This study is designed to measure the impact of a car’s horse power and torque - aspects related to performance among various factors that affect consumer purchase decision-on consumers when buying a car. The research of the results can be interpreted as indicating that the premise, “The impact of torque and horsepower on consumer purchase decision is not significant,” is true.

This study was conducted to examine the effects of local food value perception on purchasing and experience inconsumers. χ2-test, ANOVA, and linear regression analysis were conducted. The findings are summarized as follows: Themost common place for buying agricultural products was ‘hypermarkets’ (41.7%), and the most important factor forpurchasing local food was ‘local government’s certification products’ (23.7%). The most important value recognition itemfor local food was ‘I think that local food is a high-quality agricultural products.’ (3.74 points), followed by ‘I think that localfood have a value of respect for customers’ (3.61 points) and ‘I have a faith for the local food.’ (3.61 points) in that order.The main tourism experience activity was ‘food experience’ (49.0%), and information source of local food experiencetourism was ‘mass media (TV, newspapers, etc.)’ (37.3%). As age increased, experience of local food also increased. Themost effectual value recognition item for purchasing local food was ‘I think that local food have a value of respect forcustomers’. The most effectual value recognition item for increasing intake experience of local food was ‘I think that the localfood is high-quality agricultural products’.

In this study, we investigated the dietary habits, snacks, and self-purchasing snacks (SPS) intake behaviors of 519 elementary school students (boys=239, girls=280). Obesity was significantly higher (p<0.05) in boys (24.8%) than in girls (14.7%) and the proportion of underweight subjects was higher compared to normal or other weight groups for both the boys and the girls. There were 7.5% of the subjects in the group that always skipped breakfast, and the main reason of skipping breakfast was insufficient time (51.9%). The snack intake frequency was once or twice per week for 23.1% of the subjects and three or four times per week for 25.1%. The SPS intake frequency was the subjects zero for 35.6% of the highest level of the responders, while 6.8% of the respondents took more than once SPS per day. 59.6% of the respondents consumed SPS due to hunger while 15.0% consumed SPS out of boredom. The SPS was purchased from supermarkets in 34.5% of the cases, from convenience stores in 24.1% and from snack corners in 20.0% of cases or from a store near school in 14.5% of the cases. Analysis of SPS behaviors according to obesity index showed that parent’s opinion of ‘permission to buy SPS as needed’ had a significant effect in 64.5% over weight subjects compared to only 53.7% in underweight groups. The subjects who used more than 3/4 of their pocket money to buy SPS was higher in the overweight groups (16.4%) than in the underweight groups (7.0%) and normal weight groups (9.8%). The favorite snacks and SPS were milk and yogurt for 45.7% of the subjects, fruits for 42.7%, ice cream for 26.4%, fruit juices for 23.8%, sweet stuff for 16.4%, frozen dessert for 8.9%, and chocolate or candy for 8.1% in descending order. The intake frequency of milk, yogurt, and fruit juices was higher in the underweight groups, but the intake frequency of sweet stuff, frozen dessert, and chocolate or candy was higher in over weight groups. The intake of frozen dessert was more than four times higher in the overweight groups than in the underweight groups. In conclusion, dietary habits, snacks, and SPS intake behaviors were similar between the boys and the girls and obesity groups, but most students appeared to have a high preference for intake snacks and SPS. Therefore, education for appropriate snacks intake habits will be beneficial for improving their dietary habits and health.

