• Fashion, Industry and Education
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.30-39
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• 2018

This study investigates the importance of brand and retailer associations when consumers evaluate a product category extension in the context of brand and retailer collaborations. Although brand extensions are considered to reduce costs for introducing a new product category, limited study has focused on the role of brand and retailer associations in the context of brand and retailer collaborations. Using a total of 440 participants, a hypothesized model was tested using a structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that brand and retailer associations influence the perceived fit between a brand and a retailer. In addition, the image fit and quality fit are significantly related to brand and retailer attitudes as well as brand extension evaluation. Since consumers may use their associations with brands or retailers when they perceive product differentiation, market position, and brand extensions, the role of brand or retailer associations is important to marketers, retailers, and consumers. Given the importance of brand and retailer collaborations as a brand positioning strategy in the global branding and retail setting, the findings of this study contribute to brand and retail management by providing empirical evidence on how consumers perceive new products from extended brands in the marketplace when a brand collaborates with a retailer.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.97-109
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• 2011

As a marketing vehicle to survive in intensified retailing competition, retailer brand development has been adopted by retailers in Korea. As evidence, the retailer brand share of a major retailer, Tesco Korea, has grown from 20% in 2007 to 22.8% in the first half of 2008. It means that retailers have provided more and more retailer brand foods for customers. With the growing accessibility to retailer brand foods, it would be expected that the number of retailer brand food claims will increase. Customers have increasingly exposed to a variety of marketing activities conducted by retailers. When buying the retailer brand foods, customers tend to be affected by marketing activities of retailers. Despite the fact that customers trust retailers and then, buy their brand foods, in case of food accidents caused by production process, customers have to seek compensation from a retailer brand supplier. Of course, a retailer tends to shift its responsibility to its suppliers. Accordingly, it is not easy for customers to solve food claims. The research, therefore, aims at exploring the relationship between the buying-decision processes of retailer brand customers and which side takes legal responsibility for food claims. To effectively achieve the research aim, the author adopted a quantitative and a qualitative research technique, in order to supplement the disadvantages of each method. Before field research, based on the developed research model, the author pre-tested questionnaire with 10 samples, amended, and handed out to 400 samples. Amongst them, 316 questionnaires are available. For a focus group interview, 9 participants were recruited, who are students, housewives, and full-time workers, aged from 20s to 40s. Through the focus group interview as well as the questionnaire results, it was found that most customers were influenced by a retailer or store image in a customer's mind, retailer reputation and promotional activities. Surprisingly, customers think that the name of a retailer is a more important factor than who produces retailer brand foods, even though many customers check a retailer brand supplier, when making a buying-decision. Rather than retailer brand suppliers, customers trust retailers. That is why they purchase retailer brands. Nevertheless, production-related food claims is not involved with retailers. In fact, it would be difficult for customers to distinguish whether a food claim is related to selling or manufacturing processes. Based on research results, from a customer perspective, the research suggests that the government should require retailers to take the whole responsibility for retailer brand food claims, preventing retailers from passing the buck to retailer brand suppliers. In case of food claims, in order for customers to easily get the compensation, it is necessary to reconsider the current system. If so, retailers have to fully get involved in retailer brand production stage, and further, the customer awareness of retailer brands will be improved than ever before. Retailers cannot help taking care of the whole processes of retailer brand development, because of responsibility. As a result, the process to seek compensation for food claims might become easier, and further, the protection of customer right might be improved.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.9
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• pp.5-15
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• 2013

Purpose - The research aim is to shed empirical light on whether quality-focused retailer brands such as Premium brand of Tesco Korea, Prime of Lotte Mart, and Best of E-Mart in the grocery market, make a contribution to developing store loyalty in the Korean market particularly. Research design, data, methodology - After developing sixconstructs, such as higher quality, stock availability, price levels, national brands, retailer brand attitudes, and store loyalty, the authors adopted exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, chi-square test and structural equation modelling as a research technique. Results - It was found that higher quality strongly influences the retailer brand attitude formation, and that retailer brand customers were sensitive to price levels. Buyers are, nevertheless, relatively less aware of price levels, when purchasing quality-oriented retailer brand types. Conclusions - The research implied that quality-oriented retailer brand types make a significant contribution to retailer brands attitude formation, and further, building store loyalty.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.15-27
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• 2011

