Between 4000-10 000 ads each day every day. That is how many ads we as customers are exposed to individually, each and every day. To reach a higher efficiency in marketing, marketing managers and store owners nowadays aiming to increase the customer satisfaction by striving to understand the customer behavior and their decisioning-making. For the aim of this thesis, we investigated if coloring cues in the retail environment had an impact on customers’ behavior in a specific retail store environment. This experiment was taken place in a small town within Sweden, named Karlstad. The retail store belongs to the electronic sector and the participants included in the experiment were randomly visiting customers of this electronical retail store. In the experiment we used IoT devices from Texas Instruments, a sensor device, called CC2650, enabled us to collect data from interactions by customers and products. In our experiment we compared three periods of data with the help from the analysis method of one-way ANOVA. The result was showing that there is a significant variance between at least two of our three periods of measurements, and by the results of this thesis we could reject the Null Hypothesis (H0). As the H0, were telling that there would not be any differences between any of the three measured periods of time. Further, with insights from our one-way ANOVA, we could determine with help from a complementary analysis method, the Tukey’s HSD, we could point out which periods that were significant different from one another. This made us come into conclusions that there is a possibility to predict the customer behavior and the customer’s Need for Touch (NFT), a part of the nudging theory, and can give the marketing managers and store owners in retail an increase of understanding of the customer’s behavior. Future research could look into how customer’s behavior can change within different type of retail stores, and also if coloring cues in retail stores within bigger cities will have another impact on customer’s behavior.

La llegada de la pandemia de la COVID-19 ha afectado a la economía mundial y ha provocado un cambio en la vida de las personas, reorganizando las necesidades y prioridades diarias. Así mismo, el golpe económico y el cambio social han generado que la hotelería se enfrente a un panorama nuevo e incierto, afectando las prácticas comunes que se realizaban en cualquier establecimiento hotelero. Si bien la pandemia es un suceso reciente, numerosa investigación académica ya ha sido realizada por diferentes autores, brindando una serie de fuentes sólidas que han provisto de información que antes no existía. Entre ellas, el conocimiento existente acerca del comportamiento del consumidor de los servicios hoteleros a raíz de la pandemia de la COVID-19, el cual se encuentra disponible pero aún disperso y, por ello, requiere ser integrado y analizado. Es por tal motivo que la presente investigación brindará un aporte teórico a través de la recopilación y análisis de la información existente acerca del tema mencionado, empleando como método la de revisión de literatura con enfoque integrador. El principal aporte de esta investigación es la revisión de teorías pre existentes sobre el comportamiento del consumidor que han sido aplicadas al contexto pandémico de la COVID-19 en la hotelería. / The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world’s economy and has caused a change in people's lives, reorganizing daily needs and priorities. Likewise, the economic shock and social change have caused the hotel industry to face a new and uncertain prospect, affecting common practices that were normalized in any hotel establishment. Although the pandemic is a recent event, numerous academic research has already been done by different authors, giving a series of answers which have provided information that did not exist before. Among them, the existing knowledge about the consumer’s behavior of hotel services as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is available but still dispersed and, therefore, needs to be integrated and analyzed. For this reason, this research will provide a theoretical contribution through the collection and analysis of the existing information about the mentioned topic, using the literature review method with an integrative approach. The main contribution of this research is the review of pre-existing theories about customer behaviour that have been applied to the pandemic context of COVID-19 in the hotel industry. / Trabajo de investigación