Adolescence is the most important period of healthy development. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the food recognition, snack preference, and dietary behavior of 1st grade of middle and high school boys and girls. Subjects were 5,554 students from 16 schools with healthy tuck shop and 3,406 students from 9 schools without healthy tuck shop in Seoul, Korea. Students from schools with healthy tuck shop are significantly higher than control group for facility satisfaction and hygiene satisfaction (all p<0.05). For fruit, the preference (p<0.05) and recognition (attitude, p<0.001: intention, p<0.05: eating habit, p<0.001: social-environment, p<0.001: self-efficacy, p<0.001) of students in schools with healthy tuck shop are significantly higher than those in schools without healthy tuck shop. For the habit of checking the manufacturer, students in schools with healthy tuck shop were significantly higher than students in schools without healthy tuck shop (p<0.05). The result suggested that we have to create an environment in which fruits can be purchased easily at a tuck shop and to educate adolescents for the importance of healthy food purchasing behavior. In conclusion, healthy school tuck shop had a positive effect on accessibility to healthy food.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among recognition, preference, and purchasing characteristics for Changnyeong onions and garlic as well as festival satisfaction among participants at agricultural product festivals in the Changnyeong region. Results showed that festival satisfaction of ‘place of festival’ was highest while ‘convenience facility & event contents’ earned the lowest scores. Most subjects (90.5%) had purchased Changnyeong agricultural and processed products. A major purchasing type was fresh agricultural products (66.7%). The pathways to recognize Changnyeong agricultural products were mostly ‘promotion by related institutions’ (22.0%), ‘family · relatives’ (20.8%), ‘mass media’ (16.6%), and ‘festivals and events’ (16.1%). The most considered factors for purchasing regional products were ‘geographical origin’ and ‘ingredients’. Changnyeong onion showed higher scores for recognition and preference and rate of purchase experience and intention than for garlic. The correlation coefficients of recognition and preference for onion and galic were 0.603 (p<0.001) and 0.598 (p<0.001), respectively. The explanation power (R2) of related variables for purchase of Changnyeong onions was 0.258. The regression coefficients (β) for ‘recognition’, ‘preference’ and ‘convenient facility & event contents’ were positive, whereas the regression coefficient for ‘price’ was negative. Recognition, preference, and convenient facility & event contents with garlic purchase showed a positive relationship (R2=0.253). The most effective promotion method to increase sales of Changnyeong agricultural products was ‘local festivals and events’ (27.8%).

This study investigated the effects that corporate social responsibility (CSR) had on the credibility and image of a food corporation by analyzing the purchasing intention and food purchases of consumers. This analysis was undertaken in an attempt to establish a marketing strategy that meets consumer demands, and the results showed that all CSR activities undertaken by the food corporation had a positive effect on the reliability and image of the corporation and on consumers' purchase intention. The results indicate that the ethical aspect of the CSR activities had the greatest effect while their charitable aspect had the least effect on the reliability and purchase intention of the customers regarding the food corporation. Thus, it appears that establishing of suitable ethical doctrines and guidelines for corporate management by food corporation is effective in emphasizing the ethical aspects of their policies through transparent management by means of fair trade.

The purpose of this study is to identify the antecedents of consumers' decision postponement on purchasing fast fashion brands. Ongoing search behavior, overchoice confusion, and similarity confusion were considered as antecedents. It was hypothesized that ongoing search behavior influences decision postponement both directly and indirectly through overchoice confusion and similarity confusion. Data were gathered by surveying university students in Seoul, using convenience sampling. Three hundred five questionnaires were used in the statistical analysis, which were exploratory factor analysis using SPSS and confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis using AMOS. Factor analysis proved that ongoing search behavior, overchoice confusion, similarity confusion, and decision postponement were uni-dimensions. Tests of the hypothesized path proved that ongoing search behavior influences decision postponement indirectly through overchoice confusion. In addition, similarity confusion influences decision postponement. The results suggest some confusion reduction strategies for marketers of fast fashion brands. Suggestions for future study are also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships among brand awareness, switching intentions, purchasing behavior, and revisiting intentions. Brand awareness consisted of three factors: brand image, physical environment, and affiliation of coffee brand. Good brand image was associated with reduced switching intentions, whereas negative images were associated with higher switching intentions. Consumer purchasing behavior was most affected by interior decoration, including furniture, decorations, etc. Switching intentions had a negative relationship with revisiting intentions. Finally, purchasing behavior and revisiting intentions showed a positive correlation. As limitations, the only participants were university students, who are not representative of all consumers at coffee shops. Moreover, this study did not divide coffee shops into franchises and individually owned.

This study set out to investigate consumers' attitudes toward pro-environment, and their actual purchasing behavior. It aimed to empirically examine the effects of the consumers' attitudes toward pro-environmental products, the importance of the product attributes and the perceived value of the companies' environmental activities, on their purchasing behavior of eco-friendly fashion products, including their satisfaction, trust, and repurchase intention. The questionnaires were administered on 304 married women with previous experience of buying eco-friendly fashion products. The results were as follows. First, the consumers' behavioral patterns in terms of environmental concerns and the purchasing of eco-friendly household items were significantly positive in relation to the purchasing behaviors of eco-friendly fashion products. Second, the importance of eco-friendly attributes was significantly positive in relation to the purchasing behaviors of eco-friendly fashion products. Third, the perceived value of corporate environmental activity was not related to the purchasing behaviors of eco-friendly fashion products. Finally, the purchasing behavior of eco-friendly fashion products was significantly positive in relation to the satisfaction with eco-friendly fashion products as well as the trust and repurchase intention, and satisfaction and trust positively affected the repurchase intention. The implication of the research and direction for future study were discussed.

