The emergence of ‘new luxury’ available at affordable prices has resulted in abundance of counterfeit products in the markets. As the extent of counterfeiting is increasing in almost every industry, it becomes critical to develop measures that can help to prevent buying and selling of counterfeit products. In exploring consumers’ buying behavior of counterfeit products, this study was designed to examine the influence of individuals’ characteristics or consumer orientations, both social and personal, on that generate the demand for counterfeit brands. This study employed four theoretical frameworks: (a) the Theory of Planned behavior, (b) Value-Attitude-Behavioral intention system, (c) Bandwagon effect in the theory of consumer demand, and (d) Aberrant consumer behavior. Specifically, this study investigates consumers’ intention to purchase counterfeit brands based on their social consumer orientation (social conformity, status seeking, fashion consciousness, and price-quality schema) and personal consumer orientation (ethical value, social responsibility, and integrity), attitudes toward the purchase of counterfeit brands, subjective norm, and perceived control over the purchase of counterfeit brands. Further, this study aims to explore the role of price sensitivity as a moderator in understanding the relationship between attitudes and intentions to purchase counterfeit and original luxury brands. This study was conducted in the context of fashion luxury brands that sell handbags and wallets. An online self-administered survey methodology was employed to collect the data from 500 subjects. The data were analyzed by maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) procedure using structural equation modeling (SEM). Out of total 14 proposed hypotheses, 10 were significant, as expected. However, the rest 4 were not found to be significant. Status seeking was found to have an insignificant relationship with subjective norm to purchase a counterfeit brand. Fashion consciousness was found to have a negative influence on attitude while the relationship of price-quality schema with attitude was not found to be significant. Also, integrity was not found to significantly influence subjective norm. Price sensitivity did not act as a moderator due to non significant relationships between attitude and intensions to purchase counterfeit and original brands. Research and managerial implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research were drawn based on the results.

Abstract Date: 2020/06/09 Level: Master Thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits. Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University. Authors: Yi Wei (85/01/01) & Jiaying Zhu (95/10/27)  Title: Factors Affecting Consumers’ Purchase Intention towards The Smartphone of The Chinese Brands  Tutor: Professor Ulf R Andersson Keywords: Country-of-Origin, Perceived Brand Quality, Chinese Brands, Subjective Knowledge, Price Sensitivity Research Question: How do the factors of perceived brand quality on COO cues, price sensitivity, and subjective knowledge of product influence consumers’ purchase intention towards the smartphones of the Chinese brands?  Purpose: This study aims to investigate factors related to the purchase intention towards smartphone of the Chinese brands in the developed market and provide managerial suggestions for Chinese smartphone firms. Method: This empirical study is conducted by the quantitative research method with an online survey for data gathering. Conclusion: It concludes that the purchase intention of western consumers towards Chinese smartphones is positively influenced by two factors: perceived brand quality on COO cues and subjective knowledge of product. The price sensitivity has no impact on purchase intention. Therefore, the lower price strategy of smartphone should not be adopted by Chinese firms. The Focus should be on brand management to convey the superior quality performance of smartphone of Chinese brands.

Content of this master´s thesis is to develop a business activities in Centrum dopravního výzkumu v.v.i.. The work is divided into 4 parts. The first part deals with the definition of the problem and main and side target. The second part shows theory under which it is based on the practical part. The third chapter focuses on the introduction a company and analysis of the problem and the performance of the company and its current situation. And the last chapter is based on the introduction own proposals to develop a business activities in CDV v.v.i..

Reserach question: To what extent has consumer behaviour been influenced by supermarkets’ CSR responses to the COVID-19 pandemic? Purpose: To what extent the perceived importance of CSR responses by supermarkets to the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced consumer behaviour and what implications this have for the business-consumer relationship. Method: Quantitative study by collecting 137 responses from Swedish consumers. A deductive approach to theory development alongside a positivist and partially interpretivist philosophical position is utilized to explain the extent of change in consumer behaviour. Conclusions: The results of the study indicate that the perceived importance of CSR responses to the COVID-19 pandemic of supermarkets has influenced consumer behaviour which has implications for the business-consumer relationship. The authors also discovered that the effect of cause-fit CSR activities is particularly strong in the Swedish empirical context.

There has been significant research done on the impact of branding on consumer buying behaviour over the years, however, consumers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) have been ignored and very little research has been done in the South African market. This study examines the impact of brand equity on purchase intention of Parmalat yoghurt in the South African BoP market using socio-economic status, price sensitivity and sales promotion as mediating variables. Data was collected from 289 South African BoP consumers residing in Soweto. The study tested six hypotheses using PLS- SEM. Data was analysed using SmartPLS software. The results show that of the six hypotheses tested, only three are supported, namely, the relationship between brand equity and socio-economic status, socio-economic status and purchase intention and price sensitivity and purchase intention. Socio-economic status as a mediator has the most significant impact on the relationship between brand equity and purchase intention. The findings of this study give some implications for managers and marketers of yoghurt brands. Brand equity influences on purchase intention of yoghurt products and socio-economic status has the strongest mediating influence suggesting that companies must build and maintain strong brand equity in order to create a positive influence on purchase intention for their brands. Managers need to understand the underlying reasons as to why consumers would choose a competitor’s brand. Based on this study, socio-economic status and price sensitivity are the two most influencing mediators in the purchase intention of yoghurt, thus it is imperative for managers to take this into consideration when devising and implementing branding strategies.

