• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.53-67
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• 2009

For the last decades, service quality has been studied as one of the most important tools for a service company to compete with the other companies. Based on these past researches, it has been agreed that the service quality is a basic and powerful tool to create the competitive advantage. Due to similar reason, many service marketing practitioners have been also focused on the service quality to retain the existing consumers and collect the new consumers. However, service quality is subjectively perceived by individual consumers. Consumer evaluation of service quality can be different from each other. Especially consumers with one life-style may evaluate the service quality differently from the consumers with the other life-styles. Therefore we need to know whether there are differences in service quality perception on the categories of life-style. Life-style refers to a distinctive mode of living in its aggregate and broadest sense. It embodies the patterns that were developed and emerged from the dynamics of living in a society. Since the concept of life-style and its relationship to marketing was introduced in 1963 by William Lazer, methods of measuring the life-style and their application have been developed. Life-style has been usually used to segment the marketplace because it offers marketers a unique and important view of the market. When Life-style is combined with clustering methods, life-style segmentation can generate identifiable whole persons rather than isolated fragment. Life-style segmentation begins with people instead of products and classifies them into different life-style types, each characterized by a unique style of living based on a wide range of activities, interests, and opinions(Plummer, 1974). In this study we applies the life-style segmentation based on the AIO(Activities, Interests, and Opinions) to the consumers of the large discount stores. In Korea, the large discount store market has entered into maturity stage so that the market differentiation strategy is becoming a more critical issue to the marketing practitioners. One of the most important tools to differentiate from the competitors in large discount store market is continuously to provide service of better quality than competitors. This study tries to find answers about the following questions: 1) How can we categorize the consumer life-styles in the large discount store? 2) What are the characteristics of the categorized groups? 3) Are there any differences in service quality perception among the consumers with different life-styles 4) Are there any differences in consumer behavior among them in the large discount store? For the purpose, we collected survey data from consumers and analyzed the data with the SPSS package where we had $X^2$-test, factor analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA, and cluster analysis. The survey was made during one month in the April of 2008. Among the collected 306 copies of questionnaires, 281 copies were chosen as the effective samples for empirical analysis except 25 copies with wrong responses. To identify the life-style patterns, we used the measures employed by Kim and Kwon(1999), where 44 items on a seven-point scale were used to measure factors of the life-style patterns. The Principal Component Method was used for factor extraction, and the VARIMAX orthogonal factor rotation was employed. The 7 items showing low factor loading were eliminated. The results of the factor analysis suggested that nine factors of the life-style patterns were identified as follows: 1) the equality-of-sexes and pursuit-of-independence tendency 2) self-management tendency 3) sociable tendency 4) self-display tendency 5) degree of a dilettante life 6) pursuit-of-information tendency 7) bargain hunter tendency 8) TV preference tendency 9) pursuit-of-leisure tendency. Next, after the K-means cluster analysis was performed with nine factors of the life-style patterns, the life-styles of the respondents were classified into four groups which are named as the 'progressive practicality-oriented group', 'positive success-oriented group', 'sociable ostentation-oriented group', 'stable conservation-oriented group'. The analysis results for usage behavior between the market segments showed statistically significant differences in the frequency of usage, duration time in the store, consumer satisfaction, and loyalty. Also, we tried to investigate whether the large discount store consumers differently perceive the quality of service based upon the types of life-style. To measure the service quality of large discount store, we adapted several measurement models measuring the service quality such as SERVPERF, BCP, R-SERVPERF, R-BCP. MANOVA and One-Way ANOVA were performed to confirm the difference in service quality perception based on the market segments. The results have also shown significant differences between life-style types in service quality perception. These findings show that the large discount store marketers should consider consumer life-style as one of the most important market segments for marketing and understand the difference in service quality perception between life-style types. Our findings give important implications to marketers of large discount stores as well as life-style researchers. First, this study showed there were significant differences in consumer's service quality perception and usage behavior between the types of life-style. It provides evidence that the life-style approach can be a important basis in segmenting the large discount store market and will make consumers perceive the service quality high. Second, most previous researches on service quality have been in aggregate level. However, our results imply that the future research on service quality have to focus on segment level.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.195-215
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• 2010

