Background:  Distinguishing from competitors nowadays turns out to be more difficult as mass communication is a topical issue. Not only, but also in the fashion industry, sustainability is an upcoming topic, especially since this industry is deemed to be the second most polluting worldwide and strives for a change in consumerism. Particularly, millennials are perceived to be the generation being most aware of sustainable alternatives and aspire to protect the environment. Green Marketing is applied to thus promote green processes, products and the like to several customer segments.  Purpose:        The purpose of this thesis is to qualitatively explore the impact of green marketing on the purchase behavior of European female millennials in the fashion industry. Method:         The method chosen for this study were online focus groups with female informants from several European countries. Five online focus groups with a total of 31 informants were conducted. The qualitative study is based on an inductive and interpretivist approach. Due to the existence of known models, individual deductive elements were included for data collection. Finally, a theoretical framework was created. Conclusion:        The results show that green marketing is perceived in a diversified way. Positively, green marketing is creating awareness towards considering sustainable fashion and a possible future change in the purchasing behavior. Negatively it is said, that green marketing is often associated with greenwashing and dishonest pursuits of the companies. Due to sustainability becoming more important and popular, green marketing is also related to a trend in marketing to keep up with competitors. However, green marketing in this study was found out to have no significant impact on the purchase behavior. Overall, the impact of green marketing depends strongly on the knowledge level of the informants in this study. It is noteworthy, that informants with basic knowledge are most likely to be influenced by GM

Research Question: To what extent do social media reviews’ effect on the purchase   intention and actual buying behaviour of consumers differ in the beauty industry in a cross-country comparison?     Purpose:   The purpose of this study is to explore to what extent consumers in the beauty industry perceive the importance of social media reviews and if it has direct or indirect effect on either their purchase intentions or buying behaviors or if not on both. The aim is then to contribute to limited research available and to see if this connection differs with the country particularly between Sweden and Sri Lanka.   Methodology:     A descriptive qualitative research strategy was approached conducting semi-structured interviews with a total of fourteen participants both from Sweden and Sri Lanka. Open-ended questions were asked and thematic analysis was used when analyzing the collected primary data.   Conclusion: Respondents from Sweden were more engaged with social media reviews and their purchase decisions were based mostly on social media reviews. Sri Lankan respondents were interested in negative reviews while Swedish respondents were highly affected and motivated by positive reviews. Even if young consumers in Sri Lanka were motivated to purchase beauty products because of social media reviews, almost all of the Sri Lankan respondents’ purchase decisions were highly impacted by family and friends compared to effects of social media reviews.

Background: The expansion of e-commerce and online orders have led to companies creating new marketing strategies, where impulsive purchases are important in order to boost sales. However, this also has negative aspects concerning overconsumption and the environmental impact. Consumers are more likely to have negative post-purchase emotions when making an impulsive purchase, and thus are more prone to return products. This research aims at creating a deeper understanding about consumers’ post-purchase emotions after making an impulsive purchase and how a product return affects the post-purchase emotions.    Problem discussion: Impulsive buying is critical for online stores and retailers are actively trying to increase these purchases for all customers, but at the same time, there is a growing number of product returns. This makes it important for firms to understand how consumers think and react to an impulsive purchase, since this supposedly has an impact on product returns. By providing a deeper understanding regarding the consumer’s post-purchase emotions one can specify such reactions on shoppers and help future marketing activities preventing consumers’ negative emotions in the purpose of increasing organizational profitability and decreasing the environmental impact.    Purpose: The purpose of this research is to build a theory that will provide organizations with knowledge about the chosen segment of Swedish women in the age 18-35 post-purchase emotions after impulsive buying. The findings of this study can contribute with additional insights to previous theoretical knowledge about post-purchase emotions after impulsive shopping.   Method: This qualitative research has been conducted by using 14 semi-structured interviews with the chosen segment of Swedish females in the age 18-35 who had previously shopped impulsively online and returned products. For the data analysis, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was used, providing the research with reflections regarding the perspective of the participants’ experiences of impulsive shopping and their post-purchase emotions.  Results: This research indicates that the participants generally held a negative view of impulsive buying, where they reduced/strengthened their post-purchase emotions through three rationalizations which were named by the authors “Social Proof”, “Use-Principle” and “Limited Funds”. When making a product return, the participants either had strengthened emotions or the negative emotions were turned into positive emotions. This was connected to three themes found by the authors which were called “Income”, “Return Policy”, and “Social and Environment”. The analyzed findings were presented in a developed framework.

Purpose: This study aims to inform readers whether greenwashing in the Chinese electrical appliance market impacts consumers' green purchase intention. Methods: This study uses theory of planned behaviour as the theoretical basis to construct a structural equation model. An online questionnaire survey was conducted on 521 participants. Results: Our analysis shows that greenwashing has indirectly positively correlated with green purchase intention; green attitude and green perceived value play an intermediary role between greenwashing and green purchase intention. Conclusion: This study concluded that in the Chinese electrical appliance market, greenwashing has positively affected green attitudes and green perceived value, then green attitudes and green perceived value positively affected green purchase intention, and green attitudes positively affected green perceived value. Structure: In this study, after the introduction, the model and related proprietary definitions involved in the research are explained, and hypotheses are proposed. Next are the research methods and research results, and then the discussion of the research results. Finally, the possible directions of future research are discussed.