While operating in online markets offers opportunities for expanded assortment and convenience, it also poses challenges such as increased competition and the need to build personal relationships with customers. Customer retention be- comes crucial in maintaining a successful business, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer behavior. Traditionally, customer behavior analysis has focused on transactional behavior, such as purchase frequency and spending amounts. However, there has been a shift towards non-transactional behavior, driven by the popularity of loyalty programs that reward customers beyond trans- actions and aim to make customers feel appreciated and included, regardless of their spending power. This study is conducted at a global retailer with the aim of enhancing the under- standing of how non-transactional customer behavior influences customer churn. The approach in this study is to understand such behavior by developing a statis- tical model and to analyze statistical approaches of feature importance. Two types of approaches for statistical modeling, each with four variations, are assessed: (1) Random forest; and (2) Logistic regression. Furthermore, three different feature importance methods are considered; (1) Gini importance; (2) Permutation impor- tance and (3) Coefficient importance. The results showed that this approach can be used to analyze customer behavior and gain a better understanding of the driving factors for churn. Furthermore, the results showed that random forest approaches outperform logistic regression. With the definition of churn constructed in this study, the most important factors that affect the probability of churn are the customer’s number of sessions and inter session interval. / Att bedriva e-handel erbjuder inte enbart möjligheter för utökat sortiment och bekvämlighet, utan leder även till ökad konkurrens och ett ökat behov av att bygga relationer med kunder. Kundlojalitet är därmed avgörande för att upprätthålla en framgångsrik verksamhet, och betonar vikten av att förstå kundernas beteende. Traditionellt har analyser av kundbeteende främst bedrivits med fokus på transak- tionellt beteende, såsom frekvens eller totalbelopp för köp. På senare tid har allt mer fokus lagts på icke-transaktionellt beteende, på grund av införandet av lo- jalitetsprogram som belönar kunder bortom transaktioner, med målet att kunder ska känna sig uppskattade och inkluderade, oavsett köpkraft. Denna studie genomförs hos ett globalt detaljhandelsföretag med målet att utöka förståelsen för hur icke-transaktionellt kundbeteende påverkar kundbortfall. För att uppnå detta konstrueras en statistisk modell som utnyttjas för att med hjälp av statistiska metoder analysera signifikans hos variabler. Två kategorier av statis- tiska modeller undersöks; (1) Random forest och (2) Logistisk regression. Utöver detta används tre olika metoder för att analysera signifikans hos variabler; (1) Gini-betydelse; (2) Permutationsbetydelse; och (3) Koefficientbetydelse. Resultatet visar att studiens tillvägagångssätt kan användas för att analysera kund- beteende och nå ökad förståelse för vad som driver kundbortfall. Vidare visar re- sultatet att random forest-modeller överträffar modeller baserade på logistisk re- gression. Baserat på den definition av kundbortfall som definierats i denna studie är de viktigaste faktorerna som påverkar sannolikheten för kundbortfall, kundens antal sessioner och intervallet mellan kundens sessioner.

L’actuariat non-vie étudie les différents aspects quantitatifs de l’activité d’assurance. Cette thèse vise à expliquer sous différentes perspectives les interactions entre les différents agents économiques, l’assuré, l’assureur et le marché, sur un marché d’assurance. Le chapitre 1 souligne à quel point la prise en compte de la prime marché est importante dans la décision de l’assuré de renouveler ou non son contrat d’assurance avec son assureur actuel. La nécessitéd’un modèle de marché est établie. Le chapitre 2 répond à cette problématique en utilisant la théorie des jeux non-coopératifs pour modéliser la compétition. Dans la littérature actuelle, les modèles de compétition seréduisent toujours à une optimisation simpliste du volume de prime basée sur une vision d’un assureur contre le marché. Partant d’un modèle de marché à une période, un jeu d’assureurs est formulé, où l’existence et l’unicité de l’équilibre de Nash sont vérifiées. Les propriétés des primes d’équilibre sont étudiées pour mieux comprendre les facteurs clés d’une position dominante d’un assureur par rapport aux autres. Ensuite, l’intégration du jeu sur une période dans un cadre dynamique se fait par la répétition du jeu sur plusieurs périodes. Une approche par Monte-Carlo est utilisée pour évaluer la probabilité pour un assureur d’être ruiné, de rester leader, de disparaître du jeu par manque d’assurés en portefeuille. Ce chapitre vise à mieux comprendre la présence de cycles en assurance non-vie. Le chapitre 3 présente en profondeur le calcul effectif d’équilibre de Nash pour n joueurs sous contraintes, appelé équilibre de Nash généralisé. Il propose un panorama des méthodes d’optimisation pour la résolution des n sous-problèmes d’optimisation. Cette résolution sefait à l’aide d’une équation semi-lisse basée sur la reformulation de Karush-Kuhn-Tucker duproblème d’équilibre