• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.17-26
• /
• 2010

Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
• /
• v.19
• /
• pp.224-242
• /
• 2003

The author believes that the main task of study in international trade usage and practice is the management of transactional risks involved in international sale of goods. They are foreign exchange risks, transportation risks, credit risk, risk of miscommunication, etc. In most cases, these risks are more serious and enormous than those involved in domestic sales. Historically, the merchant adventurers organized the voyage abroad, secured trade finance, and went around the ocean with their own or consigned cargo until around the $mid-19^{th}$ century. They did business faceto-face at the trade fair or the open port where they maintained the local offices, so-called "Trading House"(商館). Thererfore, the transactional risks might have been one-sided either with the seller or the buyer. The bottomry seemed a typical arrangement for risk sharing among the interested parties to the adventure. In this way, such organizational arrangements coped with or bore the transactional risks. With the advent of ocean liner services and wireless communication across the national border in the $19^{th}$ century, the business of merchant adventurers developed toward the clear division of labor; sales by mercantile agents, and ocean transportation by the steam ship companies. The international banking helped the process to be accelerated. Then, bills of lading backed up by the statute made it possible to conduct documentary sales with a foreign partner in different country. Thus, FOB terms including ocean freight and CIF terms emerged gradually as standard trade terms in which transactional risks were allocated through negotiation between the seller and the buyer located in different countries. Both of them did not have to go abroad with their cargo. Instead, documentation in compliance with the terms of the contract(plus an L/C in some cases) must by 'strictly' fulfilled. In other words, the set of contractual documents must be tendered in advance of the arrival of the goods at port of discharge. Trust or reliance is placed on such contractual paper documents. However, the container transport services introduced as international intermodal transport since the late 1960s frequently caused the earlier arrival of the goods at the destination before the presentation of the set of paper documents, which may take 5 to 10% of the amount of transaction. In addition, the size of the container vessel required the speedy transport documentation before sailing from the port of loading. In these circumstances, computerized processing of transport related documents became essential for inexpensive transaction cost and uninterrupted distribution of the goods. Such computerization does not stop at the phase of transportation but extends to cover the whole process of international trade, transforming the documentary sales into less-paper trade and further into paperless trade, i.e., EDI or E-Commerce. Now we face the other side of the coin, which is data security and paperless transfer of legal rights and obligations. Unfortunately, these issues are not effectively covered by a set of contracts only. Obviously, EDI or E-Commerce is based on the common business process and harmonized system of various data codes as well as the standard message formats. This essential feature of E-Commerce needs effective coordination of different divisions of business and tight control over credit arrangements in addition to the standard contract of sales. In a few word, information does not alway invite "trust". Credit flows from people, or close organizational tie-ups. It is our common understanding that, without well-orchestrated organizational arrangements made by leading companies, E-Commerce does not work well for paperless trade. With such arrangements well in place, participating E-business members do not need to seriously care for credit risk. Finally, it is also clear that E-International Commerce must be linked up with a set of government EDIs such as NACCS, Port EDI, JETRAS, etc, in Japan. Therefore, there is still a long way before us to go for E-Commerce in practice, not on the top of information manager's desk.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.107-114
• /
• 1993