An A/B test is implemented on a SaaS rm's product page to examine the di erence in conversion rates from website visitors who are randomly assigned to two di erent product-landing pages that show di erent prices. To count as a successful conversion the visitors that view a product-landing page have to click on a \Free Trial" button. Half of the group will be assigned the treatment page, which will state higher prices and the other half will be assigned the controlled page, which will state today's current price. The only variant that will di er from the two pages will be the stated price of the product and all other factors will be kept constant. The controlled experiment is executed to get a sense of customers' price sensitivity, hence this thesis contributes to microeconomic research of the private sector, more specically to the ICT industry by using a novel approach with the help of A/B testing on prices. The results showed no statistical signicance difference between the two variations, which can be translated to accepting the null hypothesis; the demand for a particular Software-As-A-Service product will hold unchanged after the proposed price increase. At rst, this could be a surprising result but when looking into the industry, which the rm participates in and their early mover advantages this result could have been assumed.

消費者價格彈性與通路價格策略 - 以洋芋片為例 / With modest increase of wage level and increasing inflation of raw material prices in Taiwan, manufacturers face pressure in maximizing profit with limited pricing power. Price and pack size management become keys for revenue maximization. The idea of this research originates from the observations from a price increase project of a key salty snack manufacturer in Taiwan. In the project, the manufacturer increased both pack size and price per gram of chip, aiming to sell bigger pack sizes in PX Mart, where shoppers are mainly housewives who buy for households. The price increase led to different outcomes in different channels due to shoppers’ different sensitivity. As a result, a choice-based conjoint (CBC) analysis was conducted to find out if shoppers in Convenient Store (CVS) and PX Mart have different sensitivities for potato chips. Also, pack sizes and different promotions are combined to test if deeper promotion depth can offset the negative impact from price increases. From the effect of different combinations, we offer recommendations on the optimal pack size and pricing strategy for the salty snack category in CVS and PX Mart, respectively.

Online group-buying is one of popular and innovative business models in the Internet age. Its essence is that the price will go down as the accumulated orders are increasing. A challenge is how to design the price curve, i.e., the relation between price and volume. Researchers have observed the consumer behavior phenomena of demand externalities, price-drop effect, and cycle ending effect in online group-buying transactions. All are related to the design of price curve. Therefore, if the price curve design can attract consumers and make profit as well, it will make the group-buying more successful. Based on above background, the purpose of this study is to explore the impact of price reduction frequency on consumers¡¦ perceived value and perceived transaction utility and then in turn on consumers¡¦ intention. In addition, this study also explores how the consumers¡¦ price sensitivity mediate the impact of price reduction frequency on consumers¡¦ perceived value and perceived transaction utility. A field experiment was done first. Then, an online experiment was designed and implemented based on the observation of the field experiment. The research result indicates that price reduction frequency will positively affect the consumers¡¦ perceived value and perceived transaction utility. Further, both consumers¡¦ perceived value and perceived transaction utility will affect the consumers¡¦ intention. In addition, the consumers¡¦ price sensitivity modulates the impact of price reduction frequency on consumers¡¦ perceived value and perceived transaction utility. Finally, the observations of field experiment and lab experiment demonstrate the phenomena of demand externalities, price-drop effect, and cycle ending effect proposed by previous researches.

Malgré de nombreuses recherches portant sur l’innovativité interculturelle du consommateur, l’impact de la culture sur la valeur perçue d’un attribut innovant ne fait pas l’objet de publication. Cette thèse cherche à répondre à ce besoin en étudiant l’impact de la culture nationale sur la valeur perçue de l’attribut innovant des produits technologiques dans deux pays européens majeurs (France et Allemagne), membres de la zone euro. Cette thèse s’appuie sur le modèle interculturel GLOBE pour étudier les différences culturelles entre ces deux pays. Les résultats sont fondés sur une étude de consommateurs quantitative (N=793) utilisant la méthode de l’analyse conjointe basée sur le choix et l’échelle d’attitude « sensibilité au prix ». Les résultats confirment l’impact de la culture nationale sur trois concepts liés à l’attitude du consommateur face au prix de lancement d’une innovation technologique : la valeur perçue par un consommateur de l’attribut innovant d’un produit, l’importance qu’un consommateur accorde à la présence d’un attribut innovant lors du choix d’un produit et la sensibilité du consommateur au prix d’une innovation. Le rôle modérateur du revenu sur ces relations constitue également un résultat majeur. / Despite extensive research on intercultural consumer innovativeness, existing literature does not cover the topic of impacts of national culture on the perceived value of innovative product attributes. This study attempts to fill this gap, by studying the perceived value of innovative attributes, with regards to high-tech products across two major European countries (Euro zone members: France and Germany) using the GLOBE intercultural model as a framework. The results are based on quantitative consumer research (N=793) using Choice Based Conjoint Analysis and the Price Sensitivity Scale.The author’s findings highlight that national culture significantly impacts three aspects of consumer attitude with regards to the launching price of high tech innovations. These three variables are: the perceived value of innovative product attributes, the importance of innovative product attributes for consumers and the price sensitivity towards innovative products. In addition, the research identifies the moderator effects of consumer income on these relations.

