• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.113-128
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• 2012

The growth of market share of distributors' brands, also known as private brand, has accelerated in recent years. Sales volumes and market shares of private brands, as well as their appeal to consumers have steadily increased. Carrying private brands comes with numerous advantages, one of which is the relatively high gross margin, which can be 20 - 30% higher compared to manufacturer brands. Recently, many big discount stores are expanding private brand for higher sales volume. Thus, private brands play an important strategic role for retailers. The tendency of growing private brand will decrease sales revenue of both channel members, distributer and manufacturer. The disadvantage for manufacturer is obvious, especially for the manufactures who not only produce their own brands but also retailer brands competing against their own. There are also possible to weaken the brand awareness of manufacturer's brand. The purpose of this study is to explore the perception gap between retailers and manufacturers. we investigated to identify how consumers perceive private brand. In other to study the impact of private brands on distributors, we surveyed the actual condition of private brand and perception towards private brands among consumers, retailers and manufacturers. Based these analysis, we recommended proposal for private brand policies as follows: First, it need to correct imbalance between large retailer and manufacturer. second, we suggest "win-win growth policy", Third, by registering trademark right of national brand, manufacturers have a way of protecting their brands. Forth, manufacturers are encouraged to produce PNB(Private National Brand).

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.9
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• pp.51-57
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• 2013

Purpose - This study investigates the effect of visual merchandising display (VMD) of local specialty retailer of private label apparel (SPA) brands, such as space, display, and presentation on brand awareness, brand image, and purchase intention. It investigates consumers' VMD awareness and purchase intention of SPA brands to help business activities of local SPA enterprises. Research designs, data, methodology - This study uses SPSS 18.0 to study eight local SPA brands and has 193 effective usable copies from a sample of 200. Results - The display and presentation of VMDs of SPA brands had a positive influence on brand awareness and brand image, which in turn had a positive influence on purchase intention. Conclusions - As SPA brands are increasingly located in supercenters, they face space constraints and find it difficult to display their facade and signs effectively. Therefore, decisions pertaining to display, presentation, and space should consider whether these SPA brands are launched as independent specialty shops or in supercenters. The space for VMD is considered important in independent shops. However, shops that open in supercenters should pay more attention to presentation rather than space.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.139-156
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate various information relating to research on the dimensions of clothing used in the sale of products via the internet that used to target global SPA((Specialty Store Retailer of Private Label Apparel) brands sold in Korea. A total of 12 SPA brands including seven global SPA brands and five national. SPA brands were surveyed in this study. Brands were chosen net sales and consumer preferences the last three years. In all SPA brands, literal size designation such as S, M, L and numeric size designation such as 0, 2, 4 or 32, 34, 36 etc. were mixed, but in case of Jean, the size codes mark waist circumference were dominant. European size codes were more common in case of European brands while literal codes were more dominantly used for American size codes with in the US brands. By reviewing the measurement information of the body and product size, the product measurement methods of UNIQLO, FOREVER 21 and TOPTEN were much more accountable and excellent than other brands. However, most of the others didn't offer proper information such as pictograms or figures about measurement methods relating body sizes and product sizes. In addition, most of global SPA brands offered size conversion chart which consumers could reference, however of none of the national SPA brands offered a conversion size chart on their website. Regardless of the type of clothing, the coverage of clothing size was higher than in global SPA brands such as H&M GAP compared to national SPA brands. In particular, 8seconds did not present apparel size ranges that fit consumers' individual clothes sizes.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.15 no.1 s.66
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• pp.1-12
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to identify the SPA(Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) characteristics and product supply process of Korean casual apparel brands. The research was conducted by questionnaire surveys to 63 casual apparel brands. SPA characteristics of each brand were measured with four SPA characteristic indices: short product supply cycle, spacious retail floor, single brand retail store, and low product price compared to the quality of the product. The 63 apparel brands were grouped by SPA index score. The brands belonged to group H had high index score and brands in group L had low index score. The results of this study showed that the most of the casual apparel brands' products were sold at department stores, especially the brands belonged to group L greatly depended on department stores. Few apparel brands have spacious retail floor. The retail product price of the brands belonged to group H was low price while the product price of the brands belonged to group L was in the medium-high price. The supply time of the new products was short in general. The most brands supplied new styles to the retail floor within 1 to 3 weeks. The information technology was heavily used. The brands belonged to group H highly used information technology including bar codes system, pas data analysis, and inventory control system. The current style trends were analyzed with street fashion and feedback from the shop managers.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.7
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• pp.353-374
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• 2001

