The main objective of the study is to investigate multichannel consumer choices between supermarkets and convenience stores when consumers buy products in the beverage category. The methodology involves both questionnaire surveys through fieldwork and purchase history data in Japan.

When social media users post their opinion on social media, they might expect to receive a favorable evaluation from others (e.g., ‘like’ on Facebook and ‘heart’ on Instagram). On the contrary, when users read and evaluate other’s posts, they are less likely to care about others. What’s more, if users spend more time on social media, posting would make them more care about others. This research answers the question ‘Does social media interaction alter the way we perceive value and affect different choice? Three studies show 1) how social media interaction affects consumers’ luxury value perception and the mediating role of social media self-view (interdependent vs. independent self), 2) how main effect and mediated relationship are different between two groups divided by participants’ time spent on social media (high vs. low: ±1 SD) and 3) how the type of social media interaction (post vs. “like”) affects handbag choice between social and functional luxury-superior option.

Purpose: The importance and satisfaction with the purchasing characteristics and choice attribute of home meal replacement (HMR) products for consumers aged between 20 and 40, or over 50. In addition to identify the factors that must be first considered in the development of HMR products importance-performance analysis. Methods: 791 consumers aged between 20 and 40, or over 50, living in Seoul have experience in purchasing HMR participated in the survey. The survey consisted of four sections: the purchasing characteristics of HMR, the importance and satisfaction with HMR choice attribute, and general questions. T-tests and IPA were conducted to compare the groups of consumers aged between 20 and 40, or over 50. Results: The factor analysis show the following results: 0.899 for “convenience”, 0.094 for “hygiene”, 0.871 for “quality”, 0.834 for “taste”, and 0.822 for “price”. The average score of the importance of the choice attribute when purchasing HMR products 3.50. For consumers aged between 20 and 40, the score 3.49. For consumers over 50, the score 3.52. There is a significant difference “hygiene (p<0.001)”, “quality (p<0.05)”, and “price (p<0.05)”. For consumers aged between 20 and 40, the score 3.72. For consumers over 50, the score was 3.78. There a significant difference only in “hygiene (p<0.05)”. Conclusion: The results of the IPA demonstrate that the categories that belong to “Focus here” are “new HMR products” and “diverse HMR products” for all consumers aged between 20 and 40 and over 50. Hence, food companies should endeavor to develop new and diverse HMR products first.

We examined whether hybrid consumers exist in the commodity food market by comparing food products in general, fresh pork and precooked pork patties using an online questionnaire (N=200). The same consumers changed their selection criteria depending on the type of commodity food product they were considering, reflecting hybrid consumer attitudes.

