• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.333-341
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• 2020

This study evaluated the perception, consumption behavior, and optional attributes of Korean, Chinese, and U.S. consumers of energy bar products. Data were compared and analyzed by surveying 300 consumers in each country. Significant differences were observed in preference for energy bars according to their nationality, in the order China, the U.S., and Korea. Perception of taste, types and dietary suitability of the products ranked lower for Korean consumers, as compared to consumers of the United States and China. The order dietary fiber, protein, and calcium were the sought-after nutritional requirements of the products. The demand for protein was significantly higher in the U.S. Calcium demand was low in the United States and China, but was very high in Korea, which could be attributed to the low calcium intake of Koreans. Other optional attributes which were closely associated with the purchase and re-purchase decision, included price, taste and delivery period. All three factors were recognized as important options in Korea, whereas awareness of packaging/appearance and brand was not. The taste, nutrients and price in the U.S. ranked high as important optional attributes, while the packaging, external and expiration dates were recognized as low. Unlike Korea and the U.S., important optional attributes for Chinese consumers were determined in the order expiration date, taste, and nutrients, and showed low perception for packaging, appearance, weight, counts, and prices. Evaluating the preference for the main and secondary ingredients, Koreans preferred nuts over grains, Americans preferred dried fruits over nuts, and Chinese preferred nuts and grains; both Korean and American consumers had low preference for dried vegetables. The preference for chocolate was low in Korea and China, whereas preference for jelly was high in China as compared to Korea and the U.S. The intention of purchasing energy bars was significantly lower in Korea than in the U.S. and China. A variety of nutritious functional bars have recently been distributed and sold in Korea, but they are mostly produced in the U.S., which is the largest producer and consumer worldwide. Taken together, results of this study indicate that the demand for nutritional enhancement and preferred materials vary according to the nationality. Hence, it is necessary to develop products that reflect these criteria. Further research is required to analyze the relationship between preference and consumption behavior for each material product developed in the future.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.15-38
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to look into the consumers who show the consumption patterns of brand switching and repeated purchasing, find the decision factors of their brand switching and repeated purchasing, analyze the difference in marketing response variables being represented as corporate promotion activities in the brand switching and repeated purchasing process, and provide a suggestion to apply the result to marketing Therefore, it tries to help the firms, which develop push marketing as the result of excessive competition between distributors and sales competition focusing on external appearance, recognize consumers as individual substances; to propose proper efficient promotion activities; to let consumers increase loyalty to their trademark and continue to purchase their products repeatedly; and to induce competitor brand consumers to do brand switching. The results of this study are presented as follows: First, consumers who prefer events, price discount, samples, and product premium which means the products with brand or logo on them had the feature of repeated purchasing. Secondly, service benefit, point-type promotion, cost-saving satisfaction didn't affect brand switching, and only the consumers who prefer coupon-type promotion did brand switching. Thirdly, a distribution type produced the moderating effect between the repeated purchasing and coupon and coupon-type promotion, and between brand switching and service benefit.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.69-79
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• 2024

Companies should resolve consumer dissatisfaction and increase brand loyalty by actively identifying the factors of consumer dissatisfaction and proactively responding to expected complaint behavior to induce repurchase. This is a management goal that should be pursued in common regardless of the size of the company. The specific purpose of this study is to find out whether the degree of dissatisfaction differs depending on whether or not consumers' expected performance before purchase and the actual perceived performance after purchase is compared, whether the degree of dissatisfaction affects the type of complaint behavior, which is a subsequent behavior, and whether the attributable behavior has a moderating effect in this process and whether the persistence of the result and the controllability of the cause act as a factor that determines the attribution position. In particular, compared to general companies, venture companies are more likely to overload the information processing ability of managers and are likely to make various irrational errors in decision making, so this study has important academic and practical implications. As a result of the analysis, the negative inconsistency group had the highest degree of dissatisfaction, and the higher the degree of inconsistency, the higher the dissatisfaction. The attributable behavior of unsatisfied consumers had a moderating effect on the degree of dissatisfaction, and the dissatisfaction was significantly higher in the external attributable group than the internal attributable group, which was statistically significant. On the other hand, the persistence of the result had a statistically significant effect on the attribution position, but the controllability of the cause was not. The degree of attributable behavior and dissatisfaction did not affect the type of complaining behavior, showing limited influence. Along with the interpretation of these results, this study presents various implications, especially for small and medium-sized/venture companies that provide new durable products.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.141-173
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• 2007

