• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.132-144
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• 2004

With the rapid development of internet technology, the number of internet users and the amount of multimedia information on the internet is ever increasing. Recently, the web sites, such as e-business sites and shopping mall sites, deal with lots of image information. As a result, it is required to support content- based image retrieval efficiently on such image data. This paper proposes an intelligent image retrieval system, which adopts XML, technology. To support object-based col)tent retrieval on product catalog images containing multiple objects, we describe a multi -level metadata structure which represents the local features, global features, and semantics of image data. To enable semantic-based and content-based retrieval on such image data, we design a XML-Schema for the proposed metadata and show how to represent such metadata using XML- documents. We also describe how to automatically transform the retrieval results into the forms suitable for the various user environments, such as web browser or mobile browser, using XSLT The proposed scheme can be easily implemented on any commercial platforms supporting XML technology. It can be utilized to enable efficient image metadata sharing between systems, and it will contribute in improving the retrieval correctness and the user's satisfaction on content-based e-catalog image retrieval.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.147-163
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• 2004

For the purchase of a cheaper product on the Internet, many customers have been trying to search online shopping mall sites and visit comparison-pricing shops that compare prices and other criteria of the product. Others have been participating into online auction markets or group-buying markets. However, a lot of online shopping malls, auction markets, and group-buying markets provide the same product with different prices. Since these marketplaces have different price settlement mechanism, it is very difficult for the customers to determine marketplace to purchase, considering different kinds of marketplaces at the same time. To overcome such limitations, decision rules and solution procedures for purchase decision making are necessary, which can cover multiple marketplaces simultaneously. For this purpose, purchase decision making in each market must be conducted to maximize customer's utility, and conflicts with other marketplaces must be resolved. Therefore, we have developed the rules and methods that can negotiate cooperatively the purchase decision making in several marketplaces, and designed an architecture of Intelligent Buyer Agent and a message structure to support the idea.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.93-113
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• 2012

Early conflict research in channel and organization area have focused on the definition of conflict construct, its cause, consequence and identified conflict resolution management. Recent studies about conflict, however, have explored new assumption of complexity, a multidimensional conflict construct, contextual conflict management strategies, positive and negative conflict/consequence, and the conflict resolution strategy. Although many literatures exists on channel conflict resolution, little research has been done about relationship learning and performance from conflict resolution perspective. This study explores how channel members can achieve a relationship learning, as a conflict resolution mechanism, which enhance co-created value in marketing channel relationship. Therefore we propose that conflict resolution strategies(collaborating behavior and avoiding behavior) influence channel performance(effectiveness and efficiency) through relationship learning processes(learning via information exchange, joint interpretation and coordination, relationship-specific knowledge memory), in view of buyer-seller relationship. The research model is shown at

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.105-127
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• 2002

This paper presents an analysis of how the business models of organizations are getting transformed in the Marketspace created by the Internet. We use a research model comprising the transformation scores of four Ps(Product, Price, Promotion, and Place) as dependent variables and three dimensions, Demographics, Technology, and Community elements on the Websites, as explaining variables about the Cyber Transformation of the 4Ps. While most existing literatures have focused on Website's technology, our research model includes 22 five-point-scale items; 10 Demographics /Technology items and 12 Community items. To measure the 4P's transformation scores, the authors selected 14 workable items from the Marketspace Model by Dutta, Kwan, & Segev(1997). A sample of 123 shopping mall Websites comprising three categories(grocery, jewelry/accessory, and cosmetics) from the 100hot.co.kr list are evaluated and the data is analyzed by SPSSWIN 8.0 version. The result shows that there are five significant factors, Technology, Interaction, Connectedness, Business Features, and Domain, while the average transformation scores of 4Ps are at very low level. The factor scores are used in regression analysis for each P. Two factors, Technology and Interaction are influencing all four Ps; Connectedness is influencing only two, Product and Place. Organizations must not simply take their existing business models. They have to adopt the Technology items(navigation, logo, e-mail, guide, graphics) and to facilitate the Interaction items(consulting, number/quality of bulletin boards, participation, offline events) and Connectedness(club activation, contents, partner/site link, entertainment contents) in order to get transformed in the Marketspace successfully in the near future.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.47-54
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• 2011