This study investigates Australian consumers’ decision-making styles for everyday products. The CSI is based on preliminary work done by Sproles (1983), in which he argued that there are certain fundamental styles that all consumers apply to their shopping and buying. These styles included brand, price, or quality consciousness and provided a conceptual framework for describing consumer decision making styles. Consumers’ decision-making styles influence how they negotiate their way through the decision-making process, i.e., how they approach information search, evaluation and selection, and purchase behaviour (Durvasula et al., 1996). The characteristics of decision-making styles can be effective in profiling an individual’s consumer style in terms of their product evaluation and selection process (Canabal, 2002). The CSI, however, has some limitations. First, previous studies using the CSI have mostly focused on non-specific product types (Durvasula et al., 1996; Leo et al., 2005). Secondly, most of the research using the CSI has focused on student samples (Fan & Xiao, 1998; Hafstrom et al., 1992; Shim, 1996; Sproles, 1983) that have limited income and marketplace experience, and are still learning their consumer styles. In the light of above limitations, this research is developed focusing on specific products (e.g., confectionary) and distributing the CSI within heterogeneous sample. Based on a sample of 229 respondents, an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was adopted to validate Sproles and Kendall’s (1986) Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI). Results found that six decision-making styles: ‘perfectionist, high quality’, ‘confused by overchoice’, ‘impulsive’, ‘habitual/brand loyal’, ‘novelty/fashion’, and ‘recreation conscious’ were retained from the original Sproles and Kendall’s (1986) CSI and one decision-making style such as ‘rational, price conscious’ was developed for Australian consumers. Results also found that 24 items were removed from the original CSI for better fit and ‘brand conscious’ decision-making style showed less than satisfactory reliability indicated that the original CSI inventory needed modification when being applied to Australian consumers. The findings of this study has extended the literature by determining the applicability and the generalizability of the CSI in context of everyday products which is yet to be known in relation to Australian consumers.

