Thesis (MComm (Industrial Psychology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / The apparel retail environment is highly competitive. Products and services that are easily replicated, together with informed and demanding consumer markets, add to the complexity of this dynamic, fast changing retail and manufacturing industry. One avenue that companies explore to differentiate themselves from the competition is by the development of their corporate identity. A fundamental element of marketing communication and corporate identity representation is store image, as it is a vehicle that affects the customers’ perception of the store and the store’s identity. To be able to invest in store image optimally, retailers should take cognisance of the need to manage store image in order to increase potential sales. The purpose of the current study was to expand the existing body of knowledge on retail store image and the female apparel consumer in the Western Cape with special reference to the perceived importance of retail store image dimensions. The research question directing the current study was formulated as follows: How do consumers perceive the various store image dimensions in apparel retail and how congruent are customers’ and management’s perceptions of these store image dimensions? The literature review focuses on the importance of store image for retail differentiation purposes as well as independent (demographics, lifestyle, shopping orientation) and dependent variables (patronage behaviour, store loyalty, customer satisfaction) in store image research. Congruity as well as gap analysis are also discussed as these are the focus of the research analysis. The Store Image Scale (SIS) was used as measuring instrument. Management (n -= 14) and customer (n = 200) samples from a leading apparel retailer were used to measure the importance of the various store image dimensions. The questionnaire was adapted for the purpose of reaching all the set empirical objectives. The customer questionnaire included five sections to measure the ideal and the actual store image and the management questionnaire included two sections to measure management’s perception of the importance of store image dimensions for customers. Data was subjected to reliability analysis, descriptive statistics and analysis of variance. Results indicated that Atmosphere, Merchandise and Service were rated as most important dimensions according to customer perceptions of the ideal, while Atmosphere, Promotion and Service were the most important dimensions according to management. Atmosphere, Convenience and Merchandise were rated as most acceptable by customers. Due to the nature of the research design congruency analysis was used. The congruency analysis yielded 29 of the 55 attributes as congruent. The analysis of congruency between acceptability and importance ratings of customers indicated that the dimensions Convenience, Institutional and Sales Personnel showed no significant differences. It therefore was concluded that management’s perception and customers’ perceptions of the importance of ideal store image are closely related for these dimensions. However, closer consideration has to be given to the specific attribute design. Significant differences between management’s and customers’ perceptions were found for the Promotion, Merchandise and Service dimensions. Based on the results, recommendations were made to management from which they could infer possible adjustments to the strategic management of store image dimensions. This is one of the first academic studies to attempt to provide management with feedback on the performance of their retail strategy and is therefore exploratory in nature. The recommendations from the current study could help retailers meet consumer needs, and thereby create a competitive advantage and unique market position for the store. This could contribute to building brand equity, store patronage and, consequently, sales, as well as support the possibility of benchmarking the importance of specific store image dimensions as retail practices in the chain store apparel sector. This could contribute to this retailer’s ability to project a store image that meets customers’ expectations while enforcing the strategic corporate identity.

Thesis (MComm)--Stellenbosch University, 1986. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This section of the researchproject examines the needs of the consumer in the Western Cape, with regard to the packaging of fresh produce. Information was obtained by means of questionnaires and analysed by a computer: the chi-square was used to determine statisfactical significance. It was found that the consumer prefers .prepacked fresh produce with the proviso that the product remains visible, for instance the guaze type bag / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: sien item vir volteks.

This research study acquired a consumer response centred approach to visual merchandising stimuli, in an attempt to holistically consider this area of the retail industry. Consumers‟ perceptions towards visual merchandising displays and the effect these displays have on consumer behaviour were exposed. The primary research question that pended from the preliminary literature was to determine the effect of visual merchandising displays on consumer perceptions. Explorative research was performed and qualitative data were collected by means of focus groups and naïve sketches. The data was analysed by means of a thematic analysis process. Perceptions of visual merchandising displays that were identified were subliminal in creating an interest and desire to further peruse the merchandise and aesthetically to beautify the store. Consumers expressed that the impact that visual merchandising displays had on their buying decisions depended on their personal preferences. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

M.Ing. / Nowadays successful companies realize that placing the customers' needs first is so important that it must be an attitude of all departments within the business, an attitude of everyone involved in the business and staff at large. They have to understand that the success of a company depends on customers. This research report will aim to emphasize that it is crucial for companies to satisfy and meet customer needs. Thus, the identification of customer needs, the satisfaction of customers and to satisfy the customers establishing product specifications are emphasized. The applications of the methods and techniques of the process of customer needs identification of a commercial product will be demonstrated and compared on a Turkish computer company and a South African computer company. As the market place, the South African and the Turkish computer market, as the commercial product, a computer and as the computer companies, the Surat computer company and the Microstar computer systems company will be chosen in the case study. The results of the case study will be presented in an integrated manner with the literature study. This report will be based on a case study of customer needs identification in computer technology.