Although a huge number of academic researchers have paid considerable attention to exploring both the degree to which store image influences retailer brand customers and how to develop store personality, they have overlooked the contemporary retail context in which retailers have developed many different types of retailer brands, that is, price-oriented or quality-oriented retailer brands. Rather than focusing on the latter, much literature has looked at the former. Accordingly, even though there are many articles related to store image, a few authors have shown their interest in identifying the extent to which store personality affects customers purchasing retailer brands at lower prices. As a result, their efforts have been to illustrate the relationship between store image and consumer behaviours buying retailer brands. In that multiple retailers over the world such as E-Mart, Lotte-Mart, Tesco Korea and Tesco UK have actively introduced not only the quality-focused retailer brands that quality is better than, or equal to national brands, and prices are slightly higher than, or equal to them, but also price-focused retailer brands, academicians should make an effort to investigate how store image affects customers purchasing a quality-oriented retailer brand, comparing with previous research results. That is why the authors illustrate the extent to which store personality components influence retailer brand customers, including particularly quality-oriented retailer brand customers through an empirical research. By adopting a questionnaire method as a research technique to illuminate the relationship between store image components and retailer brand customers, research validity increases and further, data gathered through a field survey are analysed through a few statistic analysis methods, in order to minimise statistical deviations. Compared with the prior research concentrated on price-focused retailer brands, the authors have significantly shed light on customer behaviours purchasing retailer brand products with higher quality. When it comes to store personality components, the research suggests the following five items: merchandise attributes, services, physical facilities, promotions, and institutional image, considering the subcomponents mentioned by the previous research. Proposing the conceptual research model which those elements are differently hypothesised, according to retailer brand types: PR (Price-oriented Retailer brand) and QR (Quality-oriented Retailer brand), the research is proceeded. Through empirical research, the authors found that amongst the five items, only promotion influenced retailer brand customers in the Korean retailing marketplace, unlike other countries explored by many researchers, such as UK. Although much literature emphasises that those elements are closely related to retailer brand buying proneness, it is completely not fit to the Korean market. Also, research findings provide new insights into the degree of store image effects on retailer brand customers for academiciansand practitioners. Whether the retailer brand development program that a retailer has carried simultaneously both price-focused and quality-focused retailer brand types is practically profitable should be explored in the future.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.13-24
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• 2011

With the increasing market share of retailer brands, many authors have paid considerable attention to retailer brands. Before market liberalisation in 1996 in Korea, retailer brand market was led by the supermarket retailing format, although the first retailer brand product was developed by the department store format. In parallel with the entry of foreign multiple retailers, the retailer brand market has experienced rapid growth. Particularly, the expansion of Tesco UK with well-established retailing know-how into Korea has encouraged Tesco Korea to actively get involved in retailer brand program. As a result, Tesco Korea has led retailer brand market in the Korean marketplace. The research starts with the question of why Tesco Korea has achieved such a higher retailer brand share. Accordingly, this study is to explore how Tesco UK has transferred its own retailing knowledge into Tesco Korea, in terms of retailer brand program development. In order to explore why the retailer brand share of Tesco Korea is higher than that of its counterparts, the author adopted in-depth interview with prepared-questions and store observation as a research methodology. To examine working process as well as information flows within Tesco Korea and from UK to Korea, in-depth interview method is one of the most suitable research methodologies, because of the difficulty of quantifying information or data related to work flows. In addition, to increase the validity of information, the researcher had interviews with Tesco Korea supplier and store personnel. Based on these research techniques, this research explored how Tesco UK has influenced or advised Tesco Korea, particularly, from the point of view of knowledge transfer. Since the entry of Tesco UK into Korea as a joint-venture, the retailer brand market share of Tesco Korea has continuously increased. It would be expected that Tesco UK has helped Tesco Korea to settle down in the Korean market. During interviews with Tesco and a Tesco supplier, the researcher found that Tesco Korea has obviously taken an advantage of retailing know-how created by Tesco UK. Furthermore, the retailer brand development and handling process of Tesco Korea has been operated with the help of Tesco UK. This might mean that Tesco UK has directly or indirectly an impact on the improvement of Korean retailer brand development skills. As a mechanism to transfer retailing knowledge developed in the home market into the host market, one of the international retailers, Tesco UK has adopted many different ways such as annual meeting, trading meeting to import or export own retailer brand products, offering of operation manual developed by Tesco UK and buyer cooperation between Tesco UK and Korea, in order to share information. Through these communication techniques, the knowledge of Tesco UK has been transferred to Tesco Korea. This research accordingly suggests that retailer brand market share is apparently related to how sophisticated or advanced the knowledge of the retailer brand development and handling process of retailers are. It is also demonstrated by this research that advanced development and handling skills make a considerable contribution to increasing retailer brand share in markets with a lower share or no presence of retailer brands.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.107-120
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• 2011

