A channel rebate is a payment from a manufacturer to a retailer based on retailer sales to end consumers. The widespread use of rebates by manufactures is being met with growing retailer and consumer acceptance. Channel rebates are especially significant in the consumer industries. This kind of sales force compensation method involves the agency relationship between manufactures and retailers. Manufactures often make a specified contract, which rewards retailers when retailing sales exceeds the specified level in a certain period, to minimize the agency cost effectively and align the interests of manufactures and retailers. Since the employ stock option (ESO) transaction involves the exchange of labor inputs for a contingent equity claim on the firm, the economic intuition of ESO and channel rebates is such similar. However, the accounting treatments of channel rebates are often not recorded exactly in the period in which they are incurred. It is important to employ reasonable and correct methods for estimating the value of channel rebates. This article suggests that manufacturers should expense the channel rebates at the grant date. In addition, adjustments for rebate expenses are necessary to recognize the different value of rebates between grant date and statement date. This article estimates channel rebates using the options model, which is a more flexible and useful method to value intangible assets, to make it possible to report on the balance sheet the appropriate assets, liabilities, and stockholders¡¦ equity at the statement date and to report on the income statement the proper net income for the period. Because the analytical solution of our model is unknown, the numerical solution can be obtained by Monte Carlo simulation to determine the value of channel rebates reasonably and correctly. Thus, the financial statements of both manufactures and retailers will provide the most useful information to various user groups.

Advertising, brand penetration and retailer service have been playing important roles in marketing for a long time. There are many studies which discuss about the effects of advertising on brand penetration, the effects of advertising on perceived quality, and the effects of brand penetration on perceived quality. However, the relationship among the advertising, brand penetration and perceived quality has rarely been studied. Furthermore, the studies about the effects of retailer service on perceived quality are much fewer. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of brand penetration and retailer service on perceived quality. The experiment with 2¡Ñ2¡Ñ2 factorial design is conducted to collect the empirical data. In the factorial design, we have 217 respondents in the 8 cells. The experiment variables have the effects of advertising, brand penetration and retailer service on perceived quality. The respondents are the more than the junior students of Sun Yat-sen University and National Taiwan University, and the product of this study is ¡§Notebook¡¨. This study applied structural equation model (SEM) to verify. The main results of this study are as follow: (1) Advertising positively influences perceived quality and that brand penetration partially mediates this influence. (2) Advertising positively influences perceived quality and that retailer service partially mediates this influence. The findings of this study can help the chief marketing officer to make strategic decision to increase the effect of advertising on perceived quality effectively.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether club card loyalty have an impact on customers store loyalty. A secondary purpose is to distinguish which attributes of a loyalty card that ICA’s customers prefer, with the focus on the variables; direct- versus indirect rewards, monetary- versus nonmonetary rewards, necessary- versus luxury rewards and immediate- versus delayed rewards.

During the past two decades something fundamental has happened to the relationship between manufacturers and distributor organisations in many European countries. Within a number of product markets, distributors have launched their own products, forcing manufacturing companies to compete with shelf space owners in addition to the "traditional" competition with other manufacturers. Theoretical and empirical findings regarding Distributor Own Brands (DOB’S) offer us a number of explanations of the differences between national markets and product categories in terms of DOB penetration. However, much of this literature is deterministic in its approach: DOB penetration is often seen as a direct consequence of different market conditions, rather than as the result of strategy processes involving a number of decision-makers and their perceptions of market-related and organisational factors.This study investigates how an array of organisational and market related factors are perceived by distributor organisations, and how this is expressed in the organisations’ own brand strategies. To investigate this research problem, a theoretical framework that explicitly takes distributor own brand strategy into consideration when examining proposed determinants of DOB penetration is presented. The empirical study is mainly based on interviews with decision-makers within the central organisations of the two largest distributors within Swedish fmcg distribution: the ICA federation and the consumer co-operation KF. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