We are currently in the middle of the digital marketing era where technological developments have made it possible for customers and businesses to communicate around the clock. Social media is a tool that makes it possible for companies and brands to create and maintain relationships. To understand social media usage and the motivations behind it, Uses & Gratifications theory is commonly used. Motivations are important when exploring consumer behaviour and understanding the customer journey. A customer journey can be explained as the different touch-points a customer has with a firm during a purchase cycle. Marketing on social media often has different objectives where purchase intention is one important, since it indicates the real value of advertising on social media. Earlier research has not combined these three concepts: motivations to social media usage, the customer journey and purchase intention and this gap got us interested in examining the relationships between these. To do this we developed two research questions: RQ1: Do motivations to use social media affect stages in the customer journey?  RQ2: Do the different stages of the customer journey affect purchase intention?  The purpose of this study is to investigate motivations that lead to social media usage and if these affect the stages in the customer journey, and further how the customer journey affects purchase intention. We also wanted to investigate if usage of social media has changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. To answer our research questions and fulfill the purpose of this study, we conducted a quantitative research targeting students in Sweden.  Based on existing literature regarding social media, motivations, Uses & Gratification theory, the customer journey, customer decision process and purchase intention we created a theoretical framework and a conceptual model whose aim was to explain relationships between motivations to use social media, the stages of the customer journey and purchase intention. We also developed 12 hypotheses that we tested and included in the model. We collected data by using an online questionnaire and then analysed it and ran tests in SPSS. Our results showed that 4 out of 12 hypotheses could be supported: There is a positive relationship between cognitive motivation and the pre-purchase stage of the customer journey; There is a positive relationship between cognitive motivation and the purchase stage of the customer journey; There is a positive relationship between hedonic motivation and the pre-purchase stage and lastly; There is a positive relationship between the pre-purchase stage and purchase intention. The conclusion is that changes in purchase intention mostly rely on the impact of the pre-purchase stage. The pre-purchase stage is in turn affected by cognitive and hedonic motivations to use social media.

Background: As an effect of the growth of Instagram during the past few years, more brands have started to use this platform to communicate with their consumers, and a generation that has been shown to be particularly interesting for fast fashion brands, is Generation Y. During the past few years, a term called body-positivity has increased in popularity among social media platforms like Instagram, which purpose is to encourage exposure to different body types. There are several studies that have highlighted the issues regarding the use of exclusively thin models among fast fashion companies, and that this increase body dissatisfaction among women, especially in the Western culture where the ideal is unrealistically thin. This has resulted in criticism towards marketers which have led to some brands starting to use more larger models in their advertising. However, some brands still use exclusively thin models because they believe that this is what people wants to see. Evidently, there are different opinions regarding the subject. However, what has yet not been studied thoroughly is female consumers attitudes regarding the use of body diversity in advertising on Instagram and how this influence brand attitudes and further, their purchase intentions. Purpose: As the authors of this study found a research gap regarding consumers attitudes within the subject – the purpose of this study will be to explore female Generation Y consumer’s insights regarding body diversity in Instagram advertising, resulting in judgment, feelings, and attitudes towards the advertisement and the brand, and how these attitudes influence purchase intentions. The aim is also to explore to what extent the case companies include body diversity in their Instagram advertising. Method: The research purpose was fulfilled by doing an exploratory study, using an abductive research approach and qualitative method. The authors of this study did a semiotic analysis of the advertising content, and further on collected the empirical data by doing 12 semi-structured interviews. The data was further analyzed by incorporating a thematic analysis. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that Nelly was the only case company including some body diversity in their Instagram advertising. NA-KD and Zalando evoked mostly positive feelings among the participants while Nelly evoked mostly negative ones. Further, the majority of the participants had favorable attitudes and positive purchase intentions towards NA-KD and Zalando. None of the participants had exclusively favorable attitudes towards Nelly’s advertisement, although half of the participants had positive purchase intentions towards the brand. Generally, the majority of all attitudes that were formed towards the case companies were not influenced by the body diversity (or no body diversity) that they were exposed to, but their attitudes were influenced by other things. The results also showed that including body diversity in Instagram advertising is important, for female Generation Y consumers. However, other factors might be more important and furthermore have a greater influence on their purchase intentions, like for example ethnic diversity.