This paper presents exploratory research on consumer awareness and attitudesabout organic food, for which consumer demand continues to increase the paper also assesses consumers' organic food distribution channel preferences. By conducting a literature review, a case study has been carried out in order to glean customer behavior, market condition and typesof distribution channels, and development of specialty stores for organic foods. The early research indicates that consumer awareness and customer attitudes toward organic food are mostly positive however, organic food's high price, as well as a lack of organic food stores, cause a negative effect on consumers' purchase intention. Secondly, the U.S. organic food retail channel consists of such mainstream supermarket/grocery stores and leading natural and organic food supermarket chains as Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Sunflower Farmers Market. For the current retail distribution of organic food in Korea, off-line stores are composed of direct management stores and franchise chains. Most of the organic food retail distribution operates through the Internet shopping mall, and are commonly located at retail distribution centers as multi-channel, shop-in-shop stores. Moreover, unlike in the U.S., association and consumers' cooperatives (Co-Ops), and such other member-direct retail stores as Hansallim, iCOOP, Nature Dream,and online shopping malls, are all active in Korea. Thirdly, as a result of an analysis of the present state of the organic food retail channel, as well as building a case for organic food specialty stores, the distinctive featuresand rapid growth of such unique organic food stores as Whole Foods Market, or Trader Joe's successful downsizing strategies, as well as Sunflower Farmers Market low-price approach, show steady industry growth. Moreover, as a result of a case studyof such domestic representative organic food specialty stores as "Olga" and "Chorokmaeul," a similar management style to the United States' "Whole Foods Market" and "Trader Joe's," respectively, can be seen. Similar to the U.S. market, Korean organic food markets should also implement active retail distribution opportunities, allowing consumers to select from various diverse and differentiated choices. In order to accomplish this goal, it is necessary to prepare such measures as sustaining reasonable prices, securing various suppliers for unique products,and improving consumer trust through advertisement strategies that are suitable for each company's branding processes.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.71-89
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• 2019

In order to come up with satisfying product and improvement, firms use traditional marketing research methods to obtain consumers' opinions and further try to reflect them. Recently, gathering data from consumer communication platforms like internet and SNS has become popular methods. Meanwhile, with the development of information technology, mobile companies are launching new digital products for children to protect them from harmful content and provide them with necessary functions and information. Among these digital products, Kids Phone, which is a wearable device with safe functions that enable parents to learn childern's location. Kids phone is relatively cheaper and simpler than smartphone but it is noted that there are several problems such as some useless functions and frequent breakdowns. This study analyzes the reviews of Kids phones from domestic mobile companies, identifies the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of the products, proposes improvement methods strategies for devices and services through SNS consumer analysis. In order to do that customer review data from online shopping malls was gathered and was further analyzed through text mining methods such as TF/IDF, Sentiment Analysis, and network analysis. Customer review data was gathered through crawling Online shopping Mall and Naver Blog/$Caf\acute{e}$. Data analysis and visualization was done using 'R', 'Textom', and 'Python'. Such analysis allowed us to figure out main issues and recent trends regarding kids phones and to suggest possible service improvement strategies based on sentiment analysis.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.39-48
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• 2009

This study reviews the limit of image search by considering on the image search methods related to content-based image retrieval and suggests a user interface for more efficient content-based image retrieval and the ways to utilize image properties. For now, most studies on image search are being performed focusing on content-based image retrieval; they try to search based on the image's colors, texture, shapes, and the overall form of the image. However, the results are not satisfactory because there are various technological limits. Accordingly, this study suggests a new retrieval system which adapts content-based image retrieval and the conventional keyword search method. This is about a way to attribute properties to images using texts and a fast way to search images by expressing the attribute of images as keywords and utilizing them to search images. Also, the study focuses on a simulation for a user interface to make query language on the Internet and a search for clothes in an online shopping mall as an application of the retrieval system based on image attribute. This study will contribute to adding a new purchase pattern in online shopping malls and to the development of the area of similar image search.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2011