de Nash généralisé. Ces équations nécessitent l’utilisation du Jacobiengénéralisé pour les fonctions localement lipschitziennes intervenant dans le problème d’optimisation.Une étude de convergence et une comparaison des méthodes d’optimisation sont réalisées.Enfin, le chapitre 4 aborde le calcul de la probabilité de ruine, un autre thème fondamentalde l’assurance non-vie. Dans ce chapitre, un modèle de risque avec dépendance entre lesmontants ou les temps d’attente de sinistre est étudié. De nouvelles formules asymptotiquesde la probabilité de ruine en temps infini sont obtenues dans un cadre large de modèle de risquesavec dépendance entre sinistres. De plus, on obtient des formules explicites de la probabilité deruine en temps discret. Dans ce modèle discret, l’analyse structure de dépendance permet dequantifier l’écart maximal sur les fonctions de répartition jointe des montants entre la versioncontinue et la version discrète. / In non-life actuarial mathematics, different quantitative aspects of insurance activity are studied.This thesis aims at explaining interactions among economic agents, namely the insured,the insurer and the market, under different perspectives. Chapter 1 emphasizes how essentialthe market premium is in the customer decision to lapse or to renew with the same insurer.The relevance of a market model is established.In chapter 2, we address this issue by using noncooperative game theory to model competition.In the current literature, most competition models are reduced to an optimisationof premium volume based on the simplistic picture of an insurer against the market. Startingwith a one-period model, a game of insurers is formulated, where the existence and uniquenessof a Nash equilibrium are verified. The properties of premium equilibria are examinedto better understand the key factors of leadership positions over other insurers. Then, thederivation of a dynamic framework from the one-period game is done by repeating of theone-shot game over several periods. A Monte-Carlo approach is used to assess the probabilityof being insolvent, staying a leader, or disappearing of the insurance game. This gives furtherinsights on the presence of non-life insurance market cycles.A survey of computational methods of a Nash equilibrium under constraints is conductedin Chapter 3. Such generalized Nash equilibrium of n players is carried out by solving asemismooth equation based on a Karush-Kuhn-Tucker reformulation of the generalized Nashequilibrium problem. Solving semismooth equations requires using the generalized Jacobianfor locally Lipschitzian function. Convergence study and method comparison are carried out.Finally, in Chapter 4, we focus on ruin probability computation, another fundemantalpoint of non-life insurance. In this chapter, a risk model with dependence among claimseverity or claim waiting times is studied. Asymptotics of infinite-time ruin probabilitiesare obtained in a wide class of risk models with dependence among claims. Furthermore,we obtain new explicit formulas for ruin probability in discrete-time. In this discrete-timeframework, dependence structure analysis allows us to quantify the maximal distance betweenjoint distribution functions of claim severity between the continuous-time and the discrete

I dagens samhälle handlar det om att vara så effektiv som möjligt för att vinna tid. Som Benjamin Franklin en gång sa att ”Tid är pengar”, är något som vi människor allt mer tagit fasta på då vi ställer höga krav på utvecklingen och dess teniska förmågor. Idag har de flesta människor tillgång till en dator med internetuppkoppling som vi dagligen utför sysslor vid. Det kan vara allt ifrån jobbrelaterade aktiviteter, hålla kontakten med nära och kära, söka information om vad som händer i världen och i vår omgivning, till mer nöjesinriktade delar såsom online spel och shopping. Just shopping via internet är något som vuxit väldigt mycket under det senaste årtiondet, de flesta människor idag har förmodligen någon gång köpt något via nätet eller haft tanke på att göra det. Syftet med denna uppsats är att uppmärksamma de säljfrämjande exponeringsverktyg som kunden anser bör finnas med i produktinformationen på webbutikerna för att de ska leda till ett köp hos dem. Detta för att öka kundnöjdheten online. Visionen är att öka förståelsen kring den produktinformation som konsumenten behöver för att kunna känna sig trygg i att handla kläder på internet. Vår kvantitativa undersökning ämnades för målgruppen män och kvinnor i åldrarna 18-35 år men den gemensamma nämnaren av intresset att handla kläder på internet. Undersökningen behandlade frågor som rör exponeringsverktygen på webben. Vi frågade hur respondenterna upplever de säljverktyg som finns idag, de utvecklingsmöjligheter vi funnit som finns inom klädexponeringen samt om de svarande själva hade idéer eller förslag på vad de skulle vilja se i produktinformationen i den perfekta webbutiken. De slutsatser