Problem Discussion: The rapid development of the smartphone market led formerly well-established brands to subdue to new entrants. Understanding what drives brand preferences within the dynamic smartphone market is key to formulating marketing efforts that influence purchase intentions. Research Objective: To qualitatively explore how a brand's equity drives Uppsala University students brand preferences within the Swedish smartphone market. Furthermore, to suggest how to increase the level of brand preference that may lead to increased purchase intentions for smartphones. Research Question: a) What are the drivers of brand preferences for Uppsala University students within the Swedish smartphone market? b) How do these brand preferences influence purchase intentions? Method: A qualitative approach is adopted through conducting semi- structured interviews with Uppsala University students. The empirical findings are set against a theoretical framework in order to identify drivers of brand preferences and how they influence purchase intentions. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the Swedish smartphone market appears to be functionally oriented. Perceived quality emerges as the main driver of brand preferences.

Introduction: Counterfeiting is considered as the crime of the 21st century. A highly affected market of counterfeits is the market of luxury branded goods. These goods are bought by consumers who want to express their social class and belonging by being admired, recognized and accepted by other people. The counterfeits of luxury brands that flourish on the market makes it possible for anyone to be a luxury brand user which is against the core of luxury brand, which strives for a low distribution to keep the demand high to be able to keep the consumer associations of luxury brands.   Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to create knowledge of how counterfeit products affect the consumer perception of luxury brands. Methodology: The research approach was a deductive, quantitative research and the data was collected through a questionnaire distributed through Facebook and the internal e-mail of the Linnaeus University. The sample frame was generation Y in Sweden. A total of 432 completed questionnaires were collected and was the foundation for the analysis and result.   Conclusion: The consumers' perception of counterfeit products have a negative effect on the consumer perception of luxury brands. Both the consumer's brand associations and how consumers perceive the quality of luxury brands are affected by counterfeit products. However, what the consequences are of this negative relationship cannot be answered by the result of this thesis.

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

The research has investigated the celebrity effect¡¦s relationship between brand image, perceived quality, and purchase intention. Using the case of the world-renowned brand: Minute Maid, Coca-Cola, it has only been introduced to Taiwan for two years, yet it made a huge success. It has faced the issue of changing spokesperson recently. The research uses ¡§Judgmental sampling¡¨ to get the samples and data that we need. We use factor analysis and reliability analysis to check our questionnaire, and then the data was analyzed mainly on Pearson correlation analysis and regression to check out whether the factors are effective. The results showed: 1. Consumers would think that the better the product¡¦s celebrity effect is, the better the product¡¦s perceived quality and brand image is. 2. Consumers would think that the higher the perceived quality and brand image is, the higher their purchase intention would be. 3. Overall, the celebrity effect would affect consumer¡¦s purchase intention. Companies which try to use these kinds of marketing strategy should really be aware of it.

Recently, more business reduced marketing expenses for responding the changes of macro-economic environment. The business strategy turned traditional marketing into internet marketing. More business used internet marketing to compete with others. Because internet industry grown speedily that ¡§Otaku Economy ¡§changed consumer behavior on shopping. In addition, these economy models become more strong shopping power. Consumers change their shopping patterns that it carries more opportunities and economy effects when the environment is in a slump. The research has four purposes as follows: First, to discuss e-commerce bring the effectiveness of brand essentially. Second, to explore affected on purchase decision-making whether internal or external factors when consumers use e-commerce process. However, people perceive differently for online shopping on decision model. People have difference effects on perceived price, perceived quality, perceived value and purchase intention in their mind. In addition, we want to discuss that consumer¡¦s brand loyalty when people face more choice on online shopping websites. Finally, we observed effectiveness on brand A and the gap between business and consumer in business side. The model was tested using SPSS 17.0 Variate Statistical Analysis and Case Study. The sample size of this survey includes 360 respondents, 335 were identified as usable. PayEasy were selected for the study. The findings are as follows: 1. We demonstrated the price-perceived value concept model that found consumers considered the more quality on products/ website the more overall value in their mind. The result created more purchase probability. 2. Two group are 15-18 year-old students and office workers bought cosmetic products online frequently because without time and space limit. More and more female consumers interest in online shopping. 3. In fact, people have lower brand loyalty on online shopping due to they have more choices. Product substitution and cheaper price could affect consumer decision-making behavior. 4. PayEasy has more unique competitiveness on information flow, product flow, cash flow, logistics and CRM. The key contribution of the research is that we reflect opinions of people and perspectives gap on e-commerce in consumer and business side. Further, we understand factors of decision-making process in consumer¡¦s mind that will help to enhance relationship between business and consumers on e-commerce. And helping business create more new innovate model to increase brand effectiveness.

Product quality is regarded as one of the most important factors that consumers consider while purchasing products. However, contrary to objective quality, perceived product quality includes consumer&#039 / s judgment about the overall superiority or excellence of a product. This study mainly concentrates on the relationship between product appearance and perceived product quality especially for durable goods. The definitions of product quality and perceived product quality are reviewed to explain different dimensions of perceived product quality. Product appearance and the importance of product appearance are explained to reveal the relationship between the consumer and the appearance of the product. Four types of information communicated through the appearance are revealed: aesthetic information, symbolic information, functional information and ergonomic information. In the field study, how these four types of information communicated by the product appearance influence the consumers&rsquo / quality perception is questioned through a quantitative study. Conducted with 100 participants, the results of the questionnaire shows that the appearance influences quality perception in various stages of consumer/product context for durable goods. At the end of the study, it is observed that aesthetic, functional and ergonomic information directly influence consumer&rsquo / s quality perception / wheras, the influence of symbolic information on the perceived quality is found to be limited and indirect.

