For the last 50 years the amount of available consumer goods has exploded in number, due to improvements in production and technology. The problem is that the overall sales of many categories are stagnant and retailers are unwilling to grant the categories more shelf space. Therefore many categories are crowded with products and hard for consumers to navigate in. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of an assortment reduction on several variables relating to assortment perceptions, customer satisfaction and store choice. The study was carried out as an experiment with 127 participants.

Exposing products is important in the retail industry and the development is constantly moving forward. Shops usually have a special product, they want to sell more because of various reasons. How to expose that particular product sold most of there are various theories. What this report is about is a theory that seeks to stores use a "decoy". It carried out to see if this theory was still current was that three interviews took place with two store managers and a CEO for various grocery stores.

Existing studies concerning private labels are unclear as to whether private label manufacturers carry out product development themselves. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies comparing product development processes in private label companies and national brand manufacturers. This study highlights a set of critical product development factors and assesses their prevalence in four different companies in the Swedish retail business. The study is based on a number of qualitative interviews with key personnel responsible for various table fats. Findings indicate two levels of involvement in the product development process on the private label side.

Rapporten behandlar ett examensarbete inom integrerad produktutveckling vid Högskolan i Skövde. Projektet är gjort i samarbete med butiksinredningsföretaget Expedit retail solutions i Jönköping. Projektets syfte är att utveckla framtidens Gamezone, en enhet där kunder kan testa TV-spel i en butik med fokus på spelupplevelsen.Projektet inleddes med en förstudie innehållande marknadsundersökning, befintliga produkter och andra lösningar, ny teknik, ergonomiska aspekter samt framtiden för TV-spelandet. Därefter startade idégenereringsprocessen. För att få fram en stor variation av förslag användes flera olika kreativa metoder.

Syftet med utvärderingen var att ta reda på vad besökarna tyckte om tidningshallen på Umeå stadsbibliotek. Besökarna fick i en enkät svara på frågor om belysning, ljudnivå, möbler och utbud. De fick även svara på om de använde datorerna i tidningshallen och vilka dagstidningar de läst.Resultatet visar att besökarna överlag är nöjda med tidningshallen. Mest nöjda är de med belysningen och utbudet av tidningar och minst nöjda med ljudnivån. Vid undersökningstillfället pågick byggnadsarbete på andra sidan gatan vilket i hög grad påverkade ljudnivån.

It is widely recognized that the town of Södertälje, a small Swedish town of 85 000 inhabitants, has alone received more war refugees from Iraq than the US and Canada have put together. Whilst writing this thesis had nearly 6000 Iraqi refugees sought their way to Södertälje since the US invasion in Iraq 2003.Nevertheless, life is not what the media and the government retail. Six of these Iraqi refugees who resided in Södertälje share their life stories in the following thesis. They discuss their escape from Iraq and the difficulties of living in the segregated parts of Södertälje where they solely speak Arabic and Assyrian, whilst learning Swedish at sfi (Svenska för invandrare, Swedish for immigrants). Another distress is related to the unsecure future in Sweden waiting ahead.      The aim of this thesis is to engage in, and highlight the studies of six sfi-students in their endeavor to learn Swedish, whilst struggling through Swedish bureaucracy and experiencing despair due to their situation and uncertain future.       .

The aim of this study is to describe the market for Digital Signage in Sweden and give the reader an increased insight and understanding of the problems that suppliers and buyers of Digital Signage may encounter. The study is abductive and based on a number of qualitative interviews with representatives from potential buyers, an existing user, a supplier and a number of companies with insight into Digital Signage. Our findings show that the companies in this study have not yet reached the stage of being ready to invest in a system for Digital Signage, since the effects on for instance increased sales and potential savings on marketing communication have not yet been clearly proven. Furthermore the study shows that it is important that a supplier has a fundamental understanding of the business model of the buyer. In addition to this, service, support and IT-related issues are of great importance for the potential buyers.