Understanding the buyer decision processes has been one of the core subjects for marketing researchers. Decision-making has been referred as a psychological construct, which could be inferred from the behavior as a commitment to an action. The main scope of this project has been centered at a blended approach between economic and psychological models of decision-making with giving more credit to the possible psychological and physiological counterparts of the buying process. The technological developments and interdisciplinary studies especially in the last decade have paved a valuable path for various research tools that could contribute to the classical models of marketing. The contribution of neuroscientific knowledge and methods has provided a considerable insight for the question what is happening inside the brain. Since neuroscience has targeted at investigating the human brain with respect to internal and external factors, an applied form of neuroscience, neuromarketing, has been useful for the marketing research in general and for modeling the buying processes in specific. Thepresent empirical study could be accepted as one of these initial steps and possible contributions in testing the role of neuroscientific methods in buyers’ decision processes and providing a useful insight in interpreting the prefrontal brain dynamics during their possible buying decisions. Buying decisions have been claimed to be “malleable” (Schwartz, 2004) associated with the available information beneath instead of having well-defined preferences (Bettman, Luce, & Payne 1998). It has been demonstrated that excessive prices have an impact on increasing the insular activity and decreasing the activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which have been shown to be active during monetary decision-making processes (Knutson et al., 2007). It has also been argued that affect factors and unfair prices have a direct interrelationship (Xia, Monroe, & Cox, 2004). These findings have been in line with the somatic markers hypothesis by Bechara and Damasio (2005) who argue that our brains predict the possible outcomes in a setting depending on our interoceptive emotional signals prior to decision-making. These emotional signals have been considered to have direct guidance during decision-making processes like purchasing. Reward processingmagnitude and valence have been associated with economic transactions by using event-related potentials (Yeung&Sanfey, 2004). Prefrontal cortex has been found to be a critical region that is observed to be active during various cognitive processes including decision-making, executive functions and reasoning. The decision-making processes could generally be divided into two main segments: (1) cognitive and (2) emotional counterparts and prefrontal regions could simply be correlated with the cognitive aspects rather than the emotional side which is mostly considered to be driven by the subcortical regions. The neuroscientific studies in the literature shed light into this dissociation with various empirical findings such that nucleus accumbens activation correlates with reward anticipation, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) activation correlates with gain outcomes (Knutson et al., 2001). Option valuation, probability estimation, reward and cost anticipation and strategy formation have been some of the decision processes that are considered to be executed by the prefrontal cortex. Medial prefrontal cortex has been shown to have a direct role in the calculation of values (or valuation) of options like the statement of the preferences with the presented product and it has been demonstrated that the activation in medial PFC has been in correlation with the subjective product preferences (Paulus & Frank, 2003). The preference judgments between healthy and unhealthy food items have also been shown to activate the medial prefrontal cortex during the valuation of the options (Hare et al., 2011). This valuation of options have been shown to be not restricted to product valuation but rather it is possible to speak of a general valuation system that is also effective in valuation of the monetary rewards (Bastenet al., 2010). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) method has been utilized to investigate various cognitive faculties. Izzetoglu et al. (2007) used fNIR in a series of experiments to study brain activations during several types of tasks that measure cognitive output. They used a videogame-like task called the Warship Commander Task in which the participants tried to manage varying numbers of airplanes and the amount of cognitive load of the participants was quantified by fNIR. In other experiments, n-back task was used to investigate working memory load on the prefrontal cortex and anagram problems of varying difficulty were used to measure brain activations correlated to problem solving efforts. fNIR was also used in a visual oddball paradigm to assess attention levels of the participants. Across this series of studies, fNIR was shown to be a reliable method for quantification of prefrontal cortex activations. The change in the blood flow has already been shown to illustrate the activation level. Kumagai (2012) investigated personal product preference in fNIR study. Subjects were asked which one of the two products presented they would prefer and then were shown the same products consecutively before making a final decision. Researchers were able to classify product preferences by analyzing blood flow changesvia fNIR.A similar study was conducted by Luu and Chau (2009) to detect product preference via fNIR in a single-trial task. Subjects evaluated two possible products to state their preference and a single-trial task was adequate to analyze fNIR signal for preference detection. We have aimed to observe the neural correlates of buying versus non-buying decisions by using optic neuroimaging method, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIR). To the best of our knowledge, no study has directly investigated the fNIR correlates of buying versus non-buying. We have mostly adapted the experimental design of Knutson et al. (2007) that could be accepted as a realistic model for an idealized case of a possible buying decision by which the participants see a product image, then its price (under the product image) and finally the decision screen by which the participant has to respond positively or negatively to the buying decision. There have been four main hypotheses for