Internet-based commerce has undergone an explosive growth over the past decade as consumers today find it more economical as well as more convenient to shop online. Nevertheless, the shift in the common mode of shopping from offline to online commerce has caused consumers to have worries over such issues as private information leakage, online fraud, discrepancy in product quality and grade, unsuccessful delivery, and so forth, Numerous studies have been undertaken to examine the role of perceived risk as a chief barrier to online purchases and to understand the theoretical relationships among perceived risk, trust and purchase intentions, However, most studies focus on empirically investigating the effects of trust on perceived risk, with little attention devoted to the effects of perceived risk on trust, While the influence trust has on perceived risk is worth studying, the influence in the opposite direction is equally important, enabling insights into the potential of perceived risk as a prohibitor of trust, According to Pavlou (2003), the primary source of the perceived risk is either the technological uncertainty of the Internet environment or the behavioral uncertainty of the transaction partner. Due to such types of uncertainty, an increase in the worries over the perceived risk may negatively affect trust, For example, if a consumer who sends sensitive transaction data over Internet is concerned that his or her private information may leak out because of the lack of security, trust may decrease (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), By the same token, if the consumer feels that the online merchant has the potential to profit by behaving in an opportunistic manner taking advantage of the remote, impersonal nature of online commerce, then it is unlikely that the merchant will be trusted, That is, the more the probable danger is likely to occur, the less trust and the greater need to control the transaction (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), In summary, a review of the related studies indicates that while some researchers looked at the influence of overall perceived risk on trust level, not much attention has been given to the effects of different types of perceived risk, In this context the present research aims at addressing the need to study how trust is affected by different types of perceived risk, We classified perceived risk into six different types based on the literature, and empirically analyzed the impact of each type of perceived risk upon consumer trust in an online merchant and further its impact upon purchase intentions. To meet our research objectives, we developed a conceptual model depicting the nomological structure of the relationships among our research variables, and also formulated a total of seven hypotheses. The model and hypotheses were tested using an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire survey of 206 college students. The reliability was evaluated via Cronbach's alphas, the minimum of which was found to be 0.73, and therefore the questionnaire items are all deemed reliable. In addition, the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) designed to check the validity of the measurement model indicate that the convergent, discriminate, and nomological validities of the model are all acceptable. The structural equation modeling analysis to test the hypotheses yielded the following results. Of the first six hypotheses (H1-1 through H1-6) designed to examine the relationships between each risk type and trust, three hypotheses including H1-1 (performance risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust), H1-2 (psychological risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) and H1-5 (online payment risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) were supported with path coefficients of -0.30, -0.27 and -0.16 respectively. Finally, H2 (trust ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intentions) was supported with relatively high path coefficients of 0.73. Results of the empirical study offer the following findings and implications. First. it was found that it was performance risk, psychological risk and online payment risk that have a statistically significant influence upon consumer trust in an online merchant. It implies that a consumer may find an online merchant untrustworthy if either the product quality or the product grade does not match his or her expectations. For that reason, online merchants including digital storefronts and e-marketplaces are suggested to pursue a strategy focusing on identifying the target customers and offering products that they feel best meet performance and psychological needs of those customers. Thus, they should do their best to make it widely known that their products are of as good quality and grade as those purchased from offline department stores. In addition, it may be inferred that today's online consumers remain concerned about the security of the online commerce environment due to the repeated occurrences of hacking or private information leakage. Online merchants should take steps to remove potential vulnerabilities and provide online notices to emphasize that their website is secure. Second, consumer's overall trust was found to have a statistically significant influence on purchase intentions. This finding, which is consistent with the results of numerous prior studies, suggests that increased sales will become a reality only with enhanced consumer trust.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.1-29
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• 2007