The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2010

Corporate social responsibility has become a very important issue for researchers (Greenfield, 2004; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; McWilliams et al., 2006; Pearce & Doh 2005), and many consider it necessary for businesses to define their role in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). As a result, a significant number of retailers have adopted CSR as a strategic tool to promote their businesses. To this end, this study sought to discover U.S. consumers' attitudes and behavior in ethical purchasing and consumption based on their subjective perception and evaluation of a retailer. The objectives of this study include: 1) determine the participants awareness of retailers corporate social responsibility; 2) assess how participants evaluate retailers corporate social responsibility; 3) examine whether participants evaluation process of retailers CSR influence their attitude toward the retailer; and 4) assess if participants attitude toward the retailers CSR influence their purchase behavior. This study does not focus on actual retailers' CSR performance because a consumer's decision making process is based on an individual assessment not an actual fact. This study examines US college students' awareness and evaluations of retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR). Fifty six college students at a major Southeastern university participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 26 years old. Content analysis was conducted with open coding and focused coding. Over 100 single-spaced pages of written responses were collected and analyzed. Two steps of coding (i.e., open coding and focused coding) were conducted (Esterberg, 2002). Coding results and analytic memos were used to understand participants' awareness of CSR and their ethical purchasing behavior supported through the selection and inclusion of direct quotes that were extracted from the written responses. Names used here are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality of participants. Participants were asked to write about retailers, their aware-ness of CSR issues, and to evaluate a retailer's CSR performance. A majority (n = 28) of respondents indicated their awareness of CSR but have not felt the need to act on this issue. Few (n=8) indicated that they are aware of this issue but not greatly concerned. Findings suggest that when college students evaluate retailers' CSR performance, they use three dimensions of CSR: employee support, community support, and environmental support. Employee treatment and support were found as an important criterion in evaluation of retailers' CSR. Respondents indicated that their good experience with a retailer as an employee made them have a positive perception and attitude toward the retailer. Regarding employee support four themes emerged: employee rewards and incentives based on performance, working environment, employee education and training program, and employee and family discounts. Well organized rewards and incentives were mentioned as an important attribute. The factors related to the working environment included: how well retailers follow the rules related to working hours, lunch time and breaks was also one of the most mentioned attributes. Regarding community support, three themes emerged: contributing a percentage of sales to the local community, financial contribution to charity organizations, and events for community support. Regarding environments, two themes emerged: recycling and selling organic or green products. It was mentioned in the responses that retailers are trying to do what they can to be environmentally friendly. One respondent mentioned that the company is creating stores that have an environmentally friendly design. Information about what the company does to help the environment can easily be found on the company’s website as well. Respondents have also noticed that the stores are starting to offer products that are organic and environmentally friendly. A retailer was also mentioned by a respondent in this category in reference to how the company uses eco-friendly cups and how they are helping to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The respondents noticed that a retailer offers reusable bags for their consumers to purchase. One respondent stated that a retailer uses its products to help the environment, through offering organic cotton. After thorough analysis of responses, we found that a participant's evaluation of a retailers' CSR influenced their attitudes towards retailers. However, there was a significant gap between attitudes and purchasing behavior. Although the participants had positive attitudes toward retailers CSR, the lack of funds and time influenced their purchase behavior. Overall, half (n=28) of the respondents mentioned that CSR performance affects their purchasing decisions making when shopping. Findings from this study provide support for retailers to consider their corporate social responsibility when developing their image with the consumer. This study implied that consumers evaluate retailers based on employee, community and environmental support. The evaluation, attitude and purchase behavior of consumers seem to be intertwined. That is, evaluation is based on the knowledge the consumer has of the retailers CSR. That knowledge may influence their attitude toward the retailer and thus influence their purchase behavior. Participants also indicated that having CSR makes them think highly of the retailer, but it does not influence their purchase behavior. Price and convenience seem to surpass the importance of CSR among the participants. Implications, recommendations for future research, and limitations of the study are also discussed.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.426-432
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• 2005