The increased availability of store brand suppliers now provides retailers with opportunities to create their own lines of vertically differentiated multiple store brands within a product category. As the number of store brands increase, the retailer's shelf space becomes more crowded, which may force the retailer to consider dropping some national brands from its assortment. Despite these trends, the problem of product line design in a vertically differentiated product category has been analyzed mainly from a manufacturer's perspective in the marketing literature and it is not known to what extent the findings of the existing product line design literature provide applicable strategic guidelines for the new problem faced by retailers. In this study, we address this deficiency in the literature and conduct an in-depth study of the retailer's strategic design of a line of store brands and its assortment decision within the context of retail category management. We analyze the retailer's decision about not only how to design a line of store brands but also which national brand to drop from its assortment. The results of our analysis are as follows. First, if the retailer has to drop one of national brands from its assortment, it is the best for the retailer to drop the low-quality national brand rather than the high-quality national brand. Second, the retailer has to position the high-quality store brand relatively close to the high-quality national brand, remained on its shelf, in terms of quality so as to maximize the size of retail margin from the national brand. On the other hand, the retailer should set the quality of the low-quality store brand at a lower level than that of the low-quality national brand to increase the total category demand by attracting more price sensitive consumers. By doing so, the retailer can also minimize cannibalization between two store brands. Lastly, our analysis shows that the introduction of a line of store brands improves consumer welfare by increasing real values of all products on the shelf.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.779-794
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• 2019

This study examines the effects of brand belief of a mass offline retailer on the perceived value, attitude, and purchase intention toward the products of emerging fashion designer brands in the context of marketing collaborations between emerging fashion designer brands and a mass offline retailer. We invited 198 adults aged 20 to 59 to an online survey who were asked to read a news article and respond to a questionnaire. The results of structural equation modeling show that brand belief of a mass offline retailer positively influences the perceived value of the products of emerging fashion designer brands. The perceived value also positively influences the attitude toward the products that subsequently enhances purchase intention. The findings suggest that emerging fashion designer brands should strategically select a mass offline retailer as their collaboration partner by considering consumer perceptions of the retailer brand because the brand belief of the retailer may have a halo effect on a consumer evaluation of the products of emerging fashion designer brands.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.101-122
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• 2004

In this study, two alternative models are developed and tested in order to investigate the relationship between retailer image and its private brand attitude. The halo effect model hypothesizes that retailer image is related as a halo in private brand evaluation and the summary construct model hypothesizes that retailer image functions as a summary construct of private brand evaluation. The results indicate there are moderating effects of 1) familiarity with a private brand and 2) the characteristics of a product category High familiarity is related with the summary construct model and low familiarity the halo effect model. In private brand food, the summary construct model fits better and explains more adequately that private brand evaluation influences retailer image as a summary construct. In private brand clothes, however, the halo effect model performs better in explaining the relationship between retailer image and private brand attitude.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.97-123
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• 2008

Recently, there has been a growing trend toward private brand. Although much has been written about the determinants of attitude and purchase intention on PB, little is known about the influence of manufacturer and retailer trust on private brand purchase. This research addresses three questions:(1) what impact do manufacturer and retailer trust have on private brand purchase?(2) What is a key mediating variable in the relationship retailer between trust(on retailer/manufacture) and purchase intention?(3) Are the impacts of these factors differ depending on the level of customer knowledge? The findings indicate that retailer trust directly influence on the perceived quality, attitude toward private brand, and purchase intention. Manufacturer trust affects on attitude and purchase intention, however, only when it is through perceived quality. In addition, the relative impact of theses two factors differs to some extent, depending on the level of consumer knowledge. When customer knowledge is relatively high, retailer trust is a very important factor influencing perceived quality, attitude and purchase intention. On the other hand, both retailer trust and manufacturer trust are considered when customer knowledge on private brand is low.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.20-33
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• 2021

Purpose - The growth in consumers' online shopping has even been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the purchase can be made from any countries online, the purpose is to examine the effect of the country of the online retailer (COOR) on consumers' perceived risk and purchase motivation, focusing on the retailer not on the brand. Design/methodology - Survey data from online shoppers are analized using the structural equation model. Findings - COOR, like COO of the brand manufacturer, positively affect consumer's purchase intension. First, the images and the perceived psychic distances of the COOR affects both perceived risk and purchase confidence. Secondly, this perceived risk and confidence they put on the transaction then affect the purchase intension of the consumer. Originality/value - We show that the quality of the signal comes not only from the manufacturer-branded product item itself with a certain COO, but also from the retailer who carries it.