Price and brand are two major attributes of products that consumer purchases. Price is important because it is often a measure of worth and quality. Some consumers purchase only well-known national brands. However, By reason of the price competition on account of new business condition and depressions, and consumers practical and rational purchasing tendency, consumers tend to purchase private brands(PB hereafter) because as consumers they expect that producers have reasonable and acceptable quality. Accordingly, The study, with intrinsic cue, extrinsic cue, familiarity anything like these cues from the study of Richardson et aI(1994, 1996), intends to present current topics we guide in retailer's promotion strategy for PB. As for investigating how quality evaluation has on effect on the private brands purchasing behavior of discount store grocery items. This study establishes a hypotheses on the basis of the quality evaluation cues of PB and literature review for purchasing behavior and collects materials for consumers about 196, and also analyzes them using a variety of SPSS/PC+package program. Therefore, the findings of this study provide the following managerial implications. 1) Retailer will successful in increasing private brand market share through dramatic improvement in package design, labeling, advertising, and branding strategies. 2) Planned Purchasers have high intention to repurchase PB because they buy them reasonably in accordance with the estimate therefore, they might have word-of-mouth effect for the evaluation of quality and recognition. They need to acknowledge benefits for PB purchases to maintain purchase like that. 3) The main consumers are housewives in their thirties and forties and they something reasonably because they have a lot of family and retailer will work out.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.35-51
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• 2010

This study aims at providing data for establishing a marketing strategy which can enhance the competitiveness of Korea domestic SPA(Specialty Store Retailer of Private Label Apparel) Brands by suggesting countermeasure strategy through the observation and analysis for SPA Brands, under the current circumstance in which the systematic and scholastic discussion for the matter, is lack, despite the diastrophism in fashion industry is prospected according to the rapid growth of Global SPA Brands. For this purpose, the characteristic and current status of Global SPA Brands is examined, and the main cause of growth is analyzed by approaching to their marketing characteristic, in this study. In relation with this situation, this study suggests the provisions as below, which are drawn from the analysis on Global SPA Brands' marketing strategy, so that Korea domestic SPA Brands could achieve successive performance under fierce competition. First, to be a competitive SPA Brands a business should be able to supply products with frequent product turnover by an interval level of one week or so, the existent product planning by seasons, as a business obtains various swift informations on consumers' demand with R&D center foundation. Secondly, SPA Brands should establish a strategy that a business can create high net profit by inventory management which enables lowering inventory ratio remarkably, and a strategy for innovative product supply by small quantity batch production, along with founding a high technological logistics system. Third, SPA Brands should establish a strategy for primary cost reduction by overseas dispersed outsourcing in order to enable diverse product development and rational price setting. Fourth, fashion marketers should establish also a strategy for communication by which brand image can be delivered effectively, by firming the brand identity and by informing product characteristic and customer service totally, with the method of VMD and flagship store. Additionary, fashion marketers also should establish a strategy by developing mobile application which can provide brand image and diverse other fashion related information.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.29-62
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• 2012

As distribution environment is changing rapidly and competition is more intensive in the channel of distribution, the importance of retailer image and retailer equity is increasing as a different competitive advantages. Also, consumers are not functionally oriented and that their behavior is significantly affected by the symbols such as retailer image which identify retailer in the market place. That is, consumers do not choose products or retailers for their material utilities but consume the symbolic meaning of those products or retailers as expressed in their self images. The concept of self-image congruence has been utilized by marketers and researchers as an aid in better understanding how consumers identify themselves with the brands they buy and the retailer they patronize. Although self-image congruity theory has been tested across many product categories, the theory has not been tested extensively in the retailing. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of self image congruence between retailer image and self image of consumer on retailer equity such as retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to find out whether retailer-self image congruence can be a new antecedent of retailer equity. In addition, this study tries to examine how four-dimensional retailer equity constructs (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) affect customers' repatronage intention. For this study, data were gathered by survey and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study was 254. The reliability of the all seven dimensions was estimated with Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability values and average variance extracted values. We determined whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity and discriminant validity by Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted values exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the AMOS 18.0. As expected, the image congruence hypotheses were supported. The greater the degree of congruence between retailer image and self-image, the more favorable were consumers' retailer evaluations. The all two retailer-self image congruence (actual self-image congruence and ideal self-image congruence) affected customer based retailer equity. This result means that retailer-self image congruence is important cue for customers to estimate retailer equity. In other words, consumers are often more likely to prefer products and retail stores that have images similar to their own self-image. Especially, it appeared that effect for the ideal self-image congruence was consistently larger than the actual self-image congruence on the retailer equity. The results mean that consumers prefer or search for stores that have images compatible with consumer's perception of ideal-self. In addition, this study revealed that customers' estimations toward customer based retailer equity affected the repatronage intention. The results showed that all four dimensions (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) had positive effect on the repatronage intention. That is, management and investment to improve image congruence between retailer and consumers' self make customers' positive evaluation of retailer equity, and then the positive customer based retailer equity can enhance the repatonage intention. And to conclude, retailer's image management is an important part of successful retailer performance management, and the retailer-self image congruence is an important antecedent of retailer equity. Therefore, it is more important to develop and improve retailer's image similar to consumers' image. Given the pressure to provide increased image congruence, it is not surprising that retailers have made significant investments in enhancing the fit between retailer image and self image of consumer. The enhancing such self-image congruence may allow marketers to target customers who may be influenced by image appeals in advertising.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.19-29
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• 2004

