Thesis (M. Consumer Science)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Thesis (M. Consumer Science)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

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This study looks to better understand Swedish consumer purchasing intentions in the online second-hand clothing industry. This study examines factors affecting consumers’ intentions to purchase second-hand clothing online, as well as investigating how gender and a person’s general fashion involvement affects their purchasing intention. / Program: Textile Management, Fashion Management

Nowadays, the rapid development of New Technologies of Information such as internet has a tremendous impact on people's life and environment. People now are not only using Blog and social network as a mean to share their life, but also they are using this platform to divulge and promote their diaries, articles, and life experiences. Fashion Guide, the most famous website in Taiwan, combining Blogs, social websites ,discussions forums is an eloquent example. This research is trying to find out whether Fashion Guide website has an influence on Taiwanese female purchasing behavior of cosmetics. This empirical evidence underscoring the impacts of websites such as Fashion Guide on females purchasing decision has the following outcomes: 1-Fashion Guide¡¦s members are over 80 percent and are mostly living in north of Taiwan, most of them are working for IT industries and their age range from 26 to 30 years old.2-The motivation of using the website lies on the fact that they are avoiding risks, above all the risk of getting the products they do not like.3-The members of Fashion guide find the discussion forums more trustworthy than social networks and Blogs.4-Most of members believe that Fashion Guide¡¦s website contents are more reliable than television commercials and suppliers cosmetics websites, therefore in the future marketing can make use of forums, social networks and blogs as a non-negligeable broadcasting platform.

In 2009, GOOGLE with the brand value of 100 billion U.S dollars won the first prize of BrandZ Top 100 again. Brand investigation is not only popular in western countries, but also in Taiwan now. Management Magazine has carried out the investigation on consumers¡¦ ideal brand for 24years. More and more Taiwanese enterprises are proud of being in higher ranking, it means that Taiwanese enterprises begin to understand how important brand management for their business is and they are willing to invest more resources to build a brand. Moreover, enterprises take brand portfolio to compete with others. From literature review, business model would affect the content of brand portfolio, but there¡¦s no material to explain how to affect. Therefore, the thesis focuses on the relationship of business model and brand portfolio strategy, and considers the interference of consumer behavior, besides, the feedback of brand portfolio objectives is also concluded. The method is case study, and Shiseido, LEXUS and AGV are the subjects. After collecting and analyzing primary data from the interviews and secondary data, the results are: (1) Business model would affect the content of brand portfolio strategy directly. (2) The roles of brand portfolio strategy would affect the two elements of business model which are ¡§revenue resources¡¨ and ¡§sustainability ¡§. (3) Involvement would adjust the relationship of business model and brand portfolio strategy. (4) Accomplishment of brand portfolio objectives would benefit the two elements of business model which are ¡§capabilities¡¨ and ¡§scope¡¨.

Purpose: Explore the external and internal barriers preventing consumer purchases in M- commerce. Research Questions:RQ1: What are the external barriers that prevent consumer purchases on smartphones?RQ2: What are the internal barriers that prevent consumer purchases on smartphones? Methodology: This thesis is a qualitative study using an exploratory purpose and used a cross- sectional strategy collecting data through two focus groups. Conclusion: There are existing external barriers in M-commerce that consist of; unadjusted webpages for the smartphone, small screen size, and inconvenient internet connection. Along with that, internal barriers consist of; the inability to complete a task efficiently, consumers’ motivation to use the smartphone other than purchasing, technology perceived as difficult, security concerns and lack of trust, and finally the lack of skill. Thus, the findings of this thesis explored how these factors prevent consumer purchasing in M-commerce. Theoretical contributions/limitations/future research: The key contributions of this thesis is in the field of M-commerce. More specifically, dividing the barriers of purchasing in M-commerce into two categories, external and internal barriers, which has not been studied before. Since this thesis used an exploratory purpose, the subjective nature therefore has implications affecting its validity and reliability resulting in lower levels of generalizability and replication. Along with this, the language barriers in the focus groups may have had an effect on the results. A suggestion for future research is to focus on the relationship between the external and internal barriers in M-commerce rather than distinguishing them. Future research could also consist of identifying other approaches of the barriers in M-commerce.

Background: In today’s society, Influencer Marketing (IM) has become a rising phenomenon where brands collaborate with influencers in order to reach a wider range of consumers. Through the popularity of IM, influencers hold strong influential power since consumers feel a higher level of relatedness to them than traditional marketing efforts. The strong influential power enables influencers to communicate competing brands within a short period of time.   Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how consumers are evaluating influencers who communicate competing brands, from the aspects of trust and relationship.   Method: This study applied an inductive, qualitative approach with an exploratory and interpretive view of the findings. The research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 11 participants, on the aspect of how they evaluate a fashion influencer’s communication on the platform Instagram.   Conclusion: The findings of this research contributed to the development of a conceptual model, including the aspects of personality & relatedness, trust, as well as influencer-consumer relationship. These aspects are important for the influencer to understand, in order to perform the communication in the most effective way to increase consumer purchasing decisions.

Background: The increased awareness of the environmental impact is allowing consumers to be more conscious of their purchasing decisions and habits. Awareness, however, is shown to be based on a number of factors, including country culture. A cultural analysis of the UK was conducted to understand the impact a country’s culture has on individual behaviors. A number of consumer behavior theories were also applied to understand the perceptions and behaviors taken during the individual consumption process. Theories regarding green marketing are also taken into account to provide background of the need for a study of this caliber. Approach: For this quantitative study, an online survey was conducted, along with an analysis of the UK’s culture and implications on consumers purchasing behavior. Findings: The findings from the research show that consumers in the UK are aware of the impact of their sustainable purchasing habits. Consumers do take into account what the purchase means for society as well as them as an individual, which verifies the cultural analysis that was conducted. They are also influenced by green marketing, which validates their purchasing habits and continues the pattern of behavior. Individuals in the UK are very aware of the effects of their behavior, and depending on varying factors are interested in continuing or even changing their behavior to conduct more ethical spending habits. Value: From this research, a framework connecting country culture with consumer behavior decisions is created and applied to environmentally sustainable purchasing choices. This can be taken into account to understand the habits and behaviors of consumers in the UK to continue to push green marketing for products.

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