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Entertainment Coupons are a popular method of restaurant advertising. These books contain coupons for hundreds of local restaurants and are often sold to consumers as part of a fundraising campaign for a charity. Consumers are likely to use the book in one of two ways: to save money while maintaining their previous frequency of dining out, or to use the savings to increase the number of times that they can dine out with their fixed disposable incomes. Most coupon books are purchased by consumers. Consumers that have purchased a coupon book should be inclined to use coupons from it more frequently than consumers that have received a coupon book for free. Purchased coupon books involve a sunk cost that the consumers may try to recover through the savings the coupons provide. The impact of sunk costs may be reduced for coupon books with charitable ties; however, unless consumers consider the entire purchase price to be a charitable donation, there will still be costs involved in acquiring the coupons. An experiment was designed to test the effects of purchased vs. free coupon books and coupon books with and without charitable ties. Consumers using coupons from the purchased books were more likely to switch restaurants than were consumers that used a coupon from a free coupon book. The experiment showed few other loyalty effects; however this lack of effect may have been caused by the simulated method of implementing loyalty.

LD2668 .T4 1966 S951 / Master of Science

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Rapid transformation in the food retail supply system, accompanied by rational economic efficiency, has marginalized the role that traditional markets play in the UK food distribution system. Yet these markets survive, some even thrive, implying that traditional food markets cannot be defined simply in terms of their distribution function. Traditional food markets are part of the surrounding food retail environment and whether they survive or thrive is dependent on wider economic and societal dynamics and change. This thesis links the micro-level activities of traditional food market exchange with how food systems, power structures and consumption practices interact and transform each other over time and space at the macro-level. The research provides the first detailed assessment of traditional food markets in England and examines their contemporary role in fresh food provisioning. The thesis proposes a cultural economy framework that examines how food retail restructuring and changing patterns of fresh food consumption have affected the internal and external spaces and places that support the everyday economic processes and cultural practices of traditional food market exchange. The research employs a mixed methods approach with three inter-related phases. First, the construction of a database of UK food markets identified 1,124 traditional food markets operating in the UK and the empirical analysis, using geo-coded data and more detailed location quotient (LQ) analysis, mapped the geographies and concentrations of traditional food markets and their links with wholesale markets and farmers' markets. Second, data drawn from an email questionnaire survey with traditional food market managers examined the effects of retail restructuring and changing fresh food shopping habits on these markets. In the third and final phase, detailed analysis from case study research in two contrasting traditional food markets, in the North East and Eastern regions of England, examined how the market as place significantly shapes the distributive processes and practices of buying and selling that transform fresh food into the `market product', and also explored the reciprocal relations between the economic and the cultural and between value(s) and exchange. The research findings provide new insights into the traditional food retail sector. The database and email survey analysis reveal how market geographies have been affected by regulatory, economic and cultural change and demonstrate how market and place are entwined in a relationship that has adapted to retail restructuring and changes in fresh food provisioning. Detailed case study analysis reveals how traditional markets are intimately linked with the regions and cities where they are located and how different geographies, histories and approaches to food and farming have moulded the relationship between market and fresh food over time. Although the overall economic value of fresh food sold on traditional markets is reduced in real terms, its symbolic value as `the market product' is not. Historically and culturally, the traditional market may be considered part of a `traditional' food system that aimed to provide fresh and affordable food to all, but the contemporary market is a different place. The findings reveal a marketplace frequently articulated through parallel fresh food trading and shopping experiences at the supermarket and the farmers' market and informed by practical and local knowledge systems. Knowledge systems help define food-provisioning expertise in the traditional food system and the value put on fresh produce depends on both economic and less tangible factors bound up with cultural and moral understandings. How fresh food is assigned monetary, social and symbolic value by market actors' everyday practices demonstrates a `sliding scale' of moral and monetised values as fresh food takes on cultural form The value(s) assigned to fresh food traded on the market fundamentally shape how it performs in the contemporary context and ultimately determine whether its role in fresh food provisioning declines, survives or thrives.

Preliminary desk researches suggested that strategic planing and management needs empirical evidence to broaden itsapplication to different industries, The purose of the study is to examine the practical framework for the plannng and development of strategy and strategic plans from the current practice of retail operations in Thailand. Theoretical reviews were carred out at early stage of the research on strategic decision making, planning systems, strategy and retailing to build a framework for research objectives and to form research questions. The main objective of the research is, therefore, to examine forms of strategy development process and the influence of marketing concepts to the planning processes of selected organisations. Fieldwork was planned to investigate at several modern retailers in Thailand, where retail competition has been intensive. Five retailers allowed their co-operation, and several methods of data collections, such as different types of interviews, observations and the analysis of achieval record, were employed to generate five case studies. The main conclusion drawn from the study would indicate that the term "strategic planning process", together with budgeting and long-range planning systems, are embedded in yearly periodical planning systems that react to external environment challenges only in the short term. The yearly periodical planing system together with an administrative system forms an on-going planning cycle. The strategic management process, on the other hand, is future-oriented planning process that has a time-span of more than a year. Strategic decisions generated by the strategic management process together with the outcome of other strategic decision-making are the inputs to both components of the on-going planning cycle. Therefore, short-term and long-term strategy development processes are distinct processes that require different approaches. However, the two processes are linked and both should be embedded within the overall strategic development process. The study also suggests that Thai retailers have to strengthen their strategy development process to be able to encourage learning and understanding of key business environments, business concepts and strategies before generating their own "winning formula". The outcome from the thesis is, therefore, a practical framework for the planning and development of strategy and strategic plans from the current practices of retail operations in Thailand that can be applied as a checklist for monitoring and evaluation in large-to-medium sized retailing organisations in similar trading environments.

Ph.D. (Marketing Management) / As more retailers gain access to similar technologies, information and processes, it is becoming increasingly difficult to establish a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace, ensure customer satisfaction and encourage repurchase intention. This is especially true for high fashion retailers, since their higher margin customers have greater expectations to receive value from these high fashion retailers. To succeed in a highly competitive marketplace, high fashion retailers must become adept not just at providing quality products, but also at providing value to their customers. Only those businesses that truly offer the value that customers want and expect, remain competitive in the long term and are able to increase customer satisfaction levels. Higher levels of customer satisfaction leads to improved repurchase intention. It is therefore important for high fashion retailers to ensure that they offer value to their customers. Despite research undertaken in customer value, much debate still exists as to what contributes to customer value and what the relevant customer value dimensions are. Customer value is of managerial interest to high fashion retailers, as these retailers need to identify the dimensions they should focus on to increase the value they are delivering to their customers in order to obtain or retain a sustainable competitive advantage. Customer value leads to customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction in turn is a strong indicator of repurchase intention. This study therefore focuses on uncovering the concept of customer value, with specific emphasis on determining the underlying customer value dimensions from the perspective of the customer shopping at high fashion retail stores. The aim of this study is to propose a multidimensional model of customer value for high fashion retailers, including the interrelationship between customer value, customer satisfaction and repurchase intention.....

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1981. / Bibliography: leaves 62-63. / by Judith Ann Hee. / Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1981.

Thesis. 1975. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / Bibliography: leaves 134-138. / by Robert L. Klimm and James J. Montgomery. / M.S.