The theme of this research is to establish how South African companies evaluate the benefits of a capital investment, in terms of ERP implementations, to the organisation. The question of whether determinable value can be quantified and the methods used to calculate such value is explored. A search is conducted for critical success factors for successful ERP implementations, key metrics used for monitoring results, and the approach of South African companies to determining benefits. The research is designed to establish what post purchase analyses of completed projects are conducted and what percentage of completed implementations are considered successful in the South African environment, as well as the possible reasons for those successes and failures. The research consists of firstly a qualitative study of the goals of value creation of ERP decisions, which included a couple of interviews with IT and Process Engineering consultants to form a basis of knowledge for why companies implement ERP systems in the first place, followed by a quantitative descriptive study of the implementation success factors and post implementation analysis, by means of a survey of South African companies. The outcome of the research shows that ERP in South Africa has matured to a level where the majority of projects are judged by the key decision makers to be successful, in contrast to expectations created by the literature review performed. It also highlights that, in the capital budgeting decision making processes followed by companies of different sizes, qualitative factors play a slightly bigger role than quantitative factors in the motivation of an ERP implementation. In addition, this research concludes that companies who identify a clear business value goal with the proposed ERP implementation, ensures buy-in from top management, perform proper planning before embarking on the project, as well as follow some kind of rigorous measurement framework, experience higher levels of ERP success than those who do not. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

<p>Consumers are negatively impacted by the increasingly high rate of product returns. In 2020, an estimated $428 billion in merchandise were returned to retailers post-purchase with $25.3 billion being fraudulent returns (NRF.com). Previous research has stated that consumers undergo various negative emotional and cognitive mechanisms when returning and identified reasons as to why consumers return purchases such as product failure, dissatisfaction, and regret (Lee, 2015). Specifically, regret occurs when an individual second-guesses a chosen product due to the realization that the benefits of the unchosen product outweigh the original choice, which elicits uncomfortable feelings (Zeelenberg et al., 1998). However, how does the process of product acquisition and the outcome of the purchasing decision affect post-purchase consumer regret? The purpose of this study is to investigate how the process of expending consumer resources (e.g., time vs. money) to acquire a product and the outcome of inconsistent product attitudes and behaviors (e.g., cognitive dissonance) can affect post-purchase consumer regret (PPCR). In this mixed factorial design, participants viewed scenarios that presented the ‘time’ and ‘money’ spent in acquiring their chosen product and were asked to read a product review that either elicited low or high dissonant feelings. It was hypothesized that consumers would experience greater PPCR when dissonance is high, and the time spent to acquire the product is primed. The interaction effect was not supported; however, an ad hoc analysis revealed that a consumer experienced less PPCR when dissonance is high, and the time spent to acquire the product is highly convenient. The current findings highlight the importance of understanding the process and outcome of purchase on post-purchase evaluations.</p>

This study examines the online atmospheric cues of colour and music and their impact upon feeling and purchase intention of consumers in the online environment. The research design was experimental and used data from a questionnaire. A pilot test of the instrument was conducted. The final questionnaire contained 39 items and a demographic section. A total of 200 questionnaires were collected. Participants were exposed to a specific set of online atmospheric elements. Results indicated a difference in regard to purchase intention when exposed to different colour. Results also found a correlation between feeling and internet purchase intention. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed along with future research suggestions.

Title: Impact of country of origin on consumer purchase intention amongPakistani customers buying fashion clothes onlineLevel: Master Programme in Business Administration (MBA): Business ManagementAuthor: Hafiz Azhar Ahmed KhanSupervisor: Dr. Ehsanul Huda Chowdhury &amp; Dr. Katarina ArbinExaminer: Dr. Daniella FjellströmDate: March 2022Aim: The research study investigates the impact of country of origin on consumerpurchase intention through consumer preference for Pakistani consumers buying fashioncloth online.Method: The study is using a quantitative research method Data has been collectedthrough a questionnaire that 157 respondents answered. Results were analyzed throughSPSS.Results &amp; Conclusions: The results of this study show that country of origin andconsumer purchase intention has a significant relationship with each other, andconsumer preference mediates the relationship between the variables. Furthermore, itdepicts that when consumers take the country of origin positively, their purchaseintention also becomes positive and vice versa. Further, it has also been found thatconsumer preference builds a strong relationship between a country of origin andpurchase intention.Contribution of the thesis: The current idea has contributed to research related to thecountry of origin because there is no specific study in the Pakistani context which hasstudied the impact of country of origin on consumer preference and how preference canmediate the country of origin‘s effect on consumer purchase intention. In both ways,current research has explained how Country of origin is positively changing preferencesof fashion clothes, and mediation of consumer preference is also proven. It extends theliterature on the Country of origin concerning new context and new mediating variables.It makes the findings of the theory of planned behavior more significant for extrinsiciicues. It also guides managers to schedule their ads and marketing strategies to makethem more successful and competitive.Suggestions for future research: Future researchers should take the current research tothe next level and identify more outcomes of country of origin, such as how it can betterbrand equity or Sales volume. Furthermore, comparative studies can be conducted inwhich a developing and developed country can be specified. Responses for bothcountries should be obtained separately, and then differences can be brought to see themultilevel impact of country of origin. Another suggestion for future research is toconduct a comparative study between online and physical shoppers as the currentresearch was limited to online fashion clothes only