Over the past two decades, South Africa has introduced several laws regulating business and providing protection to consumers. These include the Competition Act (89 of 1998), the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (25 of 2002), the National Credit Act (34 of 2005), and the Consumer Protection Act (68 of 2008) (CPA). The CPA was implemented to conform to international best practice regarding consumer law, to replace the existing but outdated laws, and most importantly, to provide protection to vulnerable consumers (Department of Trade and Industry, 2004:14; Rampersad & Reddy, 2012:7407). The importance of protecting vulnerable consumers can be attributed to South Africa’s history of discrimination and excluding the majority of the population from quality education and equal opportunities in the marketplace (Rampersad & Reddy, 2012:7407). However, the CPA is of small value to consumers if it is not generally known and applied; thus, consumers will continue to be at the mercy of retailers who very often do not have their best interests at heart. Therefore, this study was undertaken to measure the awareness and knowledge of the CPA among retailers. The research was done among small independent retailers located in shopping malls in the Vaal Triangle, South Africa. The study followed a quantitative approach, using a self-administered questionnaire to obtain a single cross-sectional sample. From the data gathered, it is clear that most of the participants considered themselves well informed regarding consumer rights; 88 present of the participants indicated that they are familiar with the nine consumer rights contained in the CPA. However, this stands in stark contrast to the results obtained in the section measuring the actual knowledge of the CPA; only 49 present of the participants managed to answer more than half of the questions correctly, and none answered more than 70 present correctly. In addition, the participants seemed to score higher on those rights that existed before the CPA came into effect, and lower on the new rights introduced by the Act. This seems to indicate that retailers are not yet familiar with the Act; it is, therefore, unlikely that they do business in a manner that complies with the CPA, which robs consumers of the benefit and protection of the Act. Of the retailers who participated in this study, 72 present said they believe the CPA is necessary to protect consumers. This would seem to indicate that it is the lack of knowledge rather that real resistance to the Act which is standing in the way of wider compliance. Therefore, steps should be taken with utmost urgency to educate and increase awareness of the Act, both among retailers and consumers. / MCom (Marketing Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Achieving sustainable production is a critical task in today’s globalised world. This is especially the case in the cotton garment industry where globally dispersed suppliers feed rapidly expanding demand across international markets. Practices associated with cotton garment production face numerous sustainability challenges from cotton farming to textile and garment manufacturing. Retailers are under increasing pressure to address these challenges and leading retailers are now actively trying to promote more sustainable production across all stages of production from raw material to final product. While numerous studies have investigated the relationship between retailers and their upper tier suppliers, there is little understanding of how sustainability challenges can be addressed across fragmented production processes. It is this gap that this thesis seeks to fill. Promoting sustainable production from raw materials to the final stages of manufacturing involves influencing practices of a diverse set of businesses responsible for different stages of production. This thesis defines the set of businesses that turn raw materials into final products as an ‘extended supplier network’ (ESN). Drawing on global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) approaches to understanding how production is organised, the core question of this thesis is: To what extent is buyerdriven governance sufficient for promoting sustainable production across fragmented production processes in an ESN? GVC and GPN research provides insight into this issue as it offers a way to conceptualise how lead firms influence their suppliers. The GVC approach highlights the importance of lead buyers. The GPN approach incorporates this argument but further emphasises the importance of spatiality and the roles of a wider set of actors and processes. While both approaches theoretically incorporate all stages of production, garment industry studies using these approaches have tended to focus on relationships between brands and retailers and upper tier suppliers, paying insufficient attention to lower tiers. Considering the case of Indian cotton clothing production for major UK retailers, this study explores retailers’ governance relationships with producers at different points in their ESNs. Producers’ experiences of vertical governance through buyer-seller relationships across all stages of production within an ESN are explored. These producers’ experiences with horizontal governance within distinct local productive systems are also considered. Diverse producers’ locations within the ESN and within local productive systems are found to involve different governance experiences within the same ESN. Across the ESN, vertical governance flows are found to be limited by variation in potential for buyer governance across buyer-seller relationships in the multiple vertical pathways connecting retailers to raw material producers. Alternatively, retailers can connect to producers by making non-sourcing horizontal connections with actors in local productive systems. While dominant methods in retailers’ efforts at governance for sustainability have been vertical, horizontal connections are increasing across the industry. However, despite the emergence of new connections, this research finds that retailers’ influence over lower tier production processes remains limited. Empirically, this thesis provides insight into the complexity of sustainability challenges involved in the production of cotton garments. Conceptually, it shows the nature of diverse governance relationships across an ESN. It also emphasises that effective governance for sustainability cannot be achieved simply through vertical buyerdriven governance. Instead a more nuanced, and more complex, understanding of the interplay between vertical and horizontal is required, particularly considering the role of alliances. This has significant implications for policy, including the public and private governance for sustainability in the global cotton garment industry.

