Abstract: The fashion industry is perhaps the most unpredictable one where change occurs very rapidly. In order to be attractive and interesting in this competitive industry, a brand must constantly be up to date and differentiated from other brands to attract the consumers. This has given rise to an increasing growth of brands that cooperate for marketing reasons and more specifically, clothing Retailers that perform designer collaborations with exclusive designers to create limited collections.Studies describing the effects of those collaborations on the Retailers brands are rare and especially from a consumer perspective. Since H&M has been a pioneer in designer collaborations and has done it more times and for more years than any other retailer we have conducted our study on their case. Our intention was to investigate how the designer collaborations have affected the brand equity and image of H&M, if the collaborations have increased the willingness to pay for H&M's other ranges and if they have affected H&M's ability to extend its brand to higher price segments, through an experimental study.

Every year 67000 tons of food is wasted by Swedish retail stores. The waste implies financial losses for the retailer and it has a huge impact on the global environment. Reducing in-store food waste is thus a win-win situation for both Retailers and society. The most effective way to reduce waste is primarily by optimizing the logistics of supply, but customers expect a store with a wide range of products and stuffed shelves. Thus there will always be products about to expire.

Oscar Jacobson was founded in 1903 in Sweden, which at the timewas a leading country in the textile industry. During the 1960s morecompetitors arose as the fashion industry grew stronger and theglobalization became a fact. Today there is an abundance of brandsand products in the fashion- and textile industry. This has given thecustomers a greater range of products to choose from. We can seetendencies of customer not being as brand loyal as they used to.

Purpose: The study aims to increase knowledge of dealers' purchasing behavior of impulse goods in wholesale trade.Methodology: An exploratory survey method has been selected in order to investigate the relatively unexplored topic; buyer behavior of impulse goods in the wholesale. Data has been collected through interview of 27 dealers that conduct business with bulk confectionery sales across Sweden. A semi-structured interview technique has been selected, with a predetermined interview schedule but with space for follow-up questions and discussion.Conclusion: The background to this work argued that there is not much research on how Retailers reasons when buying convenience products, or also called as impulse items. It is usually the sale of goods such as several of the informants believe is critical to their business existence. Impulse goods which do not require any effort, has little search time and usually are cheap and suits many customers pockets.

Recently, Retailers within the Swedish grocery retail sector have launched lines of products under its own brand, quite often produced by manufactures within the same category of products. The common term of this phenomenon is called private labels. Therefore, private labels could be seen as competitors against branded goods, despite the fact that it is, in several cases, the same manufacturer who produces each of the products.The main purpose of this study is to provide understanding of how the manufacturers choose to position themselves, formulate their strategies and compete on the market among private labels, also to examine the motive behind the manufacturer's choice to produce private labels. The study intends to provide a broader view of how the interaction between manufacturers, Retailers, private labels and branded goods appears on the Swedish market. We decided to use a qualitative research method and personal interviews to approach the study.

Smartphone applications, or apps, are an increasingly important part of omnichannel retailing. While the adoption and usage of apps for communicating with consumers has grown exponentially over the past few years, there is little academic research in this area. The primary purpose of this thesis is to describe how the involvement in a product category affects consumers' intention to use a retailer-branded smartphone application during their shopping trip. Drawing upon recent IS-literature with models TAM and UTAUT, our results indicate that product category involvement constitutes an important factor on the intention to use a retailer-branded smartphone application. By viewing involvement as a multidimensional construct, our study shows that the degree of hedonic and expressive value a product cateogry provides consumers with has important effects on intention, and these relationships are not moderated by consumers' age.

A purchase decision can be seen as a multifaceted context that raises many unanswered questions. Understanding the consumer's evaluation of alternatives is complex and should be studied at a deeper rather than wider scale. There is a problem for Retailers to understand how the consumer manages a purchase decision in a retail setting with durables goods that generates a higher effort. The aim is to describe the decision rules used by the consumer and how they are expressed in this context. A better understanding of which ones they use and how they are conveyed will help Retailers to create effective marketing solutions that generate positive outcomes as increased profitability and customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this master thesis is to understand how busy moms experience their grocery shopping trips and the in-store environment. In gaining this knowledge, we aim at being able to suggest ways to improve the grocery shopping experience of busy moms; and present insights that can help food Retailers in targeting this consumer group in-store. Methodology: We use an iterative approach, and work with photo elicitation interviews. We let our respondents capture their experiences in photographs, which then aid in recalling their memories in follow up interviews. Theoretical perspective: We base our theoretical perspective on environmental psychology where we use the original M-R model, and include personal and situational variables suggested by Bäckström and Johansson (2006); where the latter variable includes the views by Turley and Milliman (2000).