Large-scale discount stores, that were in charge of leading role up to recently, reach the limit of growth because of increasing competition, saturation of domestic market, and shortened product life-cycle. As per the limit of domestic market, large-scale discount stores are trying to various global market entry strategy and global marketing strategy like new store entry, takeover of foreign distribution chain, and global sourcing strategy. In the past, global companies of advanced country have been entering to Asian market with leading position. But, as per the rapid growth of Asian economy in the late 1980's, East Asian distribution companies like Japanese company were trying to enter the Asian market. In Asian market, starting with China, that was relatively not advanced in comparison with economic development, not only western advanced countries but also East Asian countries like Japan and Korea are entering actively for overcome their limitations of domestic market. Many of distribution companies experienced success and failure for various reason already. Korean large-scale discount stores are relatively late starters in Asian market. So, this paper purposed to review global market entry strategy of Japanese large-scale discount stores, and find out strategic implications for successful global market entry strategy of Korean large-scale discount stores.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.7-26
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• 2012

The success story of E-mart fascinated many academics and practitioners alike. Though E-mart began as a nameless discount store in Chang-dong, Seoul in 1993, it has transformed itself into a leading distribution company and one of the most powerful brands in Korea. Surprisingly, it achieved the great success against the two crises it met: the national economic crisis and the invasion of the global giant Walmart. The main objective of this case study is to formally examine how E-mart overcame the two crises. More specifically, this case study highlights the ways with which E-mart turned those difficulties into opportunities for growth. In our examination of the E-mart case, we could clearly see E-mart's competence and spirit that allowed it to turn crises into advantageous opportunities. E-mart attracted the customers who wanted value-oriented consumption by its positioning as the "Lowest price discount store", when consumer sentiment was frozen under the economic crisis. Furthermore, when a large-scale foreign discount store like Walmart entered the Korea market, E-mart built its core competencies as the 'Korean style discount store'. These ingenious positioning and efforts resulted in E-mart taking over their archrival, Walmart, and forced the global Goliath to exit the Korean market. The case of E-mart's effective crisis management teaches many important lessons and a few core lessons that apply to many companies. One such lesson is the importance of positioning which enabled E-mart to turn crises into opportunities. Granted, the strategy of positioning as the 'Korean style discount store', or 'Lowest price discount store' was possible due to overall support with cost reduction, development and management of their own system, an apprentice educate system, etc. based on an excellent selection of location of the store and efficient distribution systems. Still, the positioning strategy of E-mart was truly ground breaking in distancing itself from its competitors. The lessons from E-mart will help those companies currently in a stagnant situation or a crisis to turn their obstacles into great success.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.41 no.3 s.114
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• pp.319-330
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• 2006

The objective of this research is to achieve an objectivity of site decision after extracting site decision factors on a large-scale discount store(LSDS) and utilize any hidden information using the association rules mining through huge database. To catch this objective, we collect a census, economic, and environmental dataset related with locating of LSDS. And then, we construct a spatial data on the research area. These data is used for the extraction of a spatial association rules. To verify whether the extracted rules are suitability or not, we use the sales of some LSDS. As the result of test, the more sales, the more factors of the extracted rules relate with the sales it coincides. Consequently, the spatial association rules mining is efficient method which support the ideal site decision of LSDS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1450-1460
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• 2008

The goal of this study was to investigate the impacts of service quality, customer satisfaction, and switching burier on store loyalty of the clothes shops at large-scale discount stores. The subjects were 357 female adults living in Suncheon City, Jeollanam Province. The questionnaires were conveniently sampled from June 1 to 30, 2006. The collected data were factor and reliability analyzed using the SPSS program. And Regression was used to verify the relationships between the variables. Among the six hypotheses set in the research model, total three were accepted through empirical analysis and the rest three were accepted partially. The empirical results showed the following managerial implications. First, consumer' perceived service quality has relationship with customer satisfaction and store loyalty. Second, service quality has a positive relationship with switch barrier. Third, customer satisfaction has significantly related with switch barrier. Fourth, switch barrier has positively related with store loyalty. Finally, 'sales people', 'VMD/atmosphere', and 'assortment' of the service quality factors have positive relationships with store loyalty, but 'policy' has a negative relationship with store loyalty.