this empirical study. Firstly, the preferences and buying decisions of the participantsduring the experiment are highly correlated with the consumption rates in their lives.The participants in both experiments are likely to choose the products, which they declare in the subjective reports. Secondly, the reaction times of the purchasing versus not purchasing decisions differ depending on the final decisions of the participants.Thirdly, the preference versus non-preference decisions of the participants causes different brain activation patterns via fNIR. Fourthly, the buying versus non-buying decisions of the participants causes different brain activation patterns via fNIR. The buying decisions would elicit more activation in the prefrontal regions due to the possible involvement of monetary-centered decisions as well as the contribution of working memory in these higher-order processes. This empirical project consists of two experiments. First one has been done without a real purchasing outcome –the participants were choosing to buy the products or not but they were not given the products at the end of the experiment. Whereas in the second experiment, the participants had the chance to buy the products they selected to buy. 78 products were used in the task and the total duration of the experiment was 26 minutes.The products consisted of 3 main groups: food, cleaning and personal care products. There were 39 products in the food group (e.g. milk, cheese, coke), 17 products in the cleaning group (e.g. detergents) and 22 products in the personal care group (e.g. deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste). The prices of the products were taken from the supermarkets around Ankara and Istanbul.28 participants have participated in the first round of the experiment, which has done without actual buying endowment but instead participants have pretended to buy the products that they actually preferred. The participants for this experiment were undergraduate students from the Middle East Technical University and they were paid 10 Turkish Liras for their participation in the experiment. The second experiment was performed with the same experimental design but this time each of the participants were given 10 TL for their participation and 40 TL to purchase the products they prefer during the experiment. 11 participants (6 males and 5 females) have attended to this second experiment. The participants were also told that if they do not purchase any products or they do not spend all of the money, they would be able to get half of the unspent money. Since the products have been presented with their actual market prices, it has been much more likely and advantageous for the participants to spend all of their money.The data of one of the participants was excluded due to handedness, and 2 of them were excluded due to excessive artifacts. After the completion of the task, each participant filled out a survey about their frequency of use (Range;1: Never – 5: Frequently) for each of the 78 products. The data obtained from 16 channels via fNIR at a temporal resolution of 2 Hz consists of 4 main parameters: Oxygenation (oxy), Total Hemoglobin (hbt), Hemoglobin (hb) and Hemoglobin 2 (hb2). Each reading is taken for 4 stages (fixation, picture, price, decision). The main underlying assumption has been to observe an increase in the relative concentrations of oxy and hbt values depending on the higher PFC activation during the product demonstration when compared to the fixation screen (that is presented before each block). Almost all of the channels illustrate a difference on average between buying and non-buying conditions. We have also expected to observe a significant difference in activation levels between purchasing and non-purchasing decisions. The processed data has been statistically analyzed with SPSS 20.0. Repeated Measures (RM) ANOVA has been performed in order to observe if the buying versus non-buying decisions had a statistically significant effect on the fNIR signals that are averaged for each block of product, price and decision screens. The independent variable has been the binary buying decisions of the participants. The results of the RM ANOVA test have demonstrated that the first experiment done with preference of the products do not implicate any significant difference between buying and non-buying decisions. Thus our third hypothesis was based on observing a significant change in prefrontal activations due to participants’ product preferences (versus non-preferences). Thus it is more likely that the non-monetary simulated “buying” decisions, which do not actually end with purchasing products, do not elicit sufficient activation in the prefrontal regions to provide a detectable difference between preferred and non-preferred cases. Whereas the same statistical test performed for the results of the second experiment implicate significant difference for the buying versus non-buying decisions for 2 of 16 voxels: V1, V8. For N=11, significant levels of activation was observed on Voxel 1, F(1.00, 9.00) = 8.35 , p < 0.2 (Greenhouse-Geisser corrected) and Voxel 8, F(1.00, 9.00) = 5.50 , p < .05 (Greenhouse-Geisser corrected). The waveforms averaged over 11 subjects show a significant separation among purchase and no purchase decisions especially in Voxels 1 and 8. This finding has been a support for our fourth hypothesis, which has been a modification of the third one. Our third and fourth hypothesis has hold that the buying decisions versus non-buying decisions elicit higher activation among the prefrontal cortices of the participants when the decisions end with the actual purchasing decision. To sum up, this empirical study could be accepted as a step for the specific research field of buying decision processes and neuromarketing research in general. The obtained results clearly implicate that specific prefrontal regions –both lateral and medial- might be activated differently depending on the final buying decisions via the optic neuroimaging device, fNIR. Beside the technical limitations such as the appropriate presentation time, this study performed with fNIR method could be used as a baseline work for understanding the psychological and physiological dynamics of buying decisions and in the short-term several factors can also be investigated with this method. Therefore, it might also be possible for researchers to adapt this methodology for the sector-specific marketing research especially for pricing in the long-run.