The structure change in the broiler industry of Korea has been taking place very rapidly toward the direction of integrated production and marketing system. During the course of the evolution into the integrated structure, however, a number of small business entities, uncountable nationally but a minimum of a dozen, that previously engaged in the supply of production factors or live bird transaction also tended to get involved in the new system as a disguised or pseudo-integrator, having brought a lot of problems not only to the farmers but also to the development of integrated structure. The pseudo-integrator is generally characterized by limited functions in such a way of supplying chicks and feeds to and collecting grown birds from farmers under the contract at a fixed farmer's payment in practically the same pattern as a partial or quasi-integration, which intends to act as if an integrator in a stratagem to simply enjoy a margin simply from selling supplies and buying products for a certain period of time. The grower making a contract with appears to be a farmer who used to be an Independent and speculating but not able to join in the normal system of evolving integration. The problems of a pseudo-integrator center on the financial loss to a contract farmer, because the falsified integrator has to become easily bankrupt and run away when the price of live broiler continually stays below the cost of production, even though he is able to make a tremendous profit otherwise which is the real purpose of the operation for. It is true that the volatile market, fluctuating the price up more than doubled in a month and down to a half in a few weeks, makes the pseudo-integrator find the room for such a fraudulence. In addition, its activity also adversely affect the evolution of the integration due to rather negative image on structure change in general. It is recommended that the farmers need to better understand the real picture of the integrated system so as not to be swindled by a disguised, small scale agribusiness agent. By the same token, it is also equally required to have the whole industry integrated completely as early as possible. The Joint effort to get rid of pseudo-integrators' problems shall be put for the industry development moving toward the integration. No doubt a pseudo-integrator must be a temporary player for chance emerging during the course of structure change into the integrated, though.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.11 no.8
• /
• pp.31-37
• /
• 2013

Purpose - This study aims to strengthen the economic cooperation between Korea and Japan by studying the pattern of trade between them and identifying drawbacks. Thus, it aims to enable trade expansion by analyzing the factors that affect trade and identifying ways to improve them. If economic cooperation is improved, transport and communication costs, as well as the transaction cost of economic exchanges, can be minimized. Research design, data, methodology - The trade intensity index developed by the Japanese economist Yamazawa under his trade intensity theory was used to analyze the trade decision factor of Korea and Japan. Trade structure and decision factors were analyzed for the target period of 2000 to 2012, and the period ranging from 2000 to 2005 was compared with the period ranging from 2005 to 2012. This paper is an analysis of the resultant time series. The data were collected from Korea Traders Association, Korea Customs Office, and UN Comtrade (2000, 2005, 2012) and whole table indexes were calculated by the author. Trade related index was used to analyze the comparative advantage based on time-series analysis statistics data (2000. 2005, 2012) through an analysis of the trade intensity index (TII), revealed comparative advantage index (RCA), and trade specialization index (TSI). Results - The trade intensity index of the industries of Japan and Korea is 1.814 in 2000. The export ratio of Japan against China was slightly higher at 2.128. TII is indicated to be 1.600 in both 2005 and 2012, which means export ratio of Japan against China is considerably maintained in 2005; however, export ratio of Japan against China is diminishing gradually as its index is 1.600 in 2012. Second, as per the trade specialization index of the ship industry in Japan and China, TSI is indicated to be -0.818 in 2000, -0.308 in 2005, and -0.847 in 2012. Generally, it is still closer to -1 and especially, we can see it is more closer to -1 in 2012. Third, as per the revealed comparative advantage index of the ship industry in Japan and China, the RCA index in 2012 is 0.007, which is quite far from 1 as compared to the value in 2000 and 2005. Hence, the Japanese ship industry has a significant comparative disadvantage against the Chinese ship industry. Conclusions - Both countries invest most of their capital in the shipping industry. It is the shipping industry that receives the most capital investment in the two countries is invested and governmental policy funds are needed. As both countries have large shipping industries, this research project is very valuable. Japan and China are compared because they are Korea's neighbors. Also, Korea is strategically located in Northeast Asia and has a history of foreign intrusion from several countries. Therefore, the purpose of this research study is to understand the trade structures of both countries and intensify the economic cooperation between Japan and China.

• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
• /
• 2006.11a
• /
• pp.333-336
• /
• 2006

E-marketplace is a kind of B2B e-Business system that supports business transactions among companies. If e-marketplace is revitalized, we expect not only the development of related industry but also decrease of transaction cost among companies. It is necessary for the introduction and revitalization of e-marketplace in tourist industry from this point of view. Participants of tour e-marketplace are tour-related companies(travel agencies, lodging enterprises, shipping enterprises, etc.). Also tourists want to search a variety of tour products or contents. So tour e-marketplace has characteristics of B2C e-Business systems as well as B2B e-Business systems at once. The purpose of this study is to classify success factors that determine characteristics of tour e-marketplace through statistics survey from e-marketplace factors related tourism websites. First of all, we analyze success factors of B2B and B2C e-marketplace. Then we will set up influence factors of tour e-marketplace and conduct a survey about success factors of tour e-marketplace. Therefore, we could expect to find these good attributes in tour e-marketplace success through logistic regression and decision tree analysis from source data.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.149-163
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this study is to present a plan to activate the production and consumption of environmently friendly agricultural products through an analysis on the understanding degree, the level and inclination of consumption, the satisfaction degree of consumption, and the comprehension degree of production and circulation process of the environmently friendly agricultural products. 1 reviewed the literature and did survey In this study. The results are as follows : (1) As a result of an analysis on the understanding degree of the environmently friendly agricultural products, it is shown to get 6.37 points out of 10 and also, there is a difference between age, educational background, and income level. (2) In the case of research on the method to distinguish the environmently friendly agricultural products from others, it is proved that consumers have a strong faith on quality guarantee marks and there is a difference between gender, income level, and consumption period. (3) It is also shown that consumers purchase environmently friendly agricultural products for the family member's health in the survey on the motivation for purchasing them. And also, there is a difference between men and women. (4) The result of the survey on the consumption scale of the environmently friendly agricultural products shows that 94 people(60.3％) spend more than 50％ of their gloss foodstuffs cost purchasing them and 20 people(12.8％) spend 30-50％. (5) In the survey on the amount and the frequency of the purchasing items of the envirounently friendly agricultural products, respondents count livestock products mostly in amount while point out main cereals and a kinds of soy and pastes in frequency. (6) Consumers ask that the price of environmently friendly agricultural products is a little expensive or reasonable and there is no differences between individual groups. (7) In the case of the purchase of foreign environmently friendly agricultural products, there are more people who want to purchase domestic ones than those who want foreign ones. Therefore, it is shown that environmently friendly agricultural products have a counterpower after the market-open to import. (8) As a result of the analysis on the quality of environmently friendly agricultural products, it is proved that they have better quality than general agricultural products and also, it is found out that women feel larger differences than men in quality. (9) In the analysis on the satisfaction degree of the environmently friendly agricultural products, it is proved that respondents trust the safety and nutrition of them whereas they are not satisfied with the external shape of them. (10) It is analyzed that tile conversion of consumer's consciousness is the most critical factor for development of environmently friendly agriculture. (11) The factors to activate the consumption of environmently friendly agricultural products are proved in order of the enlargement of direct transaction, the conversion of consumer's consciousness, the easiness of purchase, activating consumers'unions, and publicity.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.23-43
• /
• 2016

Many customers of individual countries are interested in overseas direct purchase. B2C is not limited in a domestic market anymore. There are giant online shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay around the world. Many local and overseas customers can access and purchase products via B2C sites. Market size of overseas direct purchase has been dramatically increased. Overseas direct purchase can be closely associated with trade or international commerce due to the massive increase. This study aims at gaining a better understanding of overseas direct purchase in the country-level not customer-level. Specifically, this study examines relationships between overseas direct purchase and customer determinants including openness, innovativeness, and strategic confirmity to normative institution. Also, moderating effect with external environments such as logistics infrastructure and market uncertainty. Relying on RBV, TCA, Institutional theory, and OSAM model, this study justifies how internal and external determinants can increase or decrease consumer awareness on overseas direct purchase.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.157-180
• /
• 2010

