Switching costs are unobserved costs for the consumer when switching between two functionally identical products or services. These costs can take both monetary and non- monetary values, which makes them hard to estimate. The purpose of this study is to empirically estimate switching costs on the Swedish market for electricity for private consumers, and also review two methods to identify which one more suitable for the purpose. Shy’s (2002) method uses prices and market shares to estimate the costs, and Salies’ (2012) method is an extension of Shy’s method, that lifts two major limitations. Electricity providers with over 1 percent market share have been included. For each provider, prices for the three most used contract types have been gathered and used in the estimation. Prices have been limited to households with energy usage of 2 000 kWh per year. Switching costs have been estimated to between 50 – 95 percent of the yearly costs for electricity. The switching costs are higher when switching from a big firm to a smaller, than the other way around. This could indicate that customers become involuntarily locked-in to bigger firms because of the switching costs, giving bigger firms stronger market positions.

The paper provides a model that assesses the set of complementary components of varying compatibility and its effect towards consumer adoption decisions. The smartphone market is a system good which utilizes the device and a set of compatible applications (apps). The amount of switching costs may vary depending upon the consumer’s decision to switch devices or across platforms. Analyzing the Android ecosystem, the process of custom ROMs (and rooting) and the large set of games, news, etc. apps justify the existence of device-specific and platform-specific apps. The model reinforces the findings of a survey conducted by UBS suggesting the retention rate (i.e. level of switch costs) of Apple users is higher than Android users. The retention among Android devices is much lower in comparison as well. The model observes that the product fragmentation and the interdependence of apps lead to the noticeably lower retention rates across Android devices and platforms.

The paper provides a model that assesses the set of complementary components of varying compatibility and its effect towards consumer adoption decisions. The smartphone market is a system good which utilizes the device and a set of compatible applications (apps). The amount of switching costs may vary depending upon the consumer’s decision to switch devices or across platforms. Analyzing the Android ecosystem, the process of custom ROMs (and rooting) and the large set of games, news, etc. apps justify the existence of device-specific and platform-specific apps. The model reinforces the findings of a survey conducted by UBS suggesting the retention rate (i.e. level of switch costs) of Apple users is higher than Android users. The retention among Android devices is much lower in comparison as well. The model observes that the product fragmentation and the interdependence of apps lead to the noticeably lower retention rates across Android devices and platforms.

In a deregulated power market, customers would have more choices for their power service and the improvement of service quality has become a challenge to power transmission and distribution companies. Distribution system reliability that was traditionally considered within the planning activities, is now incorporated in the operational environment. This dissertation presents study results of a multi-objective feeder operation optimization problem that considers how to balance network efficiency, switching and reliability costs in a distribution network. The proposed method divides annual feeder load curve into multi periods of load levels and optimizes the feeder configurations for different load levels in annual operation planning. Customer load profiles and seasonal varying data of feeder section failure rates and customer interruption costs are considered. Simulations results demonstrate the time varying effects on the optimal distribution feeder reconfiguration and operation costs. A binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) search is adopted to determine the feeder configuration in each time period. Test results indicate that not considering time varying effects and using only simplified fixed load and reliability parameters could underestimate the total loss to the utility and its customers.

<p>Due to the more and more fierce competition in today’s business, many companies are required to build long-term profitable relationship with customers and to achieve customer loyalty. Therefore, relationship marketing has become more and more important since last decade of 20th century, especially in service industry. There are many different relationship marketing tactics implemented for retaining customer. However, some of those tactics did not affect customer loyalty effectively, and switching behaviors frequently occur among most of targeted customers. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the impact of relationship marketing tactics on customer satisfaction and trust, which in turn increase customer loyalty, by focusing on Swedish mobile telecommunication sector. A analytical model is developed as a guildline to test the relationships between relationship marketing tactics, relationship quality (trust and satisfaction) and customer loyalty. </p><p>a quantitative method with deductive approach are chosen in this research. In order to collect primary data, a self-completed questionnaire is designed and randomly sent out by email to the students in Halmstad University. The SPSS for windows is used to process the primary data. The findings shows that Service Quality, Price Perception, and Value Offers have impact on customer loyalty indirectly via the customer satisfaction and trust. Brand image is positively and directly related to customer loyalty. However, switching costs is found to be less correlation with customer loyalty, as well as satisfaction and trust in Sweden telecommunication industry.</p>

