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South Africa is an exporter of groundnuts (Arachis Hypogaea). The domestic market reaps the spinoff advantage that export quality reaches store shelves, but unfortunately at a price that is directly linked to the price traders achieve on the export market. The local edible groundnut demand is relatively stable, but some processors saw a dramatic decline in the demand for groundnuts within the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. Businesses in the groundnut industry have a specific objective to create a turnaround strategy for groundnut production in South Africa, in an attempt to increase exports of locally produced groundnuts. This directly results that importance of the domestic market, compared to the export market is secondary. Since retail buyers are the “gatekeepers of consumer choice”, it is important to understand buying behaviour and brand loyalty, as well as the factors that influence buyers’ decisions in a business to business context. Limited literature exists for the domestic South African that highlights or indicates specific buyer preferences towards branded edible groundnuts. Furthermore, a general conceptual model to measure or to provide insight on retailer buyer preferences and buying behaviour lack, or are generally unrelated. An adapted model was used to analyse retail buyer behaviour, perceptions, and brand loyalty influences and data was collected by means of a self administrered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics as well as factor analysis were utilised to identify which factors influence retail buyers’ purchase behaviour and loyalty towards an edible groundnut brand. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy, Bartlett’s test of sphericity and Cronbach Alpha was used to determine whether the collected data was appropriate for factor analysis. Through the factor analysis the following ten factors were identified as having a significant influence on retailers’ buying behaviour as well as brand loyalty towards branded edible groundnuts: * Long-term relationship with a preferred brand. * Brand Loyalty. * Brand trust. * Brand performance. * Satisfaction. * Intentional repurchase. * Brand affect. * Company reputation. * Involvement. * Value for money. More research on this topic is required to develop a single conceptual model in order to measure and analyse retail buyer behaviour and preference for a specific brand on a larger scale within the FMCG industry. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the formation of customer e-loyalty to a social shopping website. The formation of customer e-loyalty to a social shopping website is examined based on cognitive-affective-conative-action loyalty framework. This study proposes that customer e-loyalty is strongly associated with website quality, e-satisfaction and participation. Seven website attributes (i.e., visual aesthetics, navigation, efficiency, user friendliness, security/privacy, entertainment and community driveness) identified in previous research are employed to measure website quality that affects e-loyalty formation. There are 449 data collected from a southwestern university in the U.S., but only the responses from 333 Pinterest users are used to test the hypotheses. Exploratory factor analysis is used to identify dimensionality of social shopping website attributes, and multiple regression and linear regression analysis are conducted to test hypotheses in this study. Results of the study indicate that five significant factors including efficiency, user friendliness, security/privacy, entertainment and community driveness are directly associated with customer e-loyalty. Indeed, such website quality factors as the determinant of cognitive e-loyalty directly affect overall customer satisfaction (affective e-loyalty), customer purchase/return intention to the website (conative e-loyalty), and customer participation, positive eWOM and co-shopping (action e-loyalty). The findings of this study have provided evidence that social shopping website quality dimensions are directly associated with customer e-loyalty to the website. Also, the findings have shown important implications to ensure quality website attributes to increase customer loyalty to a social shopping website.

Since 2004, several small hotel chains have introduced guest loyalty programs in order to give their guests "big chain perks" while keeping a boutique identity. Recent studies have raised concerns that loyalty programs do not create brand loyalty. By looking at Kimpton Hotel's recently introduced program, Kimpton InTouch, this study examines the potential for operationalizing guest loyalty programs in a small boutique hotel chain setting. The study utilizes guest information gathered through customer surveys and reviews guest visits and spending patterns to see if there is any indication that loyal behavior exists amongst members of the Kimpton InTouch. This study demonstrates that frequent stay programs serve as a valuable asset in a hotel's ability to nurture a relationship with its membership and increase the overall awareness of its brand in the marketplace.