In the literature on product branding, significant attention has been paid to brand equity in the consumer context, but relatively little attention has been paid to the application of the concept of brand equity to the business-to-business context. Even less research has been conducted on the role of brand equity in the retailing context. Retailers are assumed to be irrelevant to the source of brand value for manufacturers, with the result that manufacturers do not target retailers to help them build strong brands. Therefore, there is potential for some channel conflict to occur between manufacturers and retailers. On the one hand, retailers may tend to focus on building their own, private brands to differentiate themselves from other retail competitors and to increase their power in relation to manufacturer brands. On the other hand, retailers also need to create a good image in the consumer marketplace by selling famous, manufacturer-branded products. In other words, retailers often have to sell famous brands even if they would prefer to sell other brands, or their own. Manufacturers therefore tend to focus on building strong brand associations in consumers’ minds, in order to control retailers’ power.There is an argument that traditional ways of thinking about brands, i.e. only from the consumer perspective, has produced ‘both an incomplete analysis of branding from an academic perspective and incomplete management of the brand from a company perspective’ (Webster 2000). The relationship between manufacturers and retailers should be viewed as a partnership instead of competition for consumer loyalty (Narus & Anderson 1986). Powerful consumer brands not only provide value to manufacturers and consumers, but they also offer many obvious benefits to retailers. These benefits include an established consumer demand; favourable consumer attitudes towards the branded product found in their store; a commitment from manufacturers to promote their products; and the credibility and image of the brand itself as an enhancement of the retailer’s own credibility and image(Webster 2000). Brand equity, therefore, needs to be investigated from the retailers’ perspective, in order to provide a more complete understanding of the role of branding in marketing strategies. This research attempts to bridge this gap by exploring the customer-based brand equity concept from the retailers’ perspective. It aims to explore how consumer-based brand equity theory translates to the retailer context, incorporating the key constructs of brand association, brand trust, brand loyalty, manufacturer support and the performance of the brand.The study was conducted in the context of the Vietnamese independent retail grocery sector. This context was chosen on the basis that there has been limited research conducted on branding in the Vietnamese context and due to the prominence of the independent grocery sector in the retail industry of Viet Nam. A survey questionnaire was developed based on the review of the relevant branding and retail literature and was administered to a sample of 400 independent grocery retailers in Ho Chi Minh City. This sample was drawn from a commercial mailing list of independent retailers. Selected retailers were contacted by phone and invited to participate in the research by completing the questionnaire during a face-to-face interview at their premises. They were asked to respond to the survey in relation to a major brand of soft drink sold within their product range. The soft drink product category was selected for this study due to it being one of the most common types of products sold by the independent retail sector in Viet Nam, which would ensure that all participants could easily share their opinions of the value of brands.Following a pilot study testing the survey instrument, the main data collection phase resulted in 355 completed and useable surveys being available for analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to explore the relationships between the branding constructs of interest. The findings show that the theoretical model has fit with the data. Nine out of twelve hypotheses are supported to answers four research question.The finding indicates that brand equity plays an important role in the retailing context, and it is comprised of three dimensions - brand association, brand trust and brand loyalty. Brand association is reflected in the positive image of a brand in the retailer’s perception, related to their needs and wants. This leads to a positive feeling towards that brand, which is the trust a retailer holds in a manufacturer’s brand. As the result of a strong brand, retailers commit to a long-term business relationship with the brand’s manufacturer. Two of these three dimensions of retailer-based brand equity, (brand association and brand loyalty) are positively and significantly related to the brand’s performance at the retail outlet. Manufacturer support, including advertising, sales promotion and trade promotions has been confirmed by this study to be an antecedent of retailer-based brand equity. Moreover, this study indicated that there is a difference between the retailer-based brand equity model for local brands compared to international brands, in that brand association is the most important factor in retailer-based brand equity in the international brands model while brand loyalty is the most important factor in the local brands model.