With the popularization of the issues of global warming and climate change, more and more people are aware of environmental damages caused by human behavior. The fundamental living necessities of humans, such as food, water, clothing, housing and transportation, all take place on the Earth. Many environmentalists and governments worldwide have started to promote low carbon and green concepts. Such a green urgency is sweeping the world. Based on the surveys conducted by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) in 2013, over 40% of those surveyed in US households have a higher level of motivation to purchase organic products, for the sake of their own and their family's health. In addition, 97% of organic product buyers had purchased organic fruits or vegetables in the past six months. We can also see this kind of situation in Taiwan, where about 80% of consumers are willing to pay more money to purchase environmentally friendly products. The OTA even maintains that, except for Japan, Taiwan is the fastest growing organic market in Asia. Therefore, this study aims to explore the consumers' purchase behaviour behind the organic market in Taiwan. The organic market in Taiwan covers the products from agriculture, food processing, textiles, apparels, and even personal care products and cleaning supplies. Following this green trend that seeks to enhance human health and to maintain a sustainable earth to live on, organic stores in Taiwan have become an emerging industry and there seem to be endless business opportunities in this potential organic market. In order to acquire a significant market share, it is necessary for enterprise managers to understand consumers' perceived value of organic products and how this determinant, perceived value, impact their purchase intention. Perceived value is the overall purchase experience of consumers. It is based on the consumers' comparison between the quality and quantity of products received and paid out, and their objective and subjective consideration of certain factors (Schechter, 1984; Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived value varies with the type of products and services and consumers' personal traits (Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived value is a complicated construct and, therefore, its impact on consumers' purchase intentions toward products cannot be judged from a single dimension only (Bolton & Drew, 1991). Literature on perceived value divides it into utilitarian and hedonic values. Utilitarian value refers to the perceived value acquired by consumers after their purchasing goals have been achieved in the process of consumption. That is to say, utilitarian value is the task- and rationalization-oriented decisions of consumers. On the other hand, hedonic value is affiliated to the individual emotional and irrationality phase of consumers, which usually occur during the process of consumption. Consumers commonly feel pleasant emotions and feelings of motivation and accomplishment, or can even fulfill their desire for escape (Babin & Attaway, 2000; Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994; Bae, 2008). Past studies have pointed out that perceived value has a direct impact on the purchase intention (Grewal, Monroe, & Krishnan, 1998). However, in the Value-Attitude-Behavior Model, Homer and Kahle (1988) indicated that perceived value affects consumers' purchase intention through the mediating effect sourced from their attitude. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been commonly used to explain a variety of human behaviour (Cunningham and Kwon,2003; Andrews, Silk and Eneli,2010; Kim & Chung, 2011). The TPB mainly focuses on the influence of three behavioural intention dimensions of individuals: attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. In short, following the fundamental concept of TPB (Ajzen, 1985), this study explored the variables of (1) consumers' attitude towards organic products, (2) the subjective norm, represented by the pressure from family members and close friends, and (3) the perceived behavioural control, presenting perceived ability to control the availability and accessibility of organic products. The ultimate goal of this research is to find out the critical determinants influencing consumers' purchase intentions towards organic products. In order to explore the consumers' possible decisive path from perceived values to purchase intention toward organic products (see figure 1), this study includes the variables utilitarian value and hedonic value as the antecedents, attitude as the mediating factor, and both subjective norm and perceived behavioural control as other influential factors. Figure 1: Conceptual framework and hypotheses This study mainly targeted the consumer behavior toward organic products in the Taipei area of Taiwan. Totally 565 samples were collected. Excluding invalid questionnaires (73 samples), the number of valid questionnaires was 492. The valid response rate was 87%. The SEM is a statistical technique combining both factor analysis and path analysis and is widely used in social and behavioural science studies. Therefore, this study adopted the SEM as the analytical tool to explore the causal relationship among the latent variables discussed above. In sum, this study revealed that the proposed model could well predict consumers’ purchase intentions toward organic products. The empirical research results of this study are summarized as follows. First, the findings of this study confirmed the claims proposed by many scholars that perceived value is a critical determinant affecting the purchase intention of consumers (Zeithaml, 1988). The empirical results of this study show perceived value is an important antecedent driving consumers to purchase organic products in Taiwan. Nevertheless, perceived value is a multi-dimensional construct. As Ryu et al. (2010) suggested in order to explain all consumptive phenomena, we should consider consumers' overall evaluation of utilitarian and hedonic values that are taken into account during their consumption experience. This study found that utilitarian and hedonic values are, indeed, the important driving antecedents for consumers to purchase organic products. Moreover, utilitarian value, compared to hedonic value, has a higher level of impact on the consumers’ purchase intention toward organic products. With regard to the sale of organic products, in addition to the emphasis on the interesting and exciting experience acquired from the purchase or use of organic products, what is more important is that managers can directly emphasize the quality, practical value of organic products, and the contribution that organic products make to people’s health and environmental protection. This not only directly drives consumers to purchase organic products but also further promotes the degree of satisfaction of consumers towards organic products, subsequently increasing the chances for organic products to be purchased. In particular, this study also finds that the main reason for people who never purchase organic products is that they do not yet have a preference toward organic products. For enterprises which want to extend the organic market in Taiwan, this study suggests that managers make consumer to be fond of organic products by driving hedonic and utilitarian value that can be provided by the organic products. Second, the influence of perceived behavioral control and attitude on purchase intention, as mentioned in the TPB in previous studies, was also supported in this study. In other words, when consumers purchase organic products, they have been deeply affected by factors regarding the degree of their knowledge of organic products or the accessibility of the organic products. In that case, the channel strategy and the store coverage of organic products should be very critical in the ever-booming organic products market in Taiwan. Besides, this investigation finds that a certain proportion of consumers do not purchase organic products because they do not understand the organic products, which is also a very important clue for the companies that intend to penetrate the market. They could spread environmental protection knowledge via the advertisements to educate consumers about the benefits (such as protecting the environment, and being good to health, etc.) of the usage of organic products. In that way, the potential consumers could be encouraged to purchase organic products and this will be beneficial for the development of total organic product market.

This paper examines consumer impulse buying choice in various situations. A questionnaire was sent to 414 consumers in the UK and Taiwan. The results demonstrate the interactions between the consumption situations and corresponding individual-related factors. Individuals’ cultural backgrounds were also found to predict different types of impulse buying patterns effectively.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the difference in bakery choice attributes according to consumers' general characteristics and purchasing behavior. Among 350 questionnaires distributed to bakery consumers, 277 complete questionnaires (79.1%) were analyzed. Bakery choice attributes were classified into five factors: "environment and image", "bakery product features", "location", "employee service", and "price and sales promotion"; the mean scores of these factors' importance levels were 3.59, 3.58, 3.49, 3.36, and 3.00, respectively. Males considered 'employee service' factor significantly more than did females. Further, the importance level of 'employee service' factor was significantly greater as consumer's age increased. The importance levels of 'bakery product features' and 'employee service' factors were considered significantly more by consumers who spent KRW10,000-15,000 than those who spent KRW5,000 or less. 'Price and sales promotion' was considered to be more important by consumers who obtained information from the Internet than from the TV and radio. 'Location' factor was considered to be more significant as purchasing frequency increased. Such differences in importance level of bakery choice attributes according to consumers' gender, age, job, and purchasing behavior should be considered and applied to the development of marketing strategies targeted at consumers.

Purpose: This study aimed at exploring the product choice tendency differences between the consciousness and unconsciousness of goal orientation when product attributes is perceived to be compatible with the goal orientation. Research design, data and methodology: Empirical study used a 2 (goal conscious vs. unconscious) × 3 (hedonic vs. performance vs. reliability attribute) between-subjects design and one control group. To verify hypotheses, χ²-test was conducted to 320 questionnaire data answered by undergraduate students of Jiangxi Normal University in China. Results: First, consumers under unconscious condition showed a higher product choice consistency based on compatibility between hedonic (performance) attribute of the product and their hedonic (performance) promotion goal-orientation than those under the conscious condition. Second, product choice effects of compatibility between reliability attribute of the product and prevention goal orientation were not significantly different between consumers’ consciousness and unconsciousness of their prevention goal orientation. Conclusions: Marketers of ‘under dog’ should try to develop and deliver the product attributes different from the attributes of ‘top dog.’ And the ‘top dog’ marketers should help their customers to avoid the conflicts by developing the environment of inducing their goal orientation unconsciously. Brand marketers should always pay attention to the reliability attributes concerned with the prevention goal orientation.