We are living in a competitive business world, on which every company strives to have a better and more significant share of the market. Long term customer relationship is essential in order to reach that success. At the same time, an essential aspect of generating and creating that customer-company engagement, customer loyalty, is product promotion. This research aims to address one of the most important key elements for companies, particularly in the case of Zara: The impact of product promotion on customer loyalty. This particular research aims to illustrate which are the key variables that have the most impact on customer loyalty. There is a hard work/high implication behind customer loyalty for a company; for this reason, it is necessary to know on what to focus, invest, and concentrate. In order to be able to answer the presented question an in-depth research together with a study and analysis has been made. To accurately explore the purpose of this study, we conducted a quantitative research in the Spanish market, aiming to best answer this study. To do so, we administered a survey (created in English and then translated in Spanish) between 157 respondents analyzing different variables on the Spanish market; Promotional Pricing, Point of Purchase Display, Perceived Quality, Perceived Value, Attributes, Customer Relationship, Trustworthiness and Loyalty where the variables analyzed. The theoretical framework that we used to base our survey construction comes from different researchers on the analyzed variables. We made use of different theories from the marketing field as well as promotion-based ones in order to be able to empirically analyze and give an answer to the proposed question of this research. Finally, we concluded by answering the research question, and the research gap found. The main conclusion of this research includes an algorithm that leads to customer loyalty: Customer loyalty = Perceived Value + Customer Relationships + Trustworthiness As presented above, we came to the conclusion that the three main divisors that affect to our customer loyalty formula are: perceived value, customers relationships, and trustworthiness. These fundamental elements that conform to our customer loyalty formula, mostly rely on POP Display as a main promotional tool to impact them.

Thesis advisor: Frank Gollop / My doctoral dissertation consists of three essays on consumer behavior. The first chapter studies demand for experience goods. Consumers behave very differently when they do not have perfect information about all brands available on a shelf. This paper extends the benchmark discrete choice model of consumer demand to capture two distinct features of experience-goods markets: prior brand experience and shopping frequency. Although the current literature incorporates habit formation in consumer demand models, it has not considered a more fundamental question: how the first experience with a brand affects the consumer's choice. The model is estimated using data on purchases of ready-to-drink orange juice, which comes from a new consumer-level panel provided by a large supermarket chain in Brazil. The results show that for this product prior experience of a brand is more important for a consumer's choice than price. Furthermore, own- and cross-price elasticities change significantly when experience and shopping frequency are taken into account. The findings of this chapter have implications for both firms' strategies and for antitrust analysis related to experience-goods markets. The second chapter explores how umbrella branding can significantly decrease consumer's first-time experience cost. Multiproduct firms often market their products under the same brand name. When a firm launches a new product with the same brand name, consumers can pool their prior experience with the brand to infer a quality for the product. This strategy can be particularly useful when a firm decides to enter a market of experience goods, in which consumers face a cost for trying a new product. The main objective of this chapter is to study the process by which consumers' brand choices and first-time purchases for ready-to-drink orange juices are affected by their experience with the same brand in another category. The results are consistent with signaling theories of umbrella branding as they indicate that consumers' experience cost with a product decreases with experience of other products of the same brand. The third chapter is about a household's choice of retail formats. Thirty percent of households' food expenditure in the United States comes from clubstores, mass merchandisers, supercenters, drugstores and convenience stores. However, earlier work focused on consumers' shopping behavior mostly in grocery stores and has not examined consumers choice across different types of retail outlets. To address this gap a multinomial logit model is estimated on household-level scanner data for the United States to study how households' characteristics are related to their choice of retail outlets. The results show that income, household size and ethnicity significantly affect these choices. These findings are important for policies that target certain consumer groups. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

This project seeks to utilize the thought of Josiah Royce to address problems stemming from the contemporary American criminal justice system, with a specific focus on the process known as “ex-offender reentry.” Whereas most mainstream reentry efforts focus on the individual perpetrator in isolation from their relationship to the whole, e.g. in and through various self-help programs, I use Royce’s secularized and irreducibly interpersonal model of atonement to illustrate the ways in which (re)integrating “ex-offenders” requires effort not only on the part of the perpetrator themselves, but so too from the community at large. In so doing I rely heavily on Royce’s realism (i.e. anti-nominalism) concerning the nature of relations. I do so first by problematizing the self/other dichotomy in and through adopting Royce’s model of subjectivity, in which relations with others are at least partially internal, that is, constitutive of our own identities. Second, by using Royce’s affirmation of the reality of relations to show, insofar as criminal acts damage not only individuals but also interpersonal and communal relations, that these relations cannot be restored unilaterally. What is more, since relations between so-called offenders and their respective communities are often less than ideal prior to the criminal acts in question, I seek to develop the transformative element of Royce’s model of atonement, to the effect that communities might paradoxically be better off for having gone through processes of atonement than if no such need had arisen. It is regarding this point especially that I find Royce’s thought to be most obviously related to the contemporary transformative justice movement, which sees responses to criminal wrongdoing as an opportunity for communities to address inequities that not infrequently give rise thereto. Finally, I utilize Royce’s personalism and “doctrine of two levels” to argue that the notion of personal responsibility, while usually applied exclusively to individuals, is equally applicable to communities and institutions. In the end I argue that a genuine commitment to transformative justice not only calls for atonement, in Royce’s sense, as a response to individual acts of wrongdoing, but also as a response to the forms of collective wrongdoing that have created circumstances in which the reentry phenomenon so disproportionately impacts largely urban, minority communities.