Companies incur costs in the care of indirect equipment used in production, that is, in maintenance, repair, and operation (MRO) of equipment. However, MRO can waste manpower and time, so that many companies engage MRO companies as substitutes. In the past, MRO substitution companies have conferred advantages that allowed companies to cut prices. As a result of those savings, companies were more likely to purchase high value items. But as prices drop and companies have more varied requests, MRO substitution companies must find new strategies to stay competitive. This research is an effort to escape the exhaustive adherence to price-cutting methods, and instead find ways to maintain continuous relations with customers through price benefits and services. First, product groups must adhere to purchase deadlines. Although logistics centers originally operated and managed deliveries, some items were too large to be delivered. To solve the problem, groups should contract with delivery companies to assure smooth delivery despite problems. Also, delivery companies could supplement computing processes by delivering original documents such as quality certificates between company and customer. Second, companies should communicate with customers regarding the maintenance of current prices, provision of additional service if current prices change, and to find problems and improvements regarding current operations that need to be addressed. The research shows that MRO purchasing companies should focus on customer needs rather than only on price if they are to satisfy customers and accomplish continuous growth.

Subjective knowledge (SK thereafter) is defined as what consumers think they know, or their perceived level of knowledge (Brucks, 1985). SK influences what consumers search for, the effort that they put into searching, and the purchasing decision and choice of brands they finally make (Hadar, Sood, & Fox, 2013; Moorman, Diehl, Brinberg, & Kidwell, 2004). The existing literature on consumer knowledge development mainly argues that SK development is associated with consumers’ product related experience, such as product ownership and experience from usage (Alba & Hutchinson, 2000; Park, Mothersbaugh, & Feick, 1994). This study contributes to the literature as follows. We consider a broad market segmentation where the market consists of product owners and non-owners, The literature suggests that these two groups of consumers should have different levels of perceived knowledge due to their different product-specific experience (Park et al., 1994). Our research specifically contends that it is important to distinguish, within the group of non-owners, between those who intend to buy and those who do not intend to buy the product. Thus, this study examines how previous ownership and intention to buy, which is the goal motivation, influence the SK levels of consumers, which in turn impacts on consumers’ heterogeneous preferences for different attributes within a product category. It is contended that the motivation to learn about a product category of non-car owners who have strong intentions to buy influences what this group learns compared to those non-owners who do not intend to buy. More specifically, the research proposes to uncover how learning influences how different groups of consumers perceive their subjective knowledge and how this relationship in turn shapes their preferences, especially when we compare owners and non-owners who have strong intentions of buying a product. Therefore, we develop following research hypotheses: H1: The SK level is positively associated with the product ownership experience. H2: The SK level is positively associated with purchase intention. H3: The relationship between purchase intention and SK level is moderated by the ownership of the product. H4: Preference heterogeneity for different types of brand attributes of the product between owners and non-owners is moderated by the SK level. The empirical context that illustrates the importance of this research is the Chinese car market where the majority of consumers are first time buyers. Our research shows that the SK level is positively associated with both car ownership and purchase intention. Furthermore, the segmentation analysis finds that purchase intention has a significant effect only on non-car owners’ SK level, while the effect on car owners’ SK level is insignificant. An interesting finding is that SK development, in turn, influences consumer’s preferences for different types of brand attributes of a product. We demonstrate the role of SK in forming consumer preference heterogeneity by comparing preferences for a tangible and a non-tangible brand attribute respectively across different consumer segments. We further show how this preference heterogeneity across two consumer segments (car owners versus non-car owners) depends on their SK level. The results of this study can be generalized beyond the specific context of the empirical study of the Chinese car market when marketers are considering new products launch or launching products where the majority of consumers may be unfamiliar with the product.

The purposes of this study were to categorize of pro-environmental clothing purchasing and disposal behaviors and to identify impacts of health and environment consciousness on pro-environmental clothing purchase and disposal behaviors. The subjects were homemakers (n=381), and they were segmented into LOHAS group, environment conscious group, unconscious group, and wellbeing group according to their health and environment consciousness. Older homemakers were included in LOHAS group and environment conscious group. And these homemakers performed pro-environmental clothing purchasing and disposal behaviors better than wellbeing group or unconscious group. Health consciousness was positively related with the second-hand clothing purchasing and recycling. Environment consciousness was positively related with clothing made with organic, natural or functional materials, or the second-hand clothing purchasing, and recycling of the second-hand clothing. There was a need to develop continuing education programs to strengthen homemakers' health and environment consciousness, or to upgrade their pro-environmental clothing purchase and disposal behaviors.

The purpose of this study is to identify the antecedents of the attitudes toward purchasing fast fashion brands and the frequency of purchasing fast fashion brands. As antecedents, a few brand-related variables and a consumer-related variable were considered. Perceived perishability, perceived scarcity, perceived quality, and perceived low price were included as brand-related variables and congruity between self image and fast fashion brand image was included as a consumer-related variable. It was hypothesized that both brand-related and consumer-related variables directly influence the attitudes toward purchasing fast fashion brands and then influence the frequency of purchasing fast fashion brands. Data were gathered by surveying university students in Seoul, using convenience sampling. Two hundred twenty seven questionnaires were used in the statistical analysis, exploratory factor analysis using SPSS and confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis using AMOS. The results showed that all the fit indices for the variable measures were quite acceptable. In addition, the overall fits of the model suggest that the model fits the data well. The hypothesized relationship test proved that perceived perishability, perceived quality, and congruity between self image and fast fashion brand image influence the attitudes toward purchasing fast fashion brands and then influence the frequency of purchasing fast fashion brands. The results suggest some effective marketing strategies for marketers in the fast fashion industry.