I ett litet företag finns en risk att ledningen fokuserar så mycket på kärnverksamheten att övriga administrativa verksamheter åsidosätts. Exempelvis finns det risk att företaget inte har full kontroll på sina lager.Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att beskriva och analysera värderingen och styrningen av lagret hos ett litet handelsföretag med butik och i förekommande fall ge förbättringsförslag.Vi har dels studerat lagar och rekommendationer avseende hantering av lager samt litteratur inom området lagerstyrning i handelsföretag. Dessutom har vi intervjuat företrädare för ett typiskt litet handelsföretag.Det undersökta företaget uppfyller gällande lagar och rekommendationer, men inte så mycket mer. Vidare använder sig företaget mestadels av känsla och erfarenhet i sin lagerstyrning. Förtaget använder alltså inte formella analyser och metoder i någon större utsträckning, om ens någon.

This thesis describes how large Swedish companies finance their debt and identifies some factors that affect their decisions. The study is based on 10 well-known companies of which 9 are listed on Nasdaq OMX Nordic. The results show that the companies display several similarities concerning their debt structure and the factors which their choices are based upon. All companies in this study primarily use corporate bonds for their long-term borrowing, commercial papers for the short-term borrowing, and bank-facilities as back-up. There is a tendency that smaller companies in larger extent use bank-loans for long-term borrowing due to larger emissions costs when using market financing.

Det har blivit allt vanligare att vi idag använder våra mobila enheter till att besöka webben. I detta examensarbete undersöks vilka centrala designprinciper en designer bör eftersträva när avsikten är att förenkla användningen av en webbplats i en statisk och en rörlig situation via den mobila enheten. Examensarbetet innefattar en litteraturgenomgång, observationsintervjuer vid två tillfällen och en prototyputveckling. Det första intervjutillfället identifierade de grundläggande designprinciperna som sedan stod till grund för prototypen. Det andra intervjutillfället genomfördes mot prototypen med samma individer.

Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ??them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops.Using Sharpe?s, Treynor?s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds.

The Swedish consumer electronic industry has recently experienced an increasingly intensive price war. The price war has forced some operators in the business to declare bankruptcy, as the only way to compete has been by driving down prices. A challenge that retail chains in the consumer electronics industry is facing is to increase their margins. If store personnel can success with upselling, the companies will increase their profits. The purpose of this paper is to examine if the sales people in the consumer electronic industry can influence the customer to buy a more expensive product and what the effects the upselling has on the customers' attitudes.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how users at four public libraries experience the alternative shelf arrangement in their library. The purpose of introducing an alternative shelf arrangement in a public library is often to facilitate for its users. In each of our chosen libraries, the librarians have arranged the books in the non-fiction section in broad themes, with the Swedish Library Association Classification System as subsections. Using qualitative interviews, we examined a total of 26 users? experience of the shelf arrangement and its accessibility, their methods for seeking information and their opinion about the presentation of the books.

This master thesis was performed at IdaInfront AB. The aim of the thesis was toinvestigate how the design principles ofthe user interface in Windows 8 can beapplied to a case management system. Theuser interface in Windows 8 is based ona design language called Metro and it isprimarily designed for touch screens.Ida Infront AB wanted to know whatpossibilities and limitations the Metrointerface offers.The study has resulted in a prototypeapplication that is developed in Windows8. The prototype shows how the Metrointerface can be applied on a casemanagement system. Some limitations inthe usability have been identified inthe Metro interface when applied to acase management system.

Andelen som arbetar vid bildskärm fördubblades i Sverige mellan 1989-1999, vilket har medfört en växande oro över en ökad risk för muskuloskeletala besvär. Syfte: förändrade ergonomisk anpassning respektive progressiv avspännig symptombilden i nack- och skulderregionen hos datorarbetare. Metod: 16 personer med mer än ett års datorvana och som arbetade i Boden deltog i projektet. Som utvärderingsinstrument användes ett frågeformulär som besvarades före och efter en interventionsperiod på fem veckor. Deskriptiv databehandling.