic and foreign heated clothing products were collected, and a product analysis conducted with six parameters of item classification, namely, concept and image, silhouette, color, number of heating elements, and heating parts. In addition, an in-depth analysis was carried out with 11 products among them, while focusing on further detailed components of the design and heating system. As a result, the overall exterior design of domestic products has been changed from outdoor clothing to daily clothing reflecting the current design trend. Compared with domestic products, foreign products showed a diverse assortment and a greater number of heating regions per individual item of clothing. The current heating system commonly consists of a heating element, power source, controller board, and wires, although the existence and type of switches differed from product to product. To develop a more efficiently heated clothing to expand the market, the design, ease of use, safety, consumer preference, heating functionality, and durability should be considered. Along with design recommendations for future heated clothing, this study also provides a practical guide to the technical aspects of the design of the components of heated clothing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.15
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• pp.253-265
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• 1990

This article was written with two purposes in mind. The first purpose was to introduce clothing and textile community who may not be familiar with Multidimensional Scaling(MDS) with usefulness of the new technique in the area of fashion merchandising. The second purpose was to present the results of an empirical study on brand image utilizing MDS and its related technique as the main analysis tools. The main objective of the empirical study was to gain a better understanding of consumer's brand image by relating differences in perception and attributes of clothing in women's ready-to wear market. For this empirical study, the ten brands and the fifteen attributes of clothing were chosen. The questionnaire consisting of questions asking about the similarity and attributes of clothing between selected brands was administrated to 185 career women during summer in 1989. Data were analyzed cluster analysis, and KYST and PROFIT in MDS program. The results were as follows: 1. The similarities data for the ten selected brand by using KYST program of MDS drawed the perceptual map. The results of this perceptual map showed that the selected brand were grouped into three clusters. 2. In order to get a somewhat objective view of which attributes consumers are attributing to each brand, PROFIT program was used. As a result, it was revealed that assortment depth / width, price, youth-oriented style, possibility of various social activity were significant attributes in consumer's brand choice rather than physical attributes of clothing such as quality or durability. This may imply that consumer orientation in rapidly changing environments of women's apparel market was its basic idea, and the focus of all fashion merchandising activities was put on need's and the response of consumer group who are the object of the target. Implicating for future research as well as for strategy of brand positioning were also suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.190-203
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• 2015

The fashion industry has been rearranged by Global SPA brands (like ZARA and H&M), which are powerful retailers that integrate the value chain ranging from manufacturing to sales. SPA brands can offer good quality of clothing at a reasonable price by cutting the margin between the supply chain. They are also called fast fashions since they make expedited efforts to respond to market trends and consumers. Despite the slow growth of the fashion industry in Korea, as global SPA brands rapidly expand market share, traditional fashion companies have launched several SPA brands such as MIXXO and SPAO (E-LAND), 8SECONDS (CHEIL INDUSTRIES). The few academic studies on this subject are focused on the analysis of secondary data such as news and books. The current research is qualitative and empirical attempts to explore the success factor of SPA brands with analysis of 1:1 in-depth interviews with experts who have worked for global SPAs such as Uniqlo, H&M, and ZARA, based on the grounded theory. The main phenomenon was shown to be that global SPA brands were popular since they offer a variety of products with a large assortment at reasonable and cheap prices in a large scale and multifunctional retail store. Most of them displayed main phenomena that can be realized due to the purchasing cycle of clothing that is shorter with consumers' regarding clothing as consumables. Global SPA brands had three types of marketing strategy: sellable product, sales strategy according to consumer response, and multifunctional stores. Each global SPA brand developed marketing strategies based on core competency and national conditions. The three success factors shorten the consumer decision making process of clothing. This study concludes with implications for practitioners of SPA brands born in Korea.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.5-11
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• 2012

The core objective of this research article is to investigate different challenges and opportunities in management as well as start-ups of small businesses in India. The prudence behind this research is to examine various problems in front of the small businesses and to offer vital support and cooperation to overcome those with the support of concerned institutions through consultancy and training programs. The researchers have an intention to make available the research results to the governmental agencies, concerned small business institutions and also to the educational institutions which are continually design plans, programs, policies and strategies to upgrade the managerial and technical dexterities of the small business Indian operators. After thorough revision of relevant literature on small businesses and its management, the researchers used a well structured questionnaire and in-depth personal interviews with 586small business operators selected from manufacturing, trading (retailing and wholesaling), finance, servicing/repair businesses which are located in the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh in India. The researchers have used convenience sampling and collected data was analyzed with the support of Microsoft Excel and frequency distribution. Noticeably, majority of the small businessmen in India are facing myriad number of challenges both in management and at the time of establishment of their business operations. In particular, 72.47 percent of small businesses operators' have substantiated their strong opinion towards the challenges they are facing particularly finance, marketing and other problems while managing their businesses. The researchers also attempted to get the opinions on problems of the various categories of small businesses while starting their operations. A staggering 68percent of respondents identified the problems related to preparation of business plan, location selection, marketing and other problems like lack of proper credit facilities, skilled manpower, and other infra related problems while setting up of their businesses. On an average, 64.62 and 63.51 percent of small businesses are facing various kinds of problems both at the time of day-to-day management as well as start-up of their businesses respectively. The present research confined with the opinions of only four categories of small business operators particularly from the manufacturing, finance, trading (retailing and wholesaling), and servicing/repair which are continuing their business operations from the nine coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh in India. The present study emphatically provides concrete information required to the business community for identifying an assortment of challenges faced by different small business operators in managing and at the time of their inception. This research paper is first of its kind from this part of the world by offering extensive and credible information required for prospective entrepreneurs in facing the dynamic challenges in managing their business. Furthermore, this research presents invaluable inputs to the stakeholders like all types of governments, policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and educators' about the various impediments faced by the small business community in India.