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The purpose of this research is to study the influence of different bonding strategies for customer relationship management on customer loyalty in online shopping. In particular, the research is focused on the mediation effect of relationship quality. ¡@¡@More Specifically, this study examines the following issues¡G(1) the relationship between relationship bonding strategies and relationship quality; (2) whether relationship bonding strategies will influence customer loyalty; and (3) the influence of relationship quality on customer loyalty. An online survey received 311 useful responses. The results include (1) social bondings had a positive effect on customer loyalty, but financial and structural bonding had no direct correlation with customer loyalty, (2) with respect to different dimensions of relationship quality, financial and structural bondings had a positive effect on customer satisfaction, trust and commitment. Social bonding had partial correlation with relationship quality; (3) Customer satisfaction, trust and commitment in relationship quality showed positive connection to customer loyalty. The effect of customer satisfaction was weaker than those of trust and commitment; and (4) Relationship quality is a moderator between bonding strategies and customer loyalty. A complete mediating effect has been observed.

Internet has over the years developed to a platform where more and more companies and organizations control their businesses. Men are spending considerably more time shopping in general compared to only a decade ago, and the numbers are still increasing. Men are using the internet to buy products more often than women do worldwide. Stereotypes tell us that women like shopping for clothes while men do not. Men in Sweden buy more than women in 14 out of 16 purchasing categories on the inter-net; one of the other two is fairly even. The last category is “clothes and accessories” and even though Sweden is proved to be the least masculine country in a study containing 53 countries in total and are proved to be so called quick-shoppers, men do not shop clothes and accessories to the same extent as women in Sweden. Thus the question we wanted to investigate further was what is important to priori-tize in terms of website design and structure when selling clothes and accessories in Sweden.The purpose of this report derived from the problematization follows: to bring out which factors of a websites’ design and structure that are most important and most correlated with the intention to pur-chase on a website selling clothes and accessories targeting men in Sweden.In order to get an answer to our questions we used a deductive approach where previous studies within the area was carefully looked through and the most important factors for intentions to purchase and usability in other studies were used to see how they were related to the intentions to purchase and which factors that were more important than others. A quantitative approach was applied and a survey was constructed to send out to people in the ages 16-34.The results were unsatisfying in terms of correlations with the intentions to purchase, however indica-tion of importance in the categories “Ease of use”, “Trustworthiness and convenience” and “Presenta-tion of supply” were derived from the analysis.

A very distinguished point of online marketing is that it can collect data about the consumers* shopping processes rather than the shopping results only. That is, it cannot only collect order data but also the browsing and shopping cart data. So far, the browsing records have been used to analyze the Web server traffic. However, regarding the analysis of shopping cart data, it has not been found in any marketing research yet. The purpose of this study is trying to verify the value of shopping cart data by examining whether it can improve the performance of the marketing communication decisions. According to Source-Message-Media-Receiver (SMMR) communication model, there are three important Web marketing communication decisions. These decisions are who are the target customers, what message should be communicated, and how to communicate. For each above marketing communication decision, in order to check whether the data from shopping cart can improve its performance, this research proposed an algorithm that integrates the shopping cart data into each decision process. Three hypotheses have been proposed in terms of the value of each new proposed algorithm. Three experiments have been implemented to test these hypotheses. The results reveal that the proposed algorithms can improve the performance of the marketing communications decisions. However, it is only a starting point to integrate the shopping cart data into the marketing research. As the online shopping becomes more popular, it is worthwhile to put more efforts to understand the details about the value of the online shopping cart data.

Clothing purchases represent the largest selling category on the internet at $13.6 billion (US Census, 2008), however return rates are extremely high at 14-50%, almost twice as high as return rates for most other categories (Barbaro, 2007). This has negative implications for consumers and retailers as the cost of returns and lost consumers is extremely high. High return rates force retailers to take on the cost of restocking and reselling merchandise, with an estimated $100 billion lost annually (Blanchard 2005). This research focuses on online product representation with the goal of identifying the method of product representation that most effectively improves a consumers' ability to make accurate size decisions without negatively impacting brand and product quality perceptions. This research uses interviews to assess retailer beliefs about how best to deploy online clothing visualizations. Next an experiment was conducted to compare alternative clothing model visualizations to assess effects on fit satisfaction, return likelihood, brand and quality perceptions. Finally, to understand current use of visualizations by clothing retailers and their effects on consumer satisfaction and sales, a content analysis was conducted. This study can provide a solution that can improve consumers' abilities to make accurate fit decisions, thus reducing return rates and improving consumer satisfaction, at a minimal cost to retailers.