The purpose of this study is to examine the differences in the extent of customer e-loyalty between the two fashion e-commerce formats single-brand and multi-brand e-retailer. A quantitative research was conducted by means of an electronic questionnaire examining different factors influencing e-loyalty as well as e-loyalty directly. The findings showed similar values for both fashion e-retail formats with slightly higher numbers for single-brand e-retailer. This finding was surprising since it was assumed that single-brand e-retailer would rather attract loyal customers than multi-brand e-retailers. In the case of both formats, however, there is space for improvement to increase customer loyalty. / Program: Master Programme in Fashion Management

Modebranschen är en ständigt föränderlig bransch med högt tempo. Konkurrensen är stenhård och hela tiden etablerar sig nya varumärken på marknaden. För att nå framgång, eller för att överhuvudtaget överleva, gäller det att slåss för sin sak – det gäller att synas! Ett företag som verkligen har lyckats i sitt arbete är svensk/amerikanska Gant, de har hittat en väg att följa, en väg som har lett dem till den position de har idag – ett internationellt ledande modeföretag. Att deras företag har en historia bakom sig, något att berätta i sitt varumärke, spelar troligen en stor roll i denna framgång. Syftet med detta arbete är att göra en kartläggning över Gant som företag samt deras marknadsföring och kundgrupp. Detta för att få förståelse för hur de arbetar för att nå långsiktig framgång i den hårda modebranschen. För att ta reda på detta har följande frågor ställts:1.Vad gör Gant som är unikt för att nå framgång på den konkurrenskraftiga marknaden? 2.Vad har varumärket för betydelse för Gants positionering i kundens medvetande?3.Hur jobbar Gant med att marknadsföra sig ut mot kund?4.Vilka är Gants typiska kunder?För att svara på dessa frågor har det varit nödvändigt att använda sig av en kombination av en kvalitativ och en kvantitativ metod. Den kvalitativa i form av intervjuer och den kvantitativa i form av en enkätundersökning, detta för att styrka den sekundärdata som insamlats. Rapporten har ett hermeneutisktiskt förhållningssätt då det handlar om att tolka texter, intervjuer och den utförda enkätundersökningen. Varumärket Gant bygger på en historia om dess amerikanska ursprung och denna historia genomsyrar allt i företaget. Varumärket står för en livsstil vars värderingar präglas av integritet, elegans, karaktär, samförstånd och optimism. I arbetet med att bygga upp ett starkt varumärke har det varit en självklarhet för Gant att vara konsekventa i sin marknadskommunikation. Detta för att konsumenten alltid ska känna igen sig och veta vad Gant står för. Historien bakom Gant är även grunden i all marknadsföring, i vilken det handlar om att förmedla en livsstil och en känsla bakom varumärket. Även om Gant har en väldigt spridd målgrupp är det främst en önskan om god kvalitet och design som kunden värdesätter. De personer som handlar Gant gör det främst på grund av den kvalitet, design och livsstil som Gant erbjuder.Under arbetets gång har det framkommit att bakom Gants framgång ligger en välbevarad historia som alltid har haft en avgörande roll i företagets utveckling. Kontinuitet i allt de tar sig för medför också en stadig grund och ger trygghet åt varumärket. Utöver detta har Gant en otroligt väluttänkt och välgenomförd marknadsföring som ger deras kunder känslan av en uppnåelig dröm. Gants framgång kan alltså sammanfattas med orden: en unik historia, den rätta känslan, en strategisk marknadsföring och kontinuitet i alla delar. / <p>The fashion industry is a constantly changing industry with a high tempo. The competition is fierce and every day new brands appear on the market. To be successful, or even to survive, you have to fight for your cause to be seen and heard! A company that has succeeded in their work is the Swedish / American Gant, they have found a path to follow, a path that has led them to the position they have today – a successful international fashion house. That their company has a story behind it probably plays a major role in this success. The purpose of this essay is to develop an overview of Gant and their marketing and customer group. This is to get an understanding of how they work to achieve the long-term success in the tough fashion industry. The brand Gant is built on a history of its American origins and history that permeates throughout the company. The brand represents a lifestyle whose values are characterized by integrity, elegance, character, understanding and optimism. In the process of building a strong brand, it has been important for Gant to be consistent in their marketing communications. This is to help the costumer to always recognize Gant and always be sure of what Gant stands for. The story behind Gant is also the foundation in all marketing, which is about to convey a lifestyle and a feeling behind the brand. Although Gant has a very diverse audience, it is primarily a desire for quality and design that the customer appreciates. The person who buys Gant does it mainly because of the quality, design and lifestyle that Gant offers. During the work of this essay it has emerged that behind Gant's success is a well-preserved history that has always played an important role in its development. Continuity in everything they do, helps to build a firm foundation and provides security to the brand. Also, Gant has an incredibly well-considered marketing that gives their customers the feeling of an achievable dream. Gant's success can be summarized by the words: a unique history, the right feeling, a strategic marketing and continuity in all areas.</p><p>Program: Butikschefsutbildningen</p>