The purpose of this study was to determine attitudes toward low carbohydrate diets among consumers and the attributes that influence their purchase decision. A growing number of diet trends are spreading across the nation in an effort to improve health and lose weight such as the Atkins diet and the South Beach diet.

This study provides a consumer profile of first year Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) Marketing students. To determine influences on students' tertiary education choices, a literature study was undertaken on consumer behaviour, influencing factors and consumer decision-making. An empirical study established consumer behaviour variables impacting on tertiary students, and revealed students' future perspective. A structured questionnaire was distributed. The main findings are: preferred media are E-TV, Metro FM, Drum magazine and The Sunday Times; Internet access is low; most prefer TUT for tertiary education; parents and academic standards predominantly impact tertiary institution choice; the majority will continue their studies and apply for a marketing job in South Africa; their future perspective is predominantly optimistic. In conclusion, the students are impacted by reference groups and institutional marketing efforts. Primary concerns include: successful communication with this group; the effectiveness of the Open Day; and the lack of using reference groups in marketing. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

This research study aims to obtain a holistic view of the area of store atmospherics, which forms part of the retail industry. A consumer-centred response approach was followed. Store atmospherics and its influence on consumers’ buying behaviour has received very little attention in the literature to date. Consumers’ views on in-store atmospheric elements and the influence of these elements on their buying behaviour were obtained. The primary research aim that was derived from the preliminary literature was therefore to explore the influence of store atmospherics on consumers’ buying behaviour in apparel retail stores in the Tshwane region. The type of research design used in this study was exploratory, making use of a qualitative approach and a communicative technique of interviews. The selected method was focus group interviews and naïve sketches. The data gathered was analysed by means of Tesch’s inductive descriptive coding technique, better known as thematic analysis. It was found that atmospheric elements have the ability to influence consumers in either a subconscious or a conscious way. This has a direct influence on the amount of time that consumers will spend in-store and ultimately influences their buying decisions and behaviour either positively or negatively. This had a direct influence on the amount of time that consumers will spend instore and ultimately influences their buying decisions and behaviours either positively or negatively, meaning that the consumers’ will display either an approach- or avoidance behaviour. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

Lack of effective storage facilities to mitigate post harvest losses threatens the profitability of organic farming. In rural KwaZulu-Natal, small scale farmers use traditional storage and sequential harvesting to keep potatoes post maturity while waiting to sell. The effect of these practices on potato quality has not been studied and documented. This study set out to investigate if traditional practices (sequential harvesting and traditional farmer’s store) of the Ezemvelo Farmers Organisation in Umbumbulu affect the quality and marketable quantity of organically grown potatoes. Specifically the study set to investigate the effect of traditional farmer’s store, in situ and controlled storage on the carbohydrate content and sensory quality of potatoes organically grown in Embo by EFO farmers; determine consumer quality expectations of organically and conventionally grown potatoes; investigate the effect of sequential harvesting on the potato quality expectations of consumers and to investigate the produce and income losses experienced by small scale organic farmers at harvest and during storage. Experiments were conducted to compare the effect of sequential harvesting, farmer’s store and controlled cold storage (7oC and 90% relative humidity) on the sensory, appearance and keeping quality of organically grown potatoes. A survey of 100 consumers (40 organic and 60 conventional consumers) was conducted to ascertain consumer appearance and keeping quality expectations of potatoes. In addition, a survey of 101 farmers investigated the storage practices of the EFO farmers who grew potatoes and the type of losses incurred in storage. Preference ranking was used to investigate if time of harvesting post maturity affected potato quality. Produce losses experienced by the farmers were quantified. A co-research group of three seasoned farmers of the EFO participated in the research. They produced potatoes used in the study and provided valuable input to ensure that the study adhered to storage practices of the farmers. The lowest and highest sugar levels were observed in potatoes stored in situ and under controlled conditions, respectively. Potatoes left in situ also recorded higher starch content. Potatoes stored in situ were significantly preferred by sensory panellists (p<0.05) over those stored in both farmer’s store and in controlled storage. Preference rank scores were negatively correlated to total sugar content and positively correlated to starch content. Consumers in the study highlighted five desirable appearance qualities in potatoes: absence of greening, absence of sprouting, smooth skin texture, absence of blemishes and light skin colour. No significant differences in the quality expectations between participating organic and conventional potato consumers were found. The majority of consumers expected potatoes to store for at least three weeks post purchase. Sequentially harvested potatoes met this expectation when potatoes were left in situ for a maximum of six weeks post maturity. Potatoes in situ also maintained good appearance and sensory quality. The highest produce losses were experienced in summer owing to soft rot problems. Production in the drier seasons (autumn and winter) increased the proportions of potatoes too small to be sold as table potatoes. With the exception of completely rotten potatoes, poor quality potatoes were consumed, used as seed potatoes and sold to the local market as seed and for food. Poor potato quality resulted in reduced income for the farmers. This investigation pioneered research into the effect of sequential harvesting on the quality of organically grown potatoes. The findings demonstrate that sequential harvesting provides resource-poor small scale organic farmers with an efficient storage option where other storage methods and technologies may be inappropriate, ineffective or unaffordable. It is recommended that government and other players in the agricultural sector plan initiatives to educate small scale potato farmers on the benefits of sequential harvesting as an effective short term method of potato storage. Research with other potato cultivars in different agro-ecological settings is needed to optimise sequential harvesting. Government policy aimed at training and developing farmer capacity in organic seed potatoes production is essential to ensure that farmers access disease and pest free seed. Farmers also need assistance to access to irrigation resources to improve production. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