som kunde dras utav vår studie var att en utveckling av de säljfrämjande exponeringsverktygen är önskad av våra respondenter då intresset för att handla kläder via internet är stort. För att konsumenten ska kunna känna sig säker när denne handlar kläder på internet bör webbutikerna arbeta med att skapa den befintliga produktinformationen så lik en fysisk klädexponering som möjligt. Detta kan uppnås genom utvecklingsmöjligheter såsom modeller med olika kroppsformer, virtuell 3D docka enligt egen längd, vikt och mått, virtuell butik samt omfattande produktinformation och högupplösta bilder.Today´s society is all about being as efficient as possible to win time. Benjamin Franklin once said “Time is money”. This is something we human beings have taken seriously as we raise our demand for development and its technological abilities. Today most people have access to a computer with wireless Internet connection from where they perform different chores. It could be anything from work related activities, staying in contact with loved ones, searching information about what’s going on in the world and in our surroundings, to more entertainment-oriented activities such as online games and shopping. Shopping online is something that has grown fast in the fashion industry in the last decade, and most people today have probably bought something or at least have thought of doing so.The purpose of this essay is to highlight the sales promoting exposure tools which the consumer find necessary in the product information found in web shops to lead them to purchase. This is to increase customer satisfaction online. Our aim is to increase the understanding of what the customer needs in form of product information to feel safe when buying clothes on the Internet.Our quantitative study is based on men and women aged 18-53 with a common interest in buying clothes on the Internet. The research deals with questions regarding exposure tools on the web. We asked the respondents how they perceived existing sales tools, the potentials for development in clothing exposure that we found and also if the respondents themselves had any ideas of what they would like to see included in the product information in the perfect web store.The conclusion we could draw from our study was that sales promoting exposure tools are needed by our respondents since the interest in buying clothes online is great. In order to make the customer feel sure when buying clothes on the Internet the web shops ought to work towards making the product information as similar to a physical exposure of the clothes as possible.This can be achieved through new developments such as models of various body types, virtual 3D dolls according to the consumers own measurements and weight, virtual stores and through comprehensive product information and high definition images. / Program: Butikschef, textil och mode

Internet har blivit nästintill oumbärligt i dagens värld. Från online-spel till e-handel och från kommunikationskanaler till ett informativt nät, är Internet förmodligen en av de mest framträngande och vitt spridda uppfinningarna av vår tid. Medan säkerheten kring användandet av Internet har diskuterats vilt så har användbarheten av Internet i olika områden inte utforskats till samma grad. Det finns mycket statistik och information om Internethandel men få fokuserar på lokala vanor eller specifika genres inom området. Med den här uppsatsen vill vi undersöka vilka nyckelelement som är de viktigaste när det gäller handel av kläder online, och vi har begränsat vår forskning till människor som bor i Stockholm. Det vi har kommit fram till är en blandning utav överraskningar och siffror som vi gissade oss till innan vi startade, men i sin helhet har det här projektet lärt oss mycket, inte bara om de frågeställningar vi har ställt oss utan även om e-handel i allmänhet och en hel del oväntade faktorer som an leda till framtida forskning i det här området. / Internet has almost become inevitable in today’s world. From on-line gaming to e-shopping and from communication channels to an information web, Internet is probably one of the most penetrated and widespread inventions of this era. While the topic of uses and abuses of Internet has widely been discussed, its usefulness in various sectors has not been widely researched. There are a lot of statistics and information about e-commerce but few focus on local habits and specific genres within online shopping. With this paper, we want to examine what key elements are the most important when it comes to shopping clothes online, and we have limited our research to people living in Stockholm. Our findings are a mix between surprises and numbers that we guessed before we started, but all in all – this project has taught us a lot, not only about the questions we raise at the beginning but also about e-commerce in general and a lot of unexpected factors that might lead us to future investigations in this area.