The flow theory becomes one of the most important frameworks in the internet research arena. Hoffman and Novak proposed a hierarchical flow model showing the antecedents and outcomes of flow and the relationship among these variables in the hyper-media computer circumstances (Hoffman and Novak 1996). This model was further tested after their initial research (Novak, Hoffman, and Yung 2000). At their paper, Hoffman and Novak explained that the balance of challenge and skill leads to flow which means the positive optimal state of mind (Hoffman and Novak 1996). An imbalance between challenge and skill, leads to negative states of mind like anxiety, boredom, apathy (Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi 1988). Almost all research on the flow 4-channel model have been focusingon flow, the positive state of mind (Ellis, Voelkl, and Morris 1994 Mathwick and Rigdon 2004). However, it also needs to examine the formation of the negative states of minds and their outcomes. Flow researchers explain play or playfulness as antecedents or the early state of flow. However, play has been regarded as a distinct concept from flow in the flow literatures (Hoffman and Novak 1996; Novak, Hoffman, and Yung 2000). Mathwick and Rigdon discovered the influences of challenge and skill on play; they also observed the influence of play on web-loyalty and brand loyalty (Mathwick and Rigdon 2004). Unfortunately, they did not go so far as to test the influences of play on state of mind. This study focuses on the relationships between state of mind in the flow 4-channel model and play. Early research has attempted to hypothetically explain state of mind in flow theory, but has not been tested except flow until now. Also the importance of play has been emphasized in the flow theory, but has not been tested in the flow 4-channel model context. This researcher attempts to analyze the relationships among state of mind, skill of play, challenge, state of mind and web loyalty. For this objective, I developed a measure for state of mind and defined the concept of play as a trait. Then, the influences of challenge and skill on the state of mind and play under on-line shopping conditions were tested. Also the influences of play on state of mind were tested and those of flow and play on web loyalty were highlighted. 294 undergraduate students participated in this research survey. They were asked to respond about their perceptions of challenge, skill, state of mind, play, and web-loyalty to on-line shopping mall. Respondents were restricted to students who bought products on-line in a month. In case of buying products at two or more on-line shopping malls, they asked to respond about the shopping mall where they bought the most important one. Construct validity, discriminant validity, and convergent validity were used to check the measurement validations. Also, Cronbach's alpha was used to check scale reliability. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. This researcher conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of measurements. All items loaded significantly on their respective constructs. Also, all reliabilities were greater than.70. Chi-square difference tests and goodness of fit tests supported discriminant and convergent validity. The results of clustering and ANOVA showed that high challenge and high skill leaded to flow, low challenge and high skill leaded to boredom, and low challenge and low skill leaded to apathy. But, it was different from my expectation that high challenge and low skill didnot lead to anxiety but leaded to apathy. The results also showed that high challenge and high skill, and high challenge and low skill leaded to the highest play. Low challenge leaded to low play. 4 Structural Equation Models were built by flow, anxiety, boredom, apathy for analyzing not only the impact of play on state of mind and web-loyalty, but also that of state of mind on web-loyalty. According the analyses results of these models, play impacted flow and web-loyalty positively, but impacted anxiety, boredom, and apathy negatively. Results also showed that flow impacted web-loyalty positively, but anxiety, boredom, and apathy impacted web-loyalty negatively. The interpretations and implications of the test results of the hypotheses are as follows. First, respondents belonging to different clusters based on challenge and skill level experienced different states of mind such as flow, anxiety, boredom, apathy. The low challenge and low skill group felt the highest anxiety and apathy. It could be interpreted that this group feeling high anxiety or fear, then avoided attempts to shop on-line. Second, it was found that higher challenge leads to higher levels of play. Test results show that the play level of the high challenge and low skill group (anxiety group) was higher than that of the high challenge and high skill group (flow group). However, this was not significant. Third, play positively impacted flow and negatively impacted boredom. The negative impacts on anxiety and apathy were not significant. This means that the combination of challenge and skill creates different results. Forth, play and flow positively impacted web-loyalty, but anxiety, boredom, apathy had negative impacts. The effect of play on web-loyalty was stronger in case of anxiety, boredom, apathy group than fl ow group. These results show that challenge and skill influences state of mind and play. Results also demonstrate how play and flow influence web-loyalty. It implies that state of mind and play should be the core marketing variables in internet marketing. The flow theory has been focusing on flow and on the positive outcomes of flow experiences. But, this research shows that lots of consumers experience the negative state of mind rather than flow state in the internet shopping circumstance. Results show that the negative state of mind leads to low or negative web-loyalty. Play can have an important role with the web-loyalty when consumers have the negative state of mind. Results of structural equation model analyses show that play influences web-loyalty positively, even though consumers may be in the negative state of mind. This research found the impacts of challenge and skill on state of mind in the flow 4-channel model, not only flow but also anxiety, boredom, apathy. Also, it highlighted the role of play in the flow 4-channel model context and impacts on web-loyalty. However, tests show a few different results from hypothetical expectations such as the highest anxiety level of apathy group and insignificant impacts of play on anxiety and apathy. Further research needs to replicate this research and/or to compare 3-channel model with 4-channel model.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.79-111
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• 2011