Thesis by publication. / Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, 2008. / Bibliography: leaves 124-133. / Introduction - Literature review -- Online word-of-mouth: a comparison of American and Chinese discussion boards -- Electronic word-of-mouth: a comparison of stated and revealed behaviour on electronic discussion boards -- A cross-cultural comparison of electronic word-of-mouth and country-of-origin effects -- Conclusion. / The growth of electronic discussion boards has enabled consumers from different cultures to communicate with people of similar interests. Through this online channel, marketing concepts such as word-of-mouth (WOM) and country-of-origin (CoO) effects have the potential to become more important because of the potentially large number of participants involved. The US and China, being the largest and second-largest online population in the world respectively, are ideal countries to investigate the frequency and extent of these marketing concepts. --The thesis consists of three separate but inter-related papers which have been published in journals or have been accepted for publication. Each paper builds on the one before and analyses different aspects of online consumer behaviour such as information-giving, information-seeking and the CoO statements made by participants of discussion boards. By examining and comparing the frequency and content of discussion postings on discussion boards within US and China based websites, the thesis makes a comparison of the information-giving and information-seeking behaviour of the discussants and also looks at the extent and the content of CoO statements made. Online observation of discussion postings from six different discussion boards (three each from the US and China) was conducted over two 90-day period in 2004 and 2005 and a total of 5,993 discussion postings were downloaded for analysis. In addition, an online survey of 214 participants was conducted to compare the stated and actual (or "revealed") behaviour of discussants on the US and China based discussion boards. -- Overall, the findings indicate consistent differences over a 12-month period in the bahaviour of the US and Chinese discussants. The US discussants were found to provide more information than their Chinese counterparts while the Chinese discussants exhibited more information-seeking bahaviour on the discussion boards. The findings also indicate that the Chinese discussants demonstrated more negative CoO statements and these statements were observed to be related to Japan and/or brands that originated from Japan. The findings suggest that such negative CoO statements can increase rapidly online and it appears that the negative sentiments by the Chinese were apparently unrelated to product quality; instead they appear to have been predominantly associated with war related animosity. -- These findings have important implications for marketers selling to the Chinese as discussion boards appear to be more important as a source of information for the Chinese than the Americans. Also, given that the Chinese discussants demonstrated a high level of negative CoO statements relating to products from Japan, marketers selling Japanese products to the Chinese must understand the underlying issues related to these negativeCoO statements and take steps to prevent non-purchase of Japanese products. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / vii, 133 leaves ill

This study provides a consumer profile of first year Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) Marketing students. To determine influences on students' tertiary education choices, a literature study was undertaken on consumer behaviour, influencing factors and consumer decision-making. An empirical study established consumer behaviour variables impacting on tertiary students, and revealed students' future perspective. A structured questionnaire was distributed. The main findings are: preferred media are E-TV, Metro FM, Drum magazine and The Sunday Times; Internet access is low; most prefer TUT for tertiary education; parents and academic standards predominantly impact tertiary institution choice; the majority will continue their studies and apply for a marketing job in South Africa; their future perspective is predominantly optimistic. In conclusion, the students are impacted by reference groups and institutional marketing efforts. Primary concerns include: successful communication with this group; the effectiveness of the Open Day; and the lack of using reference groups in marketing. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)