Rapid development of information technology has generated a new industry and market. In particular, network technology such as the Internet and other computer networks made transaction activities switched from traditional offline commerce to e-commerce. Among them, digital content is bit-based object which is created and distributed through electronic environment. In particular, many entertainment contents such as the music, the movies, and the computer game softwares are main products. Although digital content commerce has high potential demand, it lacks the consideration about the factor related to maintaining existing customer such as customer loyalty and switching costs. There has been a number of research on customer loyalty and other factors affecting it in the traditional electronic commerce environment, but there is a lack of research which examines the characteristics of digital content. The study about the effect of switching costs on customer loyalty in digital content commerce is necessary because the customers of digital content commerce market are from those of other e-commerce market or traditional offline commerce market. In addition, customer loyalty and switching costs are important factors because they may build up greater customer retention. For that reason, this study focused on examining the relationships among switching costs, antecedents for switching costs, and customer loyalty in online digital music service industry. The study has three major purposes: (1) to find antecedents of switching costs on digital content commerce and examine effect of antecedents for switching costs; (2) to identify effect of switching costs on customer loyalty in digital content commerce and examine moderating effects of alternative attractiveness; (3) to identify the differences of antecedents for switching costs by contents transmission type(streaming service and downloading service). And, the online digital music service industry is selected in this study since there are many users and transactions incurring. To accomplish these purposes, a survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 256 informants. Survey instrument was developed based on previous research and pre-established survey items. Total of 206 surveys are collected and used in the data analysis. Among the respondents, 56.8% is male and 43.2% is female. Also, 86 responses were streaming service user group and 120 responses were download service user group. These data was analyzed using regression analysis. Major findings of empirical analysis can be summarized as follows. First, switching costs have positive effect on customer loyalty in digital content commerce environment. Second, the influence of switching costs on customer loyalty increases under conditions of high alternative attractiveness. Third, DRM convenience and breadth of use have positive effect on switching costs. The findings imply that the digital content provider should pay more attention to switching costs in addition to customer satisfaction in order to attract customers. Also, increasing the convenience of DRM use by securing the convenience of user interface and expanding the support device and increasing the service use scope by providing diverse value-added service helps to create a switching barrier. The result of the study can become a practical use in marketing strategy for maintaining existing customer. In particular, switching barrier is very important under conditions of high competition in the online music service market. This study can be used as a basis for further studies about customer retention in digital content commerce.

• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.177-187
• /
• 2000

In the past several years, many systems which adopted ring topology with high-speed unidirectional point-to-point links have emerged to overcome the limit of bus for interconnection network of clustered multiprocessor system. However, rapid increase of processor speed and performance improvement of local bus and memory system limit scalability of system with point-to-point link of standard bandwidth. Therefore, necessity to extend bandwidth is emphasized. In this paper, we adopt PANDA system as base model, which is clustering-based multiprocessor system. By simulating a model adopting commercial processor and local bus specification, we show that point-to-point link is bottleneck of system performance, and bandwidth expansion by more than 200% is needed. To expand bandwidth of interconnection network, it needs excessive design cost and time to develop new point-to-point link with doubled bandwidth. As an alternative to double bandwidth, we propose several ways to implement dual ring -simple dual ring, transaction-separated dual ring, direction-separated dual ring- by using off-the-shelf point-to-point links with IEEE standard bandwidth. We analyze pros. and cons. of each model compared with doubled-bandwidth single ring by simulation.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.209-230
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study is to have a main change of korea logistics industry analysis and take in the whole situation and the characteristics about a logistics firms. In korean logistics industry, The rate of a carriage is among the low-level as compared with the increasingly high prices for diesel. besides, a national logistics cost and the sales in the transportation industry has increased steadily. On the other hand, the number of trucks and transfer companies has decreased steadily. This change is attributed to expansion of logistics firm size through the limit on a raise in the number of trucks and introduction of a direct consignment system. But medium and small logistics firm size is dwindling in numbers. In the meantime, 2PL since early 2000s has rapidly rose as powerful players in logistics industry by a strong Support of the parent companies. Government and academia have long noted the limit and problems of 2PL system and emphasize on the necessity of activating the 3PL system. So this study divided broadly into two groups that the primary characteristics of korea logistics industry are 2PL and 3PL. Through the results of this study, the management and financial perspectives mean that there is a considerable difference between 2PL and 3PL.