Digital economy has grown rapidly so that the new business area called 'Internet business' has been dramatically extended as time goes on. However, in the case of Internet business, market shares of individual companies seem to fluctuate very extremely. Thus marketing managers who operate the Internet sites have seriously observed the competition structure of the Internet business market and carefully analyzed the competitors' behavior in order to achieve their own business goals in the market. The newly created Internet business might differ from the offline ones in management styles, because it has totally different business circumstances when compared with the existing offline businesses. Thus, there should be a lot of researches for finding the solutions about what the features of Internet business are and how the management style of those Internet business companies should be changed. Most marketing literatures related to the Internet business have focused on individual business markets. Specifically, many researchers have studied the Internet portal sites and the Internet shopping mall sites, which are the most general forms of Internet business. On the other hand, this study focuses on the entire Internet business industry to understand the competitive circumstance of online market. This approach makes it possible not only to have a broader view to comprehend overall e-business industry, but also to understand the differences in competition structures among Internet business markets. We used time-series data of Internet connection rates by consumers as the basic data to figure out the competition patterns in the Internet business markets. Specifically, the data for this research was obtained from one of Internet ranking sites, 'Fian'. The Internet business ranking data is obtained based on web surfing record of some pre-selected sample group where the possibility of double-count for page-views is controlled by method of same IP check. The ranking site offers several data which are very useful for comparison and analysis of competitive sites. The Fian site divides the Internet business areas into 34 area and offers market shares of big 5 sites which are on high rank in each category daily. We collected the daily market share data about Internet sites on each area from April 22, 2008 to August 5, 2008, where some errors of data was found and 30 business area data were finally used for our research after the data purification. This study performed several empirical analyses in focusing on market shares of each site to understand the competition among sites in Internet business of Korea. We tried to perform more statistically precise analysis for looking into business fields with similar competitive structures by applying the cluster analysis to the data. The research results are as follows. First, the leading sites in each area were classified into three groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The first group includes the sites with the lowest market shares, which give more increased convenience to consumers by offering the Internet sites as complimentary services for existing offline services. The second group includes sites with medium level of market shares, where the site users are limited to specific small group. The third group includes sites with the highest market shares, which usually require online registration in advance and have difficulty in switching to another site. Second, we analyzed the second place sites in each business area because it may help us understand the competitive power of the strongest competitor against the leading site. The second place sites in each business area were classified into four groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The four groups are the sites showing consistent inferiority compared to the leading sites, the sites with relatively high volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and high level of shares whose gaps are not big compared to the leading sites. Except 'web agency' area, these second place sites show relatively stable shares below 0.1 point of standard deviation. Third, we also classified the types of relative strength between leading sites and the second place sites by applying the cluster analysis to the gap values of market shares between two sites. They were also classified into four groups, the sites with the relatively lowest gaps even though the values of standard deviation are various, the sites with under the average level of gaps, the sites with over the average level of gaps, the sites with the relatively higher gaps and lower volatility. Then we also found that while the areas with relatively bigger gap values usually have smaller standard deviation values, the areas with very small differences between the first and the second sites have a wider range of standard deviation values. The practical and theoretical implications of this study are as follows. First, the result of this study might provide the current market participants with the useful information to understand the competitive circumstance of the market and build the effective new business strategy for the market success. Also it might be useful to help new potential companies find a new business area and set up successful competitive strategies. Second, it might help Internet marketing researchers take a macro view of the overall Internet market so that make possible to begin the new studies on overall Internet market beyond individual Internet market studies.