The purpose of the thesis is to discovery the insight behind pricing strategy of the gyms. The research and survey are focusing on the urban area which narrow the range within Taipei and New Taipei citizens. There is a mystery that most gyms in Taipei won’t let the potential customer know the price directly. They prefer the customers come to the venue and close the deal at the same time. How do the customers feel about pricing strategy and various package of the gym? Do the gyms provide the satisfied deal to the customer? Through analyzing the pricing strategy, there might be some consumer insights or opportunities for the industry.

Den här studien fokuserar på vilken påverkan tillgänglighet, bekvämlighet och tid har på konsumenters köpintention vid köp av skönhetsprodukter via q-commerce. Undersökningen baseras på teorier utifrån konsumentbeteende, köpintention och konsumentens köpprocess som har föranlett utvecklingen av q-commerce. Tillsammans med tidigare forskning gällande digitalutveckling, mobilshopping och leveransservice presenteras teorier för att skapa en förståelseför vad som påverkar konsumenter till köp via q-commerce. Studien genomfördes med hjälp aven webbaserad enkätundersökning via sociala medier samt ett allmänt anslag via en lärplattform i Högskolan i Borås. Det som framgår av studiens resultat är att samtliga hypoteser kan accepteras gällande att ju högre konsumenter värdesätter tillgänglighet, bekvämlighet och snabb leveranstid, desto större är sannolikheten att de väljer att genomföra köp av skönhetsprodukter via q-commerce. Det kan förklaras av att respondenterna värdesätter en lättillgänglig, bekväm och snabb köpprocess, vilket har påverkat utvecklingen av q-commerce samtidigt som skönhetsprodukter anses vara en produktkategori som är efterfrågad i kontext till q-commerce. Resultatet som presenteras i den här studien går inte att generalisera till en större population. Dock ger resultatet en indikation på ett konsumentbeteende som fördelaktigt kan ligga till grund för framtida forskning gällande utvecklingen av q-commerce inom skönhetsbranschen men även för applicering på andra branscher med liknande attribut. Då qcommerce är ett nytt forskningsområde finns det relativt lite forskning om ämnet, vilket gör att framtida forskning bör ta hänsyn till en större population samt kontrollera konsumenters faktiska beteende. Vidare bör framtida studier förslagsvis använda sig av andratillvägagångssätt genom att granska utifrån ett företagsperspektiv samt bredda avgränsningen och inte bara fokusera på köp av skönhetsprodukter. / The focus of this study is if availability, convenience and time have an impact on consumers’ purchase intentions when purchasing beauty products through q-commerce. The survey is based on theories that describe consumer behavior, purchase intention and the consumer's buying process that have influenced the development of q-commerce. Together with previous research regarding digital development, mobile shopping and delivery service, theories are presented to create an understanding of what influences consumers to buy through q-commerce. The study was conducted with a web-based survey through social media and the platform of University of Borås. The results of the study emerge that all hypotheses can be accepted regarding the fact that the more customers value availability, convenience and fast delivery, the greater the probability that they choose to make purchases of beauty products through q-commerce. This can be explained by the fact that the respondents value a buying process that is accessible, convenient and fast which has affected the development of q-commerce and that beauty products are considered a product category that is in demand in the context of q-commerce. The results that are presented in this study cannot be generalized to a larger population due to the sampling method that has been used. However, the results give an indication of consumer behavior that can advantageously be used in the beauty industry for future research regarding the development of q-commerce, but also in other similar industries. Since q-commerce is a new research area, there is minimal existing research on the subject, which means that future research should take a larger population into account and control consumers' actual behavior. Furthermore, future studies should suggest using other approaches by examining from a company perspective and broadening the boundaries and not just focusing on the purchase of beauty products.