The current fashion market is experiencing a lot of difficulties in fashion forecasting due to consumers' fast-changing lifestyle on fashion, changes in consumer behavior, and the segmentation of the fashion market. To cope with this harsh reality, many fashion enterprises have paid much attention to the SPA (Specialty Retailer's Store of Private Label Apparel) brand as a promising fashion marketing strategy in terms of which they can survive in the extremely competing fashion market. The SPA brand is in the stage of inception in Korea, but the SPA brands such as MUJI and UNIQLO are already dominating the fashion business in Japan. Korea has just started developing the SPA brand, but its technological development, which was triggered by the success of 'BASIC HOUSE', is rapidly evolving. Under these circumstances, the SPA brand is getting vital for the fashion market in efficiently realizing consumers' requirements, revolutionizing the method for providing product information and the process of Marketing Mix Program, and expressing the value of shop. This paper studies the nature of the SPA brand and fashion merchandising system, and in turn examine the differences between the visual merchandising of the existing fashion brands and the Japanese SPA brands that are used as the fashion marketing strategy which is driven by the up-to-date technological system. Centering around these issues, we propose a visual merchandising system for fashion enterprises which serves to develop Korean-style SPA brands.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.25-36
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• 2011

Owing to the rapid growth of hypermarket/discount store formats since 1996, Korean retailing has suddenly attracted the significant attention from researchers. Before the emergence of large scale retailers such as E-Mart, Lotte Mart and Tesco Korea, there were the two retail formats who led the Korean retailing in the modern retailing history: department store and supermarket formats. Nevertheless, there has been little literature concerned about the two retail formats as a case study, while some authors have paid their attention to hypermarket/discount store formats. In addition, when mentioning the development process of retailing history, it is less likely that authors have made an effort to illustrate supermarket retailing history. In order to regard supermarket retailing as part of the Korean retailing, it is interesting to look at a representative supermarket retailer, Haitai, who was one of the subsidiaries of Haitai chaebol. Based on supermarket retailing, the company which was established as a joint venture in 1974 led a supermarket retailing in the Korean modernised retailing history. Before analysing whether Haitai failed or not, the definition of failure should be illustrated. With regard to the term, failure, in the academic world, authors have interchangeably used the following terms: failure, divestment, closure, organisational restructuring, and exit. To collect research data as a case study, the author adopted an in-depth interview method. The research is based on research interviews with 13 ex-staff who left after Haitai went bankruptcy, from store management department to merchandise department. By investigating Haitai's experiences through field interviews, the research found that Haitai restructured organisational decision-making process at the early stage when companies started to modernise organisational charts, benchmarking sophisticated retailing knowledge through the strategic alliance with a Japanese retailer. In respect of buying system, the company established firmly buying functions by adopting central buying system, and further, outstandingly allocated considerable marketing resources to the development of retailer brands with the dedicated team of retailer brand development. In the grocery retailing, abandoning a 'no-frill' packaging concept, the introduction of retailer brand packaging equal to, or better than national brand packaging design, encouraged other retailers to change their retailer brand development strategies. In product sourcing ways, Haitai organised for the first time the overseas sourcing team with the aim of improving the profit margins of foreign products and providing exotic products for customers, followed by other retailers. Regarding distribution system, the company introduced the innovative idea which delivered products ordered by stores directly to each store withboth its own vehicles and its own warehouse in which could deal with dry foods, chilly foods, frozen food, and non-foods, and even, process produce. In addition, Haitai developed many promotional methods to attract more customers like 'the guarantee of the lowest price', and expanded its own business to US in 1996, although withdrew, because of bankruptcy in 1997. Together with POS introduction in 1994, Haitai made a significant contribution to the development of the Korean retailing, influencing other retailers in many aspects. As a case study, the study has provided a number of lessons from Haitai's experiences for academicians and practitioners, suggesting that its history should be involved in the Korean modernised retailing.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.405-420
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to identify the differences between clothing size satisfaction and clothing sizing systems of Korean and foreign SPA (specialty retailer of private label apparel) brands according to height group, and provide foundation material that can be used to establish product strategy from the perspective of Korean SPA brand clothing sizes in order to secure competitiveness in the international market. Satisfaction of tall women in their twenties with the clothing sizes of SPA brands was researched, and t-test was conducted to examine differences between clothing size satisfaction of Korean and foreign SPA brands between the two height groups. Then, differences in the size minimum and maximum values, size ranges, size intervals and size numbers between clothing sizing systems of Korean and foreign SPA brands were researched and comparatively analyzed. Existing clothing sizes need to make improvements considering the lengths and shoulder width of tall consumers. And Korean SPA brands need to diversify the range and number of sizes in the clothing sizing system, and set a separate tall-size group, or apply the relationship between vertical and horizontal sizes of clothing to establish a clothing sizing system. A product strategy that applies the results of this study will solve the clothing size dissatisfaction of tall female consumers and stimulate sales of Korean SPA brand clothing products. The study has value in that it extracted realistic problems by researching clothing sizing systems of products that are actually sold.