Creating brand value is a vital procedure for online fashion retailers to customers. In Bangladesh, todays, e-commerce fashion is a new trend for the consumers. People are purchasing through online than ever before in Bangladesh. In particular, there are fewer research that provides insight on how online fashion enterprises create their brand value to. For this, it is important for retailers to create brand value to consumers for their e-trade. Therefore, the author found it interesting to research the brand value of online fashion retailers to customers. From previous literature, there are some limitations for creating brand value to consumers.

An important issue in the furniture industry is more widespread use of character-marks. The purpose of this research was to gain an in-depth understanding of the critical issues associated with acceptance of character-marked hardwood furniture. This information was beneficial for developing strategies to increase character-mark use by large furniture manufacturers. Although much has been said about the benefits of including more character in hardwood furniture, few large manufacturers have implemented such changes in their products. Personal interviews were conducted with product development personnel to develop case studies for large furniture manufacturers. The case studies centered on the companies' experiences with character-marked furniture. A follow-up mail survey was conducted to validate the case studies. It was found that decisions concerning character-mark use occur throughout the product development process, and involve the design, marketing, and production functions within the company. Companies that were able to fit character-marks within acceptable product concepts, considering such factors as style, finish, and hardware, appeared to have the most success with character-marked furniture in the marketplace. Conjoint analysis was employed to provide quantitative measures of retailers' perceptions of character-marked furniture products. This information was useful for determining the potential for push-type promotion. The dependent measure stimuli were full product profiles (actual wood samples and pictures), presented to respondents during on-site interviews. Retailers preferred furniture with no knots when evaluations were based on buying consideration and relative price. However, there was a linear relationship between preference and knot size, suggesting that opportunities for use of small knots may exist. It was found that character-marks were quite important to the product evaluations, suggesting that character-marks are a salient product feature. In addition to generating preference measures for tangible furniture product attributes, an investigation of the intangible product attributes associated with character-marks was conducted. Rustic, casual, and antique looks were most associated with character-marked furniture. Promotion of character-marked furniture based on environmental and natural material themes did not appear to hold much potential in the minds of manufacturers and retailers. It appears that promotion of character-marked furniture aimed at retailers will have to be based on what character-marks add to the look of wood household furniture. / Ph. D.

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The purpose of this study is to examine and adjust as needed the Kang (1999) assortment planning model to fit the planning process of bridal retail buyers. Five buyers who are owners or managers of small, independent bridal retail businesses were selected purposively and participated in in-person interviews about their assortment planning practices. A model was developed for each company interviewed, depicting the order of the assortment planning steps as practiced by bridal retail buyers. The final models were confirmed with follow-up interviews. Findings from this study suggest that the assortment planning steps used by bridal retailers are similar to the steps used by women's dress buyers, as found in Kang's (1999) study. Bridal buyers use the six steps proposed by Kang to be included in the assortment planning process, however the bridal buyers' assortment plan is more intuitive, integrated, and loosely constructed than that of women's dress buyers. Three following variables were considered for their affect on the bridal retail buyer's process: (a) product-specific factors, (b) company-specific factors, and (c) buyer characteristics. Within the factors, the characteristics of product type and organization size were thought to have the most effect on the process. / Master of Science