This study examined the food purchasing behavior of rural housewives in Bibong-myeon, Hwaseong. The survey targeted grocery shopping for the home, in particular by housewives. The type of grocery store frequented, age, socioeconomic factors, and ease of purchase were compared with interests in health foods. One super supermarket (SSM), three supermarkets (SM), and four convenience stores were examined in the research area, whereas a large-scale discount store and grocery stores were also examined outside the research area. The grocery store visiting rate was 61.5% in the research area and 38.5% in the other area. The SSM (62.7%) and SM (29.9%) in the research area and LDS (57.1%) and SSM (16.7%) in the other area were most frequently visited. Major purchasing products greatly differed according to the grocery store type. Major foods purchased in the SSM were grain, meat, and fish. Major foods purchased in the LDS and SM were processed products and vegetables, respectively. The LDS visiting frequency was 41.7% for 2-3 times per month and 41.7% for <1 time per month. The means of transport were mostly by private car (87.5%), whereas the SSM was visited 1-2 times per week 53.1% of the time by foot. In addition, various grocery stores are absent in rural areas and it is therefore important to find other methods to assess the food environment of rural areas. In future research, it will be necessary to design various ways to perform food environment research.

Demographic transition drives changes in consumer demand for food products. This study examines how rising incomes and population trends affect spending on food purchased for home. The objective of this study is to characterize the relationships between selected socio-demographic factors and food selection among South Korean households. Panel data from Rural Development Administration (RDA) in South Korea in 2010 was used (n=971). Household food purchases were classified into one of the five food groups from Composition of Foods of RDA. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the effects of household size and income based on the expenditure share on each food group. All statistical analyses were performed using SAS/ PC version 9.3. Results show that household socio- demographic characteristics have a strong influence on food purchasing, with the purchase of vegetables and fruit, and processed food and pre-packaged being particularly sensitive.

The purpose of this study was to identify middle-school boys' purchase behavior according to their shoes shopping orientation. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect from 314 subjects. Factor analysis, Chi-square test, and one-way ANOVA were done using SPSS PC (Ver. 18.0). Most middle-school boys selected shoes that were 255~270mm, possessed on to two pairs of school shoes, searched for information for about five days before purchase, had spent 50,000~150,000 won on one to two pairs of shoes during the previous six months, saw design, comfort, and brand as their selection criteria, chose their shoes by themselves, shoes specialty stores, had favorite brands, preferred athletic shoes made of achromatic canvas, and bought new shoes when their old ones wore out. Factors of shoe shopping orientation were fashion and brand, economy, conformity, and comfort, and students were grouped into an active shopping group, an underdeveloped shopping orientation group, and a value pursuit group. The active shopping group bought more shoes, spent more on shoes, selected their shoes themselves, patronized discount shoe stores or specialty stores, and preferred national brand shoes. The underdeveloped shopping orientation group accepted their friends' opinions when selecting shoes and bought cheaper shoes. The value pursuit group accepted their parents' opinions when selecting shoes, patronized internet shopping malls or traditional markets, and selected cheaper shoes. The shoe shopping orientation of middle-school boys was immature, but they showed strong consumption needs.

Since the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Chile, the EU, and the U.S., Korean agricultural produce markets have turned into a fierce competition landscape. Under these competitive circumstances, marketing is critical. The objective of the research presented herein is to understand the characteristics of customer preferences after locating trends of purchased items. So This research establishes sustainable strategies for Korean agricultural produce. This investigation used market-basket analysis techniques and panel data for its research. Market-basket analysis is a technique which attempts to find groups of items that are commonly found together. The results show that, for one year, processed food using wheat, processed marine products, and pork are commonly bought together and that yogurt and milk also are bought together. The characteristics of customers buying these items are 44 years old and live in a four-person household with two children. These customers do not live with their parents.