In the literature on product branding, significant attention has been paid to brand equity in the consumer context, but relatively little attention has been paid to the application of the concept of brand equity to the business-to-business context. Even less research has been conducted on the role of brand equity in the retailing context. Retailers are assumed to be irrelevant to the source of brand value for manufacturers, with the result that manufacturers do not target retailers to help them build strong brands. Therefore, there is potential for some channel conflict to occur between manufacturers and retailers. On the one hand, retailers may tend to focus on building their own, private brands to differentiate themselves from other retail competitors and to increase their power in relation to manufacturer brands. On the other hand, retailers also need to create a good image in the consumer marketplace by selling famous, manufacturer-branded products. In other words, retailers often have to sell famous brands even if they would prefer to sell other brands, or their own. Manufacturers therefore tend to focus on building strong brand associations in consumers’ minds, in order to control retailers’ power.There is an argument that traditional ways of thinking about brands, i.e. only from the consumer perspective, has produced ‘both an incomplete analysis of branding from an academic perspective and incomplete management of the brand from a company perspective’ (Webster 2000). The relationship between manufacturers and retailers should be viewed as a partnership instead of competition for consumer loyalty (Narus & Anderson 1986). Powerful consumer brands not only provide value to manufacturers and consumers, but they also offer many obvious benefits to retailers. These benefits include an established consumer demand; favourable consumer attitudes towards the branded product found in their store; a commitment from manufacturers to promote their products; and the credibility and image of the brand itself as an enhancement of the retailer’s own credibility and image(Webster 2000). Brand equity, therefore, needs to be investigated from the retailers’ perspective, in order to provide a more complete understanding of the role of branding in marketing strategies. This research attempts to bridge this gap by exploring the customer-based brand equity concept from the retailers’ perspective. It aims to explore how consumer-based brand equity theory translates to the retailer context, incorporating the key constructs of brand association, brand trust, brand loyalty, manufacturer support and the performance of the brand.The study was conducted in the context of the Vietnamese independent retail grocery sector. This context was chosen on the basis that there has been limited research conducted on branding in the Vietnamese context and due to the prominence of the independent grocery sector in the retail industry of Viet Nam. A survey questionnaire was developed based on the review of the relevant branding and retail literature and was administered to a sample of 400 independent grocery retailers in Ho Chi Minh City. This sample was drawn from a commercial mailing list of independent retailers. Selected retailers were contacted by phone and invited to participate in the research by completing the questionnaire during a face-to-face interview at their premises. They were asked to respond to the survey in relation to a major brand of soft drink sold within their product range. The soft drink product category was selected for this study due to it being one of the most common types of products sold by the independent retail sector in Viet Nam, which would ensure that all participants could easily share their opinions of the value of brands.Following a pilot study testing the survey instrument, the main data collection phase resulted in 355 completed and useable surveys being available for analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to explore the relationships between the branding constructs of interest. The findings show that the theoretical model has fit with the data. Nine out of twelve hypotheses are supported to answers four research question.The finding indicates that brand equity plays an important role in the retailing context, and it is comprised of three dimensions - brand association, brand trust and brand loyalty. Brand association is reflected in the positive image of a brand in the retailer’s perception, related to their needs and wants. This leads to a positive feeling towards that brand, which is the trust a retailer holds in a manufacturer’s brand. As the result of a strong brand, retailers commit to a long-term business relationship with the brand’s manufacturer. Two of these three dimensions of retailer-based brand equity, (brand association and brand loyalty) are positively and significantly related to the brand’s performance at the retail outlet. Manufacturer support, including advertising, sales promotion and trade promotions has been confirmed by this study to be an antecedent of retailer-based brand equity. Moreover, this study indicated that there is a difference between the retailer-based brand equity model for local brands compared to international brands, in that brand association is the most important factor in retailer-based brand equity in the international brands model while brand loyalty is the most important factor in the local brands model.

With the rise of e-commerce, more and more retailers switch the focus to online environment. In order to gain customers’ e-loyalty, e-retailers have to pay more attention to e-loyalty itself and its antecedents. To help practitioners and academicians better understand e-loyalty, theory of e-satisfaction, e-trust and perceived value were introduced in this thesis. A conceptual model was structured to further explain the relationships towards e-loyalty. The purpose of this thesis is to explain the relationship of e-loyalty and its antecedents (e-satisfaction, e-trust and perceived value) and identify the strongest antecedent leading to e-loyalty.

