Bachelor-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2009.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2007.

Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2003--Berlin.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

N.A.

No description available.

No description available.

Inherent in the process of marketing is the notion that consumption requires both time and effort. While shopping, consumers may spend time and effort to complete several tasks such as searching for information, traveling to the store?s location, searching for a parking spot, traveling through the store, locating the product they wish to purchase, and completing the checkout process. Convenience is defined as anything that reduces consumer time and effort expenditures and is becoming increasingly important to consumers in the United States. This dissertation provides insight into an emerging consumer need--the need for retail shopping convenience (NRSC). Specifically, this dissertation has four distinct purposes: 1) to examine the nature of the NRSC construct; 2) to investigate time pressure, role overload, various timestyle dimensions, and the willingness to trade money for convenience as antecedents to the NRSC; 3) to examine the role that culture plays in moderating the relationship between selected antecedents and the NRSC; and 4) to identify the consequences and/or retailer benefits of satisfying a consumer?s NRSC. Cross-cultural comparisons were made by examining data collected from two consumer groups--white, non-Hispanic Americans and Mexican Americans. For each respondent, data were collected across three shopping situations: grocery shopping, mall shopping, and online shopping. In an empirical examination of the NRSC, it was found that this consumer need varies across shopping situations. Antecedents significant in influencing this consumer need include time pressure, temporal orientation, planning orientation, and polychronic orientation. Findings show that culture plays an important role in determining the NRSC. When compared to white, non-Hispanic American consumers, Mexican-American consumers experienced more time pressure. In addition, the influence of temporal orientation and polychronic orientation on the NRSC was stronger for Mexican Americans. White, non-Hispanic American consumers were found to have a stronger relationship between planning orientation and the NRSC than Mexican-American consumers. Additional findings confirm the importance of the NRSC to consumers, showing that retailers who satisfy this emerging consumer need are rewarded with higher levels of commitment, stronger repurchase intentions, and positive word-of-mouth communications. Taken together, these findings show the importance of the NRSC in determining consumer behavior.

The focus of this research was the problem of identifying the economic and demographic factors that determine household expenditure for convenience food in the United States. A major objective was to measure, for various classes of convenience food, the response of expenditures to changes in demand determinants so that food expenditure profiles can be simulated for households with different characteristics and constraints. Another major objective was to determine the effect of the meal preparer's value of time on household use of convenience food. The work of others on similar models of food demand has been extended to include analysis of the effects of the sex and employment status (market-orientation) of the meal preparer, the value of the meal preparer's time, household size, income and age-sex composition. Other factors in the models include region, race, urban setting and season. The functions were specified from a theoretical model developed from the theory of the household production function. Foods used by households as reported in the 1977-78 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey were divided into classes of nonconvenience, basic convenience, complex convenience and manufactured convenience food. Nonconvenience foods are raw, unprocessed foods or ingredient foods. Basic convenience foods are single ingredient foods with limited culinary expertise embodied, usually providing a type of preservation convenience. Complex convenience foods are multiple ingredients, highly prepared foods. Manufactured convenience foods include products which have no home prepared counterpart. For the three convenience classes, nonincome-earning female meal preparers all had positive elasticities of the value of time. Except for the basic convenience food model, the income-earning female meal preparers had positive value of time elasticities. The nonmarketoriented female meal preparers had negative elasticities of value of time in the nonconvenience class. The income elasticity for all food classes ranged from 0. 03in the nonconvenience food expenditure model to 0.08 in the complex convenience food model. The significance of statistical tests on the range of income elasticities verifies that the food categories investigated are neither inferior nor luxury goods, and that demand models for all food at home that ignore the effects of the value of time would overestimate the elasticity of expenditure with respect to income. / Ph. D.

Ph. D.