¡§Introductory Price¡¨ is a quality signal used in the service introductory period, implying consumers that introductory price brought the loss to service providers. Consumers will guess service providers wish them repurchase the service to recover their loss, so the service should be higher quality and higher value. Past researchers¡¦ empirical studies about signal theory mostly focused on products. Therefore, the objective of this study is to verify whether ¡§Introductory Price¡¨ is an effective quality signal in service industry, and find out other potential variables which have moderate effect with ¡§Introductory Price¡¨. This study use experimental design to examine consumers¡¦ perceived quality, perceived sacrifice, perceived value, and purchase intention when they hear about the introductory price information of new service. Besides, this study use ¡§Price estimate¡¨ to develop a new concept ¡§Relative Introductory Price¡¨. ¡§Introductory Price¡¨, ¡§Competitor¡¦s Price Information¡¨, and ¡§Cost Information¡¨ will influence ¡§Relative Introductory Price¡¨, which will influence the consumers¡¦ perceived quality. The result shows that even though consumers can¡¦t differentiate the introductory price and long-term price, and still think ¡§low price means low quality¡¨, but other price information still has the moderate effect with ¡§Introductory Price¡¨ to influence the ¡§Relative Introductory Price¡¨. Besides, the service providers in Taiwan used to make a high origin price. This kind of pricing style makes existence of other price information become more important.

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.

Pre-deployment field testing in is the process of testing software to uncover unforeseen problems before it is released in the market. It is commonly conducted by recruiting users to experiment with the software in as natural setting as possible. Information regarding the software is then sent to the developers as logs. Log data helps developers fix bugs and better understand the user behaviors so they can refine functionality to user needs. More importantly, logs contain specific problems as well as call traces that can be used by developers to trace its origins. However, developers focus their analysis on post-deployment data such as bug reports and CVS data to resolve problems, which has the disadvantage of releasing software before it can be optimized. Therefore, more techniques are needed to harness field testing data to reduce post deployment problems. We propose techniques to process log data generated by users in order to resolve problems in the application before its deployment. We introduce a metric system to predict the user perceived quality in software if it were to be released into market in its current state. We also provide visualization techniques which can identify the state of problems and patterns of problem interaction with users that provide insight into solving the problems. The visualization techniques can also be extended to determine the point of origin of a problem, to resolve it more efficiently. Additionally, we devise a method to determine the priority of reported problems. The results generated from the case studies on mobile software applications. The metric results showed a strong ability predict the number of reported bugs in the software after its release. The visualization techniques uncovered problem patterns that provided insight to developers to the relationship between problems and users themselves. Our analysis on the characteristics of problems determined the highest priority problems and their distribution among users. / Thesis (Master, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-16 17:50:31.094

Vartotojų elgsenos aktualumas verslo praktikoje ir teorijoje neabejotinas – vartotojų elgsenos, ypač pirkimo sprendimo priėmimo stimulų, kylančių iš vartotojų asmenybės bei aplinkoje esančių ir skatinančių pirkti stimulų išskyrimas. Impulsyvaus pirkimo fenomenas mokslinėje marketingo literatūroje analizuojamas jau daugiau kaip penkias dešimtis. Todėl stimulai, sąlygojantys impulsyvaus pirkimo sprendimą ypač svarbūs – tokių stimulų sukūrimas skatintų vartotojus priimti pirkimo sprendimą per sąlyginai trumpą laiko tarpą, o pastaroji tendencija generuotų pelną organizacijai. Dar vienas itin plačiai mokslinėje literatūroje analizuojamas konceptas – prekės ženklo vertė. Prekės ženklo vertė pagrįsta vartotojo sąmonėje susiformavusiomis teigiamos asociacijos su prekės ženklu, prekės ženklo vertės vartotojui sukūrimu bei vartotojų lojalumu prekės ženklui. Visi pastarieji veiksniai mokslinėje literatūroje traktuojami, kaip skatinantys vartotojo sprendimo pirkti priėmimą. Prekės ženklas įvardijamas, kaip vienas iš impulsyvaus pirkimo stimulų. Darbo objektas – impulsyvaus pirkimo stimulai ir prekės ženklo vertė. Darbo tikslas – teoriškai pagrįsti ir empiriškai patikrinti impulsyvaus pirkimo ir prekės ženklo vertės sąsajas „Nivea“ prekės ženklo pavyzdžiu. Darbo struktūra. Magistro darbą sudaro trys dalys. Pirmojoje darbo dalyje pateikta ir nagrinėta impulsyvaus pirkimo koncepcija, vidiniai ir išoriniai impulsyvaus pirkimo stimulai. Taip pat analizuojami prekės ženklo vertę kuriantys... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The aim of this master work – theoretically support and empirically examine the relationship between impulsive buying and brand equity. The structure of thesis. The Master work thesis consists of three parts. The first part of thesis represents and examines the conception of impulsive buying, its internal and external impulsive buying stimulus. It also analyzes the creating factors of the brand value. The analysis of impulsive buying models is also presented. The second part of the thesis represents the structural interface pattern of impulsive buying and the brand equity. The research methodology, aims and tasks are also given. A previous analysis of impulsive buying research results is done. The third part of Master work thesis does the empirical research of the relationship between impulsive buying and the brand equity; the results are generalized. Empirically checked structural model relationshiop between impulsive buying and the brand equity by the example of Nivea brand is done. At the end of the Master work the conclusions are made and suggestions are given. In order to make it more transparent, the work contains of 14 pictures and 17 tables. The theoretical analysis has been prepared using 117 English and Lithuanian literature sources.