I Inledningen och problemdiskussionen förklaras bakgrunden till uppsatsen, som är att försöka finna om servicelandskap påverkar studenters konsumentbeteende. Branschen som valdes att undersöka var den svenska mobil abonnemangsbranschen, branschen valdes eftersom den har tillsynes två olika positioneringsstrategier. Ena positioneringsstrategin försöker uppnå högre servicekvalité, främst igenom servicelandskap i form av butiker, dock med ett högre pris. Andra positioneringsstrategin består av att erbjuda ett lägre pris, men har dock inget existerande servicelandskap, utan all kommunikation förutom marknadsföring sker via internet eller telefon. Inriktningen på uppsatsen sågs som intressant eftersom det inte hittades tidigare forskning som försökt finna samband om servicelandskapets påverkan på konsumentsegmentet studenter. Syftet med uppsatsen är att finna om servicelandskapet inom mobilabonnemangsbranschen har en betydande roll i studenters konsumentbeteende. För att finna slutsatser kring konsumentbeteende behövdes en generalisering av studenters värdeuppfattning definieras, eftersom värdeuppfattningen ses som det avgörande vid val av tjänst. För att kunna få svar på studenters värdeuppfattning skapades två frågeställningar, (1) Ger servicelandskap ökat upplevd servicekvalité för studenter inom mobilabonnemangsbranschen? (2) Är abonnemangbranschen en priskänslig marknad för studenter? Frågeställningarna handlar om de två underliggande faktorerna till upplevt värde, dessa är upplevd kvalité och upplevt pris som konsumenten använder sig av för att skapa en värdeuppfattning. I teorikapitlet skapades den teoretiska referensramen. Första delen i teoretiska referensramen ger fördjupning om begreppen serviceupplevelser och servicelandskap där båda begreppen anses vara starkt sammankopplade. Andra delen fördjupar sig i konsumentbeteende och studenters konsumentbeteende. I metoden preciserades hur undersökningarna gick tillväga för att besvara frågeställningarna. Undersökningarna var kvantitativt inspirerade som respondenterna svarade på igenom webbaserade enkäter. I resultatkapitlet visas resultaten ifrån frågorna som ställdes i undersökningarna. I analysen klargjordes och diskuterades resultaten från undersökningarna. Där det framkom att det inte var möjligt att enkelt skapa en generalisering, på grund av varje respondents individualitet. I slutsatsen redogjordes uppsatsens viktigaste konklusioner. Vilket är att även om det finns tydliga indikationer på att studenters konsumentbeteende påverkas av servicelandskap, går det inte att fastställa ett svar på syftet, eftersom respondenternas individualitet gör att en generalisering av hela konsumentsegmentet studenter utifrån resultaten från undersökningarna inte är tillräckligt tillförlitliga. / In the introduction and problem discussion the thesis background was explained, which was, try to discover if servicescape influence students’ consumer behaviour. The line of business that were chosen was the Swedish cellphone subscription business, the specific line of business was chosen because it seemingly had two different positioning strategies. One strategy that tries to achieve higher service quality, mainly through servicescape in the shape of physical stores, though with a higher price. The other strategy focuses on lower prices, though without any existing servicescape, all communication expect marketing happens through the internet or phone. The orientation of the thesis seemed interesting because no earlier research was found that have tried to find connections between servicescapes influence and the consumer segment students. The purpose of the thesis was to find if the servicescape in cellphone subscription businesses have a significant role in students´ consumer behaviour. To find conclusions about their consumer behaviour, a generalization of students’ value perception was needed, because the value perception is considered crucial in the consumers’ choice of service. To be able to get answers regarding students’ value perception two questions were formulated. (1) Do servicescape give students increased perceived service quality in the cellphone subscription business? (2) Is the cellphone subscription business a price sensitive market for students? The questions are about the two underlying factors to perceived value, these are perceived quality and perceived price that the consumers use to create their value perception In the theory chapter, the theoretical framework was created. First part of the theoretical framework immerses in the concepts service experience and servicescape, both concepts are seemingly strongly connected to each other. Second part immerses in consumer behaviour and consumer behaviour of students. In the method, the research structure is pinned down and how the surveys achieved results to answer the questions formulations. The research were quantitative inspired studies that the respondents answered through web-based surveys. In the result chapter, the results from the questions of the surveys are revealed. In the analysis, the results from the surveys is disambiguated and discussed. In the analysis, it becomes clear that it´s not possible to easily make a generalization, because each of the respondents’ individuality. In the conclusion, the most important findings of the thesis are presented. Which are, even though there are clear indications that students’ consumer behaviour is affected by the servicescape, it´s still not enough to confirm an answer to the purpose. Because, the respondents’ individuality makes a generalization of the entire consumer segment students not reliable enough.