• Proceedings of the KGS Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.19-20
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• 2006

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.127-154
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• 2008

For the large scale retailers such as chain discount stores and specialty stores, having measurement tool to maintain service quality can be very crucial to sustain high and same level of service qualities around multiple stores. This study aims to develop service quality scales of large-scale stores using Korean discount store cases. We have studied the previous service quality measures including RSQS(Retail Service Quality Scale) and have modified and developed our own scale model called KD-SQS(Korea Discount Service Quality Scale). The following six components have been revealed as the basic dimensions of service quality of Korean discount stores: basic benefits, promotion, personal interactions, physical aspects, policy and additional convenience. Our scales have been verified through various validity and reliability tests.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.5D
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• pp.705-712
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• 2008

The purpose of this study using Fuzzy AHP technique as a decision support system is to propose a structured and available decision making process for location selection of large-scale discount stores. The procedure of this study is divided into two parts to estimate the relative weights of evaluation criteria and analyze the sites of some large discount stores. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; First, compared with the other criteria, the population of primary trade area has the most weight, and moreover, there are the number of rival businesses, dimensions of roads, total population, lot size, purchase cost in order of size. Lastly, the sites of six stores are evaluated relatively, then the optimal location is selected, which proves the applicability for decision making process this study suggests.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.113-132
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to derive the factors for the general consumers to choose the store to buy seafood. Survey on 414 general consumers by questionnaires was conducted to find out the factors for them to choose the stores in the traditional market and large supermarket, and through the analysis on the results the factors for general consumers to choose large supermarkets were derived when they buy seafood and at the same time the degree of its importance was analyzed. The results of the survey showed that the general consumers chose large supermarkets to buy seafood despite the fact that they recognized the seafood prices are lower in the traditional markets than in the large supermarkets. Particularly, the results of analyzing the sixteen criteria for choosing the store in which to buy seafood were grouped into four: the 'assortment of goods and high quality', 'service', 'price and promotion' and 'convenient accessibility.' The results of examining the order of priority based on the four factors showed that the 'assortment of diverse seafood and high quality' was found to be given the first priority, followed by 'convenient accessibility' and 'prices and promotion factors', with 'service' being statistically insignificant. Based on these results, Monroe (1975)'s consumers' store choice process is summarized as follows. Before buying seafood, the consumers who use large supermarkets have the desire for buying seafood and then judge the properties of the store which they will use. In this process, consumers were satisfying their needs in large supermarkets in the criteria of 'assortment of diverse seafood and high quality', convenient accessibility', and 'prices and promotion factors' which were found to be statistically significant in this research. Accordingly, the general consumers choose to buy seafood in large supermarkets rather than in the traditional markets. The general consumers were more satisfied with using large supermarkets than using traditional markets, so after they have initially bought seafood in the large supermarkets, they habitually buy seafood in the large supermarkets without going through Monroe (1975)'s 'eight stage process for the store choice.' When such habitual store choice behavior continues for a long time, it results in becoming structural.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.121-128
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• 2013

Because of governmental regulations, large-scale discount stores are trying to find a new way that can expand a market size. Homeplus virtual store has received attention from the other companies, because virtual store can access 24 hours and be unfettered by governmental regulations. The purpose of the study is to review performance and strategies of Homeplus virtual store as well as the cause of the failure of imitators. To do this, we can find key indicators of success of virtual store.