COO is a construct that refers to the country which a consumer associates a certain product or brand as being its source, regardless of where the product is actually produced. Scholars like Magnusson et al. (2011) argue that COO is a salient cue in consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intention. In contrast, Usunier (2006; 2011) and Samiee (2010) criticize the COO effect, by explaining that due to multinational production, integrated worldwide supply chains and global branding there are other cues that have become more salient in consumers’ decision- making process. The purpose of this thesis is to extend the understanding about the relationship of COO in consumers buying process. The research questions followed: To what extent does country of origin influence consumers’ product evaluations and purchase intention? To what extent does the level of involvement affect the relationship between country of origin and consumers’ product evaluation? To what extent does the level of involvement affect the relationship between country of origin and consumers’ purchase intentions. Applying a deductive approach, a quantitative research has been chosen for this thesis involving survey as the source for data collection in order to test this research four main concepts: COO, product evaluation, purchase intention and product involvement. The findings indicated that COO has a significant direct effect in consumers’ product evaluations and purchase intention. The results also indicated on that when consumers’ perceive products to be low involvement, the COO effect is greater in consumers’ decision-making process.

E-commerce distribution channel experiences a dramatic development nowadays. France witnessed a rapid growth rate of online sales in recent years and now ranks as the second largest market in Europe in terms of turnover. On E-commerce websites, customer review system is considered as an efficient tool of E-Word of Mouth, enabling users to write recommendations which will influence potential purchasers. This paper discusses the crucial factors of customer review system. Also, a tool to evaluate review system is elaborated with five criteria such as accessibility, quality, design, interaction and control. Ten case studies of French E-commerce firms are presented according to those criteria in qualitative study. Opinions from French customers are collected through online questionnaires in quantitative study. Researches made from supply (firms) and demand (customers) sides show that accessibility and quality are the main concerns for users and often weaknesses in current review systems. Also, the credibility of reviews is questioned by customers. Focusing on these aspects, the paper aims to give suggestions for designing an ideal customer review system to firms in French e-commerce industry.

The following have been rectified in response to previous evaluation by examiner Olof Bruninge. -We have solely chosen qualitative methods in data collection and analysis by making use of data gathered from focus group workshop. The findings have been coded and analysed descriptively. -We have reformulated research questions and replaced the hypothesis with open questions. Allowing us to explore the participants’ behaviour rather than testing hypothesis. -All quantitative measures have been replaced with qualitative analysis and descriptions. -We have provided tables with results from focus group findings to increase transparency in our data

Fast fashion retailers have faced a difficulty in translating in-store experiences to online experiences. Although online shopping is increasing, the in-store shopping is still very important for a superior shopping experience. Technology has had a major impact in making multichanneling retail more consistent, although there are gaps that technology can not fill. This study attempted to measure how consistent the customer experiences were online and in-store. Shopping experiences were measured with different concepts such as: flow, usability, interactivity, atmospherics and tactility. These concepts were measured separately in-store and online, in order to be compared. The purpose was to find out which concept is inconsistent so the authors could make recommendations for improvement to fast fashion retailers. The research approach was a mixed method approach and the chosen research design was cross sectional, using quantitative research to corroborate qualitative research findings. The results from a quantitative questionnaire of 263 experienced fast fashion consumers in Sweden show that the consistency varies between the concepts. The qualitative study was done at two occasions on a sample of six interviewees in each focus group, and gave a deeper understanding for why the shopping experience was or wasn't consistent. The qualitative results varied amongst the individuals and show that reasons for being inconsistent are intrusive salesmen, insufficient size measuring tools, long queues, lack of tactility and the most interesting of all: making better return and ordering policies. The future lies in making it easier to order online, in order for the consumer to be able to experience the product in real life, through staff-free fitting rooms and showrooms and such, rather than making the experience better online. The future seems to lie in solving the reverse of the start point of this study, namely translating online to in-store experiences.