Aujourd’hui, un nombre croissant de formats de distribution (i.e. magasins amiraux, centres commerciaux,points de vente éphémères, corners, etc.) à travers le monde adoptent la stratégie d'artification de l'expérience de magasinage, reposant sur l'introduction d'éléments artistiques dans la surface marchande. Toutefois l'utilisation de cette variable d'atmosphère s’avère pour le moment très intuitive. D’un point de vue académique, la revue de la littérature amène à qualifier ce champ de recherche d’embryonnaire. Par conséquent cette thèse se propose de mesurer l'impact de l'artification de l'expérience de magasinage sur la performance du point de vente, ainsi que sur les réactions du consommateur. Dans cette optique, une expérimentation a été réalisée à partir d’un plan factoriel manipulant la dimension artistique de l’atmosphère du point de vente. La collecte de données a été effectuée pendant deux mois dans des magasins réels, selon une méthode quantitative. Les résultats indiquent que la stratégie d'artification de l'expérience de magasinage, lorsque adoptée au seul niveau du point de vente et en tant que proposition éphémère, a pour impact positif d’améliorer la performance marketing du point de vente,ceci au niveau de la différenciation perçue du point de vente, du caractère créatif de l’image (du point de vente et des produits), de la valeur perçue de l'offre (rapport qualité/prix et désensibilisation au prix), et de la satisfaction du consommateur. En revanche l'artification de l'expérience de magasinage n'agit pas sur la performance commerciale du point de vente (ventes, taux de transformation, fidélité attitudinale), suggérant un effet de muséification avec la perte de la finalité transactionnelle du point de vente et sa reclassification fonctionnelle en musée/galerie d'art. En conclusion, l'adoption de cette stratégie expérientielle nécessite une réflexion en amont relative aux objectifs de l’entreprise (stratégie d’image vs. rentabilité directe du point de vente) puisqu’elle implique des arbitrages en termes de coûts directs et indirects concernant l'allocation de la surface marchande. / Today a growing number of retail formats (i.e. flagship stores, shopping malls, pop-up stores, corners, etc.)worldwide are adopting the shopping experience artification strategy, consisting of introducing artistic elements in the sales surface. However using this atmospherics’ variable remains for now very intuitive. From an academic perspective, this research field can be qualified as seminal. Thus this dissertation’s aim is to measure the impact of the shopping experience artification on store performance, as well as on customer reactions. In that regard, an experimentation was carried out with a factorial design manipulating the artistic dimension of store atmospherics. The data collection was conducted during two months in real retail stores, using a quantitative method. The results indicate that the shopping experience artification strategy, when adopted only at the store level and as an ephemeral proposition, positively impacts store marketing performance, namely regarding store perceived differentiation, the creative dimension of image (store’s and products’), store offering’s perceived value (price/quality ratio and price desensitization), and customer satisfaction. However the shopping experience artification does not impact store commercial performance (sales, conversion rate, attitudinal loyalty), which suggests a museumification effect with the store possibly losing its transactional purpose and being functionally reclassified as a museum/art gallery. As a conclusion, adopting this experiential strategy calls for an upstream reflection upon the company’s objectives (branding strategy vs. direct store profitability) since it implies tradeoffs regarding direct and indirect costs concerning sales surface allocation.

This cumulative dissertation consists of four papers that investigate retailer switching and identify potential and threat of cross-channel retail services (CCRS) for retail businesses. The first, conceptual paper compares different theories and models of retail quality. It derives the concept of retailer aspects as a framework to measure retailer quality and further discusses how CCRS can serve as a tool to enhance those retailer aspects. The second paper discusses results from a consumer panel survey and quantifies the influence of satisfaction with retailer aspects on retailer switching during webrooming behavior. The findings of this second paper present the two retailer aspects assurance of delivery and competitive product pricing as key determinants for retailer switching. The third paper defines CCRS and outlines a conceptual classification scheme for CCRS assessments – the CCRS Pentagon. The fourth paper quantifies the impact of CCRS adoption and retailer aspect preferences on CCRS-induced retailer switching based on a second consumer panel survey. Results from this second study affirm the existence of CCRS-induced retailer switching. The paper concludes that CCRS can serve as a retailer’s lock-in mechanism, but that the availability of CCRS in retail environments also threatens retail businesses. In sum, the dissertation provides academic contributions and suggestions for further academic research as well as practical implications and management tools for application in retail businesses.:I. Introduction II. Enhancing Multi-Channel Retail Quality through Cross-Channel Services III. What Drives Competitive Webrooming? The Roles of Channel and Retailer Aspects IV. Cross-Channel Retail Services: A Service Classification Along The Retail Function V. Service-induced Retailer Switching – Power of Cross-Channel Retail Services VI. Conclusion Appendix A: Estimated parameters in baseline-category logit model Appendix B: Conditional marginal effects and conditional probability Appendix C: T-Tests for retailer aspects per service example