This dissertation examines the emotional life of populism among supporters of Argentina’s Kirchnerist Movement. In 2005, the late political philosopher Ernesto Laclau, himself, a Kirchnerist, argued that populism held the promise of radically democratic representation and governance, arguing that the identification of a common enemy had the power to unite disparate political forces across traditional social division. This bold endorsement of populism was met with skepticism and rebuke, as many scholars went on to argue that populism is a corruption of liberal democracy whose demonizing obsession with an enemy is revelatory of authoritarian and even totalitarian tendencies. Yet, both scholars that are against populism or for it share the assumption that it mobilizes “the people” against a common, known, and easily recognizable enemy. In contrast, “Peronism Is a Sentiment” argues that in populist politics, affection is as least as important as antagonism; furthermore, populism’s intense valorization of comradeship produces a social environment in which populist comrades express more concern about the potential betrayal of their beloved comrades than they do about the machinations of a common enemy. Consequently, while antagonism towards an external enemy is certainly a central component of populist cosmologies, this antagonism is manifests itself most significantly internally, as formerly beloved comrades are denounced as traitors. I examine the social dynamics of populist comradeship through an ethnographic study of Kirchnerist activists known as “political militants” (militantes políticos). These individuals view themselves as carrying on the political tradition of Peronism—Argentina’s enduring brand of populism, which, through its complicated and contradictory history has always exalted the values of love and loyalty, while simultaneously warning of the threat of betrayal. Over six chapters, I trace the affective vicissitudes of Kirchnerist militancy, investigating interconnectedness of affection, trust, suspicion, and accusation in the Kirchnerist and Peronist cosmology. In chapter 1, entitled “Peronism is a Sentiment,” I explore the relationship between ideology and affect through a description of the mercurial ideological orientation of Peronism over its contradictory history. Chapter 2, “The Place of Solidarity and Fellowship” focuses on community service activities of militants, who attribute different meanings to these practices, exposing fissures in supposed ideological consistence and the unity of comradeship. Chapter 3, “Only the Organization Can Defeat Time,” examines the dynamics of class difference within the Movement. Chapter 4, “A Traitor to His Class,” analyzes how notions of loyalty and betrayal are tethered to Peronism’s valorization of “authenticity” (autenticidad) and the consolidation of a cult of personality around Kirchnerism’s leader, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Chapter 5, “A Peronist Works for the Movement,” focuses on the role of oratory and charisma in performances of loyalty. Chapter 6, “I Embrace You with the Affection and Loyalty of Always,” investigates the relationship between personalism and fictive kinship to underscore the vital importance of the tensions between allegiance and alliance in notions of political community. These chapters provide an intriguing and clarifying story of populist enchantment, the appeal of political brotherhood, and the accompanying preoccupation with internal enemies. “Peronism Is a Sentiment” makes a novel contribution to studies of populism that have been remiss in ignoring the centrality of affection in populist cosmologies, and the inevitability of sectarianism that comes along with it. This dissertation was written as populist movements and parties emerged across regions and ideologies, challenging and redefining paradigms of governance and remaking the rules of geopolitics. Consequently, it is a timely contribution to interdisciplinary dialogues that seek creative approaches to pressing contemporary problems, demonstrating the value of anthropological theory and ethnographic research methods in grappling with questions of politics and the political.