Historians have long viewed American department stores as barometers of social change, anchors of modern urban life, and purveyors of a new kind of consumer capitalist culture. In its heyday, from the late nineteenth century to the middle twentieth century, the department store was all of these things, but it was also much more. This dissertation draws on business, government, and family papers to reveal how a new kind of businessman, the department store retailer, pioneered powerful political and trade networks that were deeply embedded in Washington and stretched across the Atlantic into the increasingly volatile capitals of Europe. As campaign contributors, trade policy advisors, and political appointees, retailers like John Wanamaker, Isidor Straus, Louis Kirstein, and Ira Hirschmann regularly moved through the inner circles of the national government. They could just as easily be found on Capitol Hill, or at trade offices located in London or Paris, as behind their own desks in the upper floors of Wanamaker’s or Filene’s. Retailers’ command of vast transatlantic trade networks, now largely forgotten, made them key participants in pressing debates about everything from tariff reform and economic recovery to wartime mobilization and the plight of refugees. Yet retailers approached politics and commerce with profoundly different sensibilities than executives at other major American corporations, such as Ford, United Fruit, or Coca Cola. In the retail industry, commercial expansion depended not on the domination of foreign markets and foreign workers, but rather on transnational cooperation and the development of policies and business methods that upheld both the sovereignty and distinctiveness of other nations—and their goods. In this complex era, as the imperatives of trade routinely collided with politics and other large forces, from devastating world wars and widespread depression to the rise of new radical ideologies, retailers did much more than market desire. They brokered vital connections between Americans, Washington, and the world.

In today’s retail landscape, the goal of retaining loyal customers is a pivotal part of success. Multichannel retailers offer an extended service package which increases the chances of totally satisfied customers, a requirement for loyalty. In 2017, 20-30 percent of all purchased e-commerce goods were returned. This aroused an interest in how consumer behaviour is influenced by a multichannel retailers’ delivery- and return policies, and so the purpose of this study was defined. The nature of the purpose directed the study to a quantitative form, where primary data was collected by conducting a survey on Lulea University of Technology (LTU) students. A requirement for the participants was to have experience in online purchasing from a multichannel retailer, such as Zara. A theoretical framework consisting of hypotheses and the main theories of the study were formed to conceptualise the potential relations. This framework was then used as a basis throughout the data analysis that made use of established measures, which were performed by means of multiple regressions and correlations on the data. The analysis revealed mixed results, some rejecting the null hypotheses and some confirming it. In other words, there exists a relation and direct link between delivery- and return policies towards brand image. This study could not prove a direct connection between delivery- and return policies towards brand loyalty, potentially due to a small sample size. A false negative also deemed the final connection between brand image and brand loyalty as inconclusive, however a larger survey sample would probably have resulted in a proven relation. This study has begun filling the gap between how delivery- and return policies influence multichannel retailers brand image and brand loyalty, an area with scarce information. The research team recommends future studies to conduct qualitative approaches to gain deeper insight into the mind of the consumer and their thoughts regarding the discussed policies. In addition, future research could view it from a company perspective to create a circumferential information stream. Most importantly, a large sample should be obtained to make sure that the relations expected to exist, can be proven.

The problem of this investigation was to make an exploratory examination of the distribution practices of apparel manufacturers as perceived by apparel retailers. Specifically, the purposes of this study were to identify those areas of perceived conflict between women's apparel retailers and apparel manufacturers from the viewpoint of the retailer, determine if there was a relationship between select retailer variables and the quality of service that retailers perceived apparel manufacturers were giving, determine whether some merchandise classifications were perceived by retailers to be greater problem areas than other merchandise classifications, to determine factors contributing to the enhancement of perceived conflict within apparel marketing channels, and to suggest remedies that would improve apparel channel relationships. The report concluded with the presentation of an apparel retailer expectation model and suggestions for additional research.