Over the past decade, the fashion industry has experienced a relatively high rate of consumption with material and clothing becoming increasingly subject to waste and disposal. As a result of the increased awareness within the industry the interest in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) amongst Retailers has increased substantially in an attempt to shy away from the critically amplified media attention. In addition the underlying demand from external stakeholders has forced companies to ensure they focus and act upon each stage of the product life cycle.This study provides a further in depth analysis of the fashion industry and conveys the key messages and steps that firms are taking in response to the external pressures and requirements based on four different merged process areas. This research paper examines the impact of CSR on two Swedish fashion Retailers Åhléns and JC and shows how accountability relates to the external expectations and norms that prevail in society. The result shows that the firms do meet the demands within each sub category as a response to market demands.

The technological development and increasing popularity for integrated multichannel solutions constitutes both severe opportunities and challenges for todays' and tomorrows' Retailers. On the account of consumers leaving traces when using digital channels and the technological development enabling Retailers to use this information to create relevant offers, goal-congruity is relevant to apply in the multichannel shopping context. Based upon previous research on goal congruity and channel integration, our main purpose in this study is to increase the understanding for how congruity in an offer increases the intention to redeem the offer. Several studies focus on and contrast the product characteristics hedonic and utilitarian. However, it has been stated that it is crucial that research also examines the difference in target audience, buying situation and as examined in this study: buying decision process.

The matter of CSR and sustainable products has gained an increased amount of interest in recent years as "green products" are becoming a trend with more "eco"-alternatives in the assortment of many Retailers. However, among the increasing number of socially oriented customers, it seems that although they claim an increased demand for these kind of products, its easier to "talk the talk" that to actually "walk the walk". This is due to a discrepancy between attitude and behavior, called the attitude-behavior gap. The purpose of this paper is to examine how to overcome this gap by using three different studies to get a nuanced and reality-based view of the problem. The focus within these different studies is on the potential effects inside the store and how information provided has an effect on perceived credibility and purchase intention.

Bokakademin i Östergötland AB möter framtiden ? En studie av studenters köpbeteende vad gäller kurslitteratur och ett förslag på marknadsföringsstrategi för Bokakademin (Bokakademin i Östergötland AB meets the future ? A study of students? purchasing behaviour regarding textbooks and a proposal for a marketing strategy for Bokakademin)Authors: Fabian Hamnqvist and Emma SvenssonBachelor?s thesis in business administration Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, 2013 Supervisor: Mehran NoghabaiAbstractThis paper examines the competition arising from online textbook Retailers met by physical college bookstores. The paper examines the implications of college students' purchasing behaviour when buying textbooks, how a specific corporate clientele is composed and the purchasing habits of these customers to the specific company in question. The company used as a practical example is a bookstore located on a university campus of Linköping University in Sweden. Data have been collected using a paper and pen survey of 200 students from Linköping University as well as conducting interviews with eight students and the Managing Director of the company in question.

Lindex has a strong fashion position and is one of northern Europe's leading fashion Retailers. Unfortunately their logotype no longer measures up to the fashion level that is required. Surveys and interviews have been conducted with employees at Lindex, disscusing their logotype. I have come to the conclusion that what is needed from Lindex side is strict guidlines for the employees to follow so that all information from Lindex to their customers is made with a great touch of fashion to it and in a coherent way..

Mulesing is a surgical husbandry procedure performed on lambs in Australia. The reason is toprevent severe fly-strike to the breech area, which otherwise risks to be soiled with faeces.This problem is mainly occurring in sheep of the Merino breed. Their fine wool is in demandworldwide due to high quality. Mulesing has been performed since the 1930?s, and eventhough alternative methods have been discussed nothing is yet generally accepted.

Assessing the outcome of corporate responsibility is often argued to be complicated due to long-term effects and qualitative aspects. Epstein (2008, p.261) establishes that: ?Though many think that sustainability is too difficult to measure, companies have found that unless the impacts are measured, they are commonly ignored in the resource allocation process?. Corporate responsibility is often referred to as a business case, i.e., that social and environmental concern add value to the business (Heikkurinen, 2010; Porter & van der Linde, 1995). Hence, for corporate responsibility to be a business case a strategy, corporate structure and systems, programmes and actions linked to performance measures need to be in place to assess the outcome; environmental, social as well as financial.