Due to the more and more fierce competition in today’s business, many companies are required to build long-term profitable relationship with customers and to achieve customer loyalty. Therefore, relationship marketing has become more and more important since last decade of 20th century, especially in service industry. There are many different relationship marketing tactics implemented for retaining customer. However, some of those tactics did not affect customer loyalty effectively, and switching behaviors frequently occur among most of targeted customers. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the impact of relationship marketing tactics on customer satisfaction and trust, which in turn increase customer loyalty, by focusing on Swedish mobile telecommunication sector. A analytical model is developed as a guildline to test the relationships between relationship marketing tactics, relationship quality (trust and satisfaction) and customer loyalty. a quantitative method with deductive approach are chosen in this research. In order to collect primary data, a self-completed questionnaire is designed and randomly sent out by email to the students in Halmstad University. The SPSS for windows is used to process the primary data. The findings shows that Service Quality, Price Perception, and Value Offers have impact on customer loyalty indirectly via the customer satisfaction and trust. Brand image is positively and directly related to customer loyalty. However, switching costs is found to be less correlation with customer loyalty, as well as satisfaction and trust in Sweden telecommunication industry.

Abstract Problem statement – what factors determine brand loyalty in Smartphone? Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine causal antecedent factors leading to brandloyalty in the Swedish Smartphone market Theory – theoretical review and critical analysis of academic journals related to dependantand independent variables and conceptual model is formulated. Methodology - Quantitative approach is used to quantify the relationship between dependantand independent variables based on the proposed theoretical model that delineates therelationships between dependant variable brand loyalty and the independent variablescustomer satisfaction, perceived quality, brand experience, brand image, brand switching costand product involvement. Data – In total 200 responses were collected through a structured interview from UppsalaUniversity, Uppsala central train and bus station and two big shopping centers in Uppsala (S: tper galleria and Forum galleria). Apple and Sony Ericsson brand users are interviewed in thedata gathering process, 100 respondents for each brand Findings – the analysis suggest brand image, product involvement and customer satisfactiondetermined brand loyalty in Apple brand, whereas customer satisfaction was the onlydeterminate factor in Sony Ericsson brand

Smart phones are an important facet of the functionality of daily life. The main smart phone operating systems are Android and iOS. We cannot predict which one will be the winning smart phone operating system in the future. Hence, it is an important issue for consumers and enterprises to know which factors influence consumers to continue to use Android. We construct a dual factor model to explain consumers¡¦ Android use continuance. The dual factors include (1) dedication vs. constraint, (2) cognitive constraints vs. psychological constraints, and (3) internal lock effect vs. external lock effect. Data collected from 296 Android consumers in Taiwan were tested against the research model and confirmed our hypotheses. The results support the theoretical model in explaining the effect of ECT theory and status quo bias theory on consumers¡¦ intentions to continue to use Android. Finally, we find inertia is the most important factor influencing consumers¡¦ continued use of Android. The main contribution of this study is to provide a dual factor model for consumers¡¦ use continuance behavior. This model can also be applied to different technology products.

With rapid development of information technology, the company can find and communicate with new partners easily, which makes the relation more complex and unstable. How to improve the performance of the supply chain is an important issue. In this study, we try to discuss the problem from the three factors including switching cost, trust and information sharing. First, we propose a conceptual model of switching cost, trust, information sharing and supply chain performance. The performance indexes include the average fulfillment rate, average stock cost, and average cycle time. Second, in order to verify the model, we construct a simulation environment of supply chain and construct a decision mechanism based on the conceptual model. Final, we observe the effect and variation of the different order demand environment, the different information sharing threshold, different propensity of switching cost and trust, and different product price and different producing technology.

The industry of mobile communication in Taiwan has recently become the fastest growing representative in the mobile communication related industries in the world. After several years of development, the industry has moved into the application development stage for 3rd generation (3G) technologies. Within the related services offered by 3G technologies, the most noticeable and the earliest one to set into promotion are video phone service. However, since 3G technologies become available in year 2005, the utilization of video phone service and its popularity keeps at slow growth. Scholars have pointed out that the consumers¡¦ perception of the products can have impact on their purchasing and using decisions. Further, some scholars also think that if the consumers believe the risk of change is high; their willingness to accept new services is lowered. Based on the above two factors, this research examines the current status on consumers¡¦ perception on 3G technologies and also investigates the interrelationships among consumers¡¦ perception of the cost of change and the utilization of 3G video phone service. After going through the literature on the subject, this research has categorized consumer knowledge into 4 types. In addition, the switching cost which arising from the change of voice service to 3G video phone service by consumers has also been included into the study. The conclusions and recommendations resulting from the investigation and analysis of current consumer knowledge and the switching cost are as follows: 1.Consumers¡¦ product existence knowledge on 3G video phone service and the persuasion knowledge does not have noticeable impact on its usage intention. However, the product attributes knowledge and the knowledge to purchase and usage have positive noticeable impact on its usage intention. 2.The switching cost for consumers to move from voice services to 3G video phone service has noticeable negative impact on its usage intention for 3G video phone service. 3.Consumers¡¦ persuasion knowledge for 3G video phone service has a negative relationship on the switching cost of change for 3G video phone service.