The health of feet is connected with individual's health and affects a man's activity. Shoes need to be designed to protect feet and to absorb the impact of land. Thus, design, comfort and economical efficiency are important factors of shoes. Consumers can choose suitable shoes for their feet in off-line shopping. However, in on-line shopping, because they can not wear shoes, compare to the off-line shopping, there are many problems in internet shopping. First, consumers can get limited information of shoes because they must search information of purchase without other's help. Second, because consumers can not get important information such as design, size and a comfort of wearing, they can not make a careful decision. Above these, the solution of user-oriented internet shopping is development of new type of prototype which is accessible to user and to offer visual information through 3D-virtual reality. The purpose of this study is to develpoment of shoes easy-order prototype so to reduce of internet shopping risk and offer to shopping convenience. Contents of the new prototype are as follows; 1. Consumers can print out a foot shaped plane figure and compare it to their foot. If the size of printed sheet is not proper, consumers can choose another size. Through this step, they can get their own size. 2. In 3D-virtual reality, consumers can get a various visual information. So they feel wearing comfort indirectly. It is expected that the result of this study would be an important case study to develop of shoes' easy-order prototype for a disabled person.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.31 no.5 s.164
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• pp.765-776
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• 2007

Customer expectations and requirements for products play an important role in product planning for companies and decision making process for the consumer. These expectations are expressed by product qualities that consumers consider important when they purchase. Therefore, to identify quality elements that reflect consumer requirements would be a useful guide for companies. The purposes of this study are to find out quality factors of apparel product, to identify apparel product quality elements using Kano's theory, to find attributes of product which improvement are required. Women over 20 years-old from metropolitan areas in South Korea participated in the study and a quota sampling method was used. A questionnaire was arranged with four separate subject sections, importance of quality, Kano's questionnaires, and demographics. Data from 525 questionnaires were used for the statistical analysis. The results were as follows: Six dimensions of product quality(i.e., usefulness, performance, aesthetic, symbol, individuality and appearance) were identified. According to Kano's quality elements, performance was categorized into must-be quality which could lead to product dissatisfaction. Usefulness and appearance were categorized into one-dimensional quality which lead to both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Aesthetic, symbol, and individuality was categorized into attractive quality which could lead to satisfaction. Findings of this study provide both industry and academic researchers with a guide to increase customer satisfaction in the product development process.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.6047-6052
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• 2013

A cosmetic manufacturing process requires a mold that is inevitable for mass production. Cosmetic containers are one of major factors affecting the customer's purchase decision. In addition, the manufacturing cost in cosmetic container comprises a large portion of the entire product cost. Therefore, a mold satisfying the economical feasibility, aesthetics and functionality is necessary. Among the cosmetic containers, square shape containers have a tendency of having a short shot defect product. The square shaped cosmetic containers are mostly produced as a side gate shape on the two-plate molds. On the other hand, there are two disadvantages, such as gate trace and post processing requirement. The overlap-gateproposed in this study has the characteristics of intaglio gate cutting and no need for post processing. The delivery system of the overlap gate was simulated and compared with the side gate via Moldflow. The improvement in flow, frozen rate, density, and Air trap was confirmed. Based on the simulation results, the mold and performed injection molding was fabricated. In this study, the possibility of the mass production of high aesthetic and functionality cosmetic containers was verified.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.761-768
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• 2009

This study evaluated on the recognition and satisfaction for functional bakery products by consumers living in Seoul, Overall, 82.0% answered of the respondents reported that they had 'yes' which was 4.5 times as much as those who answered 'no' tried functional bakery products. Purchasing mostly depended on 'myself' (69.0%), and other methods of acquiring information as well as 'bakery' (10.8%), 'neighbour' (8.5%), 'media' (7.9%), and the 'internet' (3.7%). The preferred functional ingredients were 'sweet potato' with (22.9%), and 'rye and oat' (13.8%), 'green tea' (13.5%), 'pumpkin' (11.4%), and 'chestnut' (7.3%) were other preferred ingredients. The reasons for this preference were that they were 'healthy' by (47.1%) and had a 'good taste' by (36.6%). Evaluation of the recognition of functional bakery products revealed that, 'nutrition' had the highest scale of recognition of (3.80 out of 5), and followed by 'healthy' with (3.69 out of 5). Conversely, 'proper price' received a below average score of 2.97, indicating dissatisfaction. Moreover, the overall average satisfaction with functional bakery products was 3.37, and with the taste, nutrition, and quality receiving a highly satisfactory score of 3.52, and price receiving an unsatisfactory score of 3.00. The factors most important to improve functional bakery products were, 'variety' (37.6%) was most important, followed by 'increased nutrition' (21.2%) and 'lower price' needed to be improved as well. The factor that had the greatest influence on the decision to purchase functional bakery products was 'material' with (3.737) followed by 'name value' with (3.56).