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in food retailing has generated a considerable amount of attention in both the media and the business world throughout the 199Os, with a strong focus on Asian and Central and Eastern European countries. Among these countries, China is a key player and a nation that no international retailers can afford to ignore due to its population size of 1.2 billion and its rapid economic development. Food retailers from different parts of the world have been keen to use their modern retail concepts and technology to seek expansion opportunities in China. Consequently, two important questions emerge: What does the process of FDI in food retailing entail? Is the retail and distribution market in China easily entered? Regarding the first question, substantial research effort has been vested in this topic. However, a conceptual framework that incorporates the whole scope and complexity of the process is still lacking. For the second question, a prudent scrutiny reveals that foreign food retailers are confronted with a lot of complications due to the legacy of the previous command economy and the unique Chinese social and business structure. The thesis develops an analytical model in which critical variables, and their logical relationships, are used to analyse and explain the process of FDI of food retailers in the contemporary era, using China as the domain for the empirical work. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative approach using case studies with thirteen foreign food retailers in China. The research focuses on three main areas: long-term strategic objectives behind retail international expansion, market entry issues, and retail operational issues. Firstly, the long-term strategic objectives that underlie retailers’ undertaking of foreign direct investment are investigated. Evidence shows that the prevailing concept of reactive retail internationalisation and the tenet of psychic distance do not fully reflect the reality of retail internationalisation. Secondly, three issues related to market entry are explored. The first issue is the legal and regulatory infrastructures that foreign retailers face when entering China. The second issue is the selection of Chinese partners, managing partner relationships and the share of managerial control. The third issue is the technical and political procedures of site selection and store development. The empirical work reveals that the lack of a systematic and well-developed legal system complicates the process of foreign direct investment and having a Chinese partner who possesses the appropriate guanxi network alleviates the problem. Furthermore, the exercise of dominant control over operational and managerial issues is practised by the foreign retailers in their joint ventures. Significant conflicts between partners appear not to exist under such an arrangement. On the other hand, political procedures of site selection and store development are found to be onerous. In terms of technical procedures, respondents reported that the methods that are being used in developed countries are not entirely applicable in China. The third area on which the research focuses is operational issues that foreign food retailers confront in the host countries. These include supply chain management; adjustment and adaptation; and development of human resources. Findings suggest that there are two types of retail know-how: core and peripheral. No changes to core elements should be made in the overseas operation so that the uniqueness of the individual retailer is preserved. Adjustments, however, have to be made to peripheral elements in order to match particularities of local consumer demand. A learningoriented culture within a retail organisation is found to be an important underlying element that contributes significantly towards successful retail internationalisation. Taking a holistic perspective, the foreign direct investment behaviour in the retailing sector and the manufacturing sector, from which the prevailing foreign direct investment theories were developed, appear to be very different. The foreign direct investment behaviour of retailers seems to be better explained and understood within a framework that emphasises market power seeking, stresses the dynamics of different elements that constitute retail know-how, and underscores the notion of knowledge accumulation and utilisation.

Nowadays rapid development of information and communication technologies induced changes in many spheres of society. Digital media gives an access to diverse information sources ensuring vast available information. However, it became more difficult to evaluate credibility of these sources and quality of information provided by them. Issues of source credibility and information quality are particularly important in the context of online shopping. Consumers have to rely on information provided by online retailers and other sources in order to make a right purchase decision. The purpose of this master thesis is to examine effects of source credibility and information quality on attitude toward using the information source and purchase intention. Previous research investigated these effects only for one information source, thus, this study addresses this gap by exploring three online information sources: retailer source, eWOM source and neutral source. Furthermore, the theoretical framework is applied to the context of online apparel shopping, as no similar studies have beenconducted in this area before. We have formulated the following research question: What kind of effects do source credibility and information quality have on attitude toward using information source and purchase intention of apparel products? We used Theory of Reasoned Action and Information Adoption Model to develop a conceptual model. Data was collected from a sample of 180 respondents, who completed the online survey. Empirical findings demonstrate that factors of source credibility such as trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness have positive effects on the attitude toward using eWOM source, while only trustworthiness and expertise positively affect the attitude toward using neutral source. For eWOM and neutral source relationships between factors of information quality and the attitude toward using the information source were found insignificant. On the contrary, for retailer source only factors ofinformation quality, accuracy and relevance, show positive effects on the attitude toward using retailer source. For all three sources attitudes toward using the information source and subjective norms positively affect purchase intentions. This work contributes to the existing knowledge by examining three online information sources in one study, which enables to discover differences in effects of source credibility and information quality on the attitude toward using the information source and purchase intention among sources. Furthermore, this paper provides recommendations for practitioners regarding improvement of perceived credibility and information quality ofeach information source in order to increase the number of consumers willing to use the source during information search.

China’s import cross-border e-commerce (CICBEC) business model differs from other online shopping business models in both the participators and transaction processes. Government as an important participator has greatly promoted the healthy and rapid development of this business model. As a vital topic in all kinds of businesses, customer trust is also a core research topic in online shopping. Many scholars have studied customer trust in traditional online shopping while few of them focused on cross-border online shopping, let alone the CICBEC business model. The government is a new participator, whose contribution on customer trust is not clear. Also, other known variables’ influences on customer trust are still worthy of discussion. This research aims to address existing research gap by contributing to Lee and Turban (2001)’s Customer Trust in Internet Shopping (CTIS) Model and constructing a new customer trust model. A number of influencing factors of customer trust were defined and tested in this research. It shows that influencing factors from four participators, the e-retailers, e- commerce platforms, government and third-parties, have a significant correlation with customer trust. The final results show that order fulfillment, government actions, e-retailer reputation, information quality, e-commerce platform security and e-commerce platform reputation have significant influences on customer trust.