Floor signs in stores have become a more common phenomenon during past years. The problem is that the knowledge about these signs is limited and the actual effects are unknown. This lack of knowledge can have a negative impact on store performance and marketing efforts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of floor signs on consumer attitude and behaviour. The study was conducted in two grocery stores, where the movement pattern of 39 501 customers was recorded over a four week period.

This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using different benchmarking models to measure and compare the efficiency of Swedish gas distributors. It also discusses to which extent the results of a benchmarking study should influence the revenue-cap which will be implemented in the gas distribution sector in Sweden from year 2011. The discussion is based on arguments from both theory and practical applications of benchmarking. The results suggest that benchmarking Swedish gas distributors against distributors in another country using a parametric model is most favorable, but the reliability will be increased if non-parametric models are used also. Partial and total productivity measures could be used to confirm results of other benchmarking analyses.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and increase the understanding of how the two commercial companies IKEA and SAS and the two aid organizations/nonprofit organizations UNICEF and Save the Children use perceptions of Christmas to produce messages in their Christmas advertising/commercial film. The study also discusses if there may be communicative and pictorial similarities and differences in how these brands constructs messages in commercials, and why it may be that the brands choose to use these messages in commercials based on the recipient possible interpretations. The theories used in this study are promotional culture, framing theory, preferred meaning, semiotics (denotation and connotation), myth and rhetoric (ethos, pathos and logos). The method used to answer the purpose and issues are the qualitative method that uses the theories semiotic and rhetoric to analyze the material. The study's results derived from the qualitative content analyzes of the material (the brands IKEA, SAS, UNICEF and Save the Children Christmas advertising films) show that IKEA message might want to show that they want to help the customer and that they pay attention to the customer needs.

The Swedish boat industry is considered quite conservative and subject to only limited development. The purpose of the study is to explain the structure of the boat industry, to analyze and evaluate ways of competing and provide recommendations for developing a competitive strategy. The aim of this thesis is to explain how to be competitive in the Swedish boat industry. To be able to do so three areas are used to deepen as well as broaden the understanding. The three areas within competitiveness we have chosen to highlight are differentiation, individualization and distribution.

Today Internet is clogged up and packed with homepages and information from both private persons and commercial companies. This has led to a decreased availability for a company to be noticed. The most common tool for consumers to use while searching for products online is via search engines. But because of the nature of these, not all companies can have good placements. Our research question was, "How do small online-companies attract consumers to their website"? The purpose of this thesis is to identify how a company works through online-communications and how to attract consumers to their home page.

Sweden?s tourism increases and new hotel opens. Since 1978 to 2011, the hotel rooms in Sweden doubled. International congresses, sports- and artistic events are a few examples of what affects the hotel industry. Sweden is seen as an attractive destination and future forecast looks to have a positive trend.

The aim of this qualitative study of service work in the private sector is to examine how the service worker experiences his/her work. There are three dimensions of the service workers experience in focus, and they are the base of my formulation of questions. The first dimension refers to how the service worker experiences the emotional labor demands from the employer. The second dimension concerns the relation between service worker and customer, from the view of the service worker. The third dimension problematizes how service workers experience efficiency.I have interviewed three call center customer workers and two hotel receptionists, using semi-structured interview technique.

An increased demand for processed goods on the property market has contributed toinvestments within the Swedish sawmill industry. The purpose with this study is to make amarket investigation of pre cut lengths within a defined geographic area. The constituent forthis investigation is HAL (AB Hilmer Andersson) who invests in a new plane facility and twofinger jointing machines in affiliation to their sawmill in Lässerud, the vest part of Värmland.To investigate the demand of pre cut lengths and identifies the value creating factors and costfactors which the customer within the segments industry and property market perceive, havedifferent customer value theories been used. Theories of customer value and the theory aboutoffering has been the source of creating the qualitative interview with a selection of currentand new potential customers for HAL.The result of the study first gives an introduction of HAL?s new offering and a description ofHAL?s current customers, which gives the reader an understanding of why searching for newcustomers is made in the defined area.

Every year a number of tenant-owner flat deals are concluded and the availability of real estate agents on the market is today very widespread. It has become increasingly difficult for estate agents to distinguish themselves in a way that makes the estate agent the customer?s choice. Estate agents must have a good understanding of what is important to the customer. An apartment deal is, for most people, an important event in their life.

Today the common people begin to understand the impact of a package. Many choose brand or product with great emphasis on how the outside looks, both in a good and a bad way.The company Gotlands Grafiska gave me the task to create a small basic selection of packages. The target group that the project was based on was craftsmen in the Gotland region. Based on analysis of the market and consumers to develop a range of packages covering a wide range of products sold on the island.During the project a clear theme was the desire to highlight a product and create some sort of exclusivity. It was important to understand how consumers and businesses think about packaging and its function.The result was five different packages, which together cover much of the need for the Gotland crafts and souvenir market.

Internet - and the website - has developed into an essential key for the relationship between enterprises and its customers. Today, a website might be the first or only impression a customer gets of a company. With this in mind we have focused our study on customer evaluations on websites. Social presence and its impact on people have so far mostly been given attention in the research of behavior in physical environments. However, in the electronic marketplace this has so far been overlooked, which is why our aim is to study how the presence of visitors impacts other visitors on the same website.

When contemplating entering an alliance the rationale behind the decision should differdepending on the size of the companies involved as well as on other important factors. The importantfactors influencing the decision are related to the resource pooling potential of the alliance,the power structure along with the business network the companies are a part of. Theanalysis has shown proof of a need for cooperation if one wish to succeed in the telecommunicationindustry and it has also determined which resources that are deemed to be most important toget in touch with, for our study object, to facilitate its access to the market. Those resources aredefined as a direct channel to the customer, funds/capital and the access to relevant businessnetworks. To get in touch with these lacking resources, three alternative approaches has beenproposed; all of them involving a strategic alliance decision.

Problem Discussion: Today the banks manage three central products: mutual funds, mortgages and bank accounts. Banks have authority and credibility, the services and the products they offer and sell can sometimes be difficult to understand. Customers are offered a large number of investment options with varying risk profiles. These developments have created an increasing need for knowledge and information among customers. The financial advice that the financial firms provides, remains a very important activity from a customer view.

The essay circulates around the technological analysis of flint material from four localities around the Baltic Sea basin. The analysis was created to investigate the question of where the first Gotlandic settlers originated from and to give clues about the colonization process. The investigated material was collected during the fall of 2011 and a correspondence analysis is used to analyze the collected material. The purpose of using a correspondence analysis is to test the method as a tool for investigating Mesolithic flint technologies. The essay also discusses marine hunter-gatherers, their economy and how their archeological remains differ from terrestrial hunter-gatherers..

With the help of image analysis and scent theory, we have made an analysis that explains how the perfume smells in advertising. There are many different factors that play a role in our perception of smell by image. We have found that using the connotations we can get a sense of the scent. What helps us along the way, the colors, the women and the environment. From this one different conclusions are mad and we create a scent sensation..