Background: The business market today is characterized by tough competition amongst the competitors to capture consumers? interest and money. One marketing tool companies can use to achieve this is the company?s image. The customer buys not only a product, but also the image that the company or the product is associated with.

The thesis tries to answer how a combination of financial metrics and marketing metrics can improve strategic decision making. The purpose is to develop a strategic working method for general dealers. The method is based on the two theoretical frameworks "The strategic resource model" and "The importance-performance matrix". The suggested method is being tested in a small retail store environment on the Swedish market. The result of the test shows that a better suited strategy can be developed when this strategic method, which combines financial metrics with marketing metrics, is being used.

Companies spend huge amounts on communicating their brand through marketing. Many of these contact areas where the consumer comes in contact with the brand is con-trolled by the company. The brand image is also affected from outside the company. It can be from users, media, blogs etc.Burberry is an example of a company that got in trouble with their brand image after hooligans where associated with their products. If a company with a brand with a strong image is associated whith consumers that are not compatible with the target group the company wants, there is a risk of a negative affect on the brand image.Our purpose is to investigate and describe the phenomenom when a company brandimage is affected by being associated whith consumers not compatable whith, by the company, intended target group.We have chosen a qualitative research where we use a multiple case study.

With Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 8, a new type of applications were introduced, Windows Store Apps. These applications must meet certain requirements in order to be uploaded to Windows own store for apps. There are also guidelines to follow. The requirements and guidelines include appearance and functionality, such as a common search function in the applications to contribute to a more unified experience. How does these requirements and guidelines influence developers? Whether the development of the Windows Store Apps gets more difficult, or perhaps even simpler, is studied and evaluated in this report.

Body image is a term that refers to a person?s feelings and attitudes toward his or her body. There are many different factors that influence a person?s body image: historical, cultural, social, biological and individual. The purpose of this study was to investigate young Indian women?s body image in India from a cultural perspective.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine if POC manage to keep cohort interplay between their identity and image.Theoretical framework: This paper is led from theories in area about communicating identity and image. The theories that are relevant to this paper to see the interplay between identity and image is communication theory and brand theories based on associations. From these theories we have composed a model that shows the communication led from identity throughout image in company?s with many distribution channels. It shows what associations that build identity and image and also the complication and threat that the interplay is being exposed to.Methodology: We have chosen to do this examination as a case study.

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.

In this day and age we carry out our purchases through different channels. We can shop our clothes and computers in a store or online. Nowadays we can even purchase our groceries through the Internet. The biggest retailer chains within groceries in Sweden have established virtual stores online and are distributing the goods in cities throughout the country. This thesis is dedicated to investigating crucial success factors when going about selling groceries online.

Almost all people in Sweden have to visit a grocery store at some point, which are facing plenty of different kind of hygiene risks. They will face both employees and other customer - all of them are possible to give the innocent customer some kind of infection. Does the shopkeeper know this Maybe, maybe not. Nevertheless, there's a lot of work to do for a shopkeeper who wants to understand his customers. The shopkeeper needs to understand how to decrease the customers' risk perception, as well as how risk and media fits together.

The purpose of this study has been to create a communication plan to use at the launch of an independent fashion store and give a current storeowner an overall picture concerning which communication aspects to use during his ongoing business. To fulfill our purpose we have targeted one important question, which is:   Which communication fields are the most important to use, when you are about to launch an independent fashion store.  For this study we have used a qualitative approach in which we have conducted eleven personal interviews with people who has a strong understanding in communication regarding to this type of business. Most of our respondents are currently working actively with communication because they are active in retailing.The remaining respondent has a strong experience in the field of communication. In the final chapter we present our conclusions of the study. We have found the main factors in a communication plan, which is most important for a storeowner. Which are the most important communication parts for the owner to focus on before he launches the store? The basic need of knowledge in social mediaDevelop a unique concept to differentiate yourselfUnderstand the nature of networks and relationshipsThe relevance of store layout and sensory marketing which is an important tool when you need renewal and develop your concept.

A new visual identity for the ski store Alpingaraget in Stockholm has been proposed as the result of this thesis. Theproposal includes a new logotype, various printed matters, design planning of the store, interior design, signs and otherapplications.The theory section is within the field of graphic profiling and with some focus on profiling in stores.A clear visual identity is important for a company because what the company communicates internally and externallyshould be kept as consistent as possible. This is especially important nowadays when more and more similar products andstores are available. This means that the visual identity becomes part of the competition with other products and stores.The base elements in a visual identity are logotype, colors and typograpy. Using these elements according to rules andtemplates makes a consistent visual profile..

The market for fashion and interior consists of a large amount of retail chains, which together creates high competition. To be able to compete and to be the most obvious choice for the customers, retailers must review their activities that exist in the company and improve them. This concerns store chains since it is so important that the stores communicate the retailers strategy and it is very critical because of the impact that the stores have on the communication with customers. It is after all in the stores that the buying decision is made. With this information, it is important to strive for uniformity through the chain and especially the stores.

The consumer often chooses the store depending on the quality of the fruit and vegetable department. A study has proven that about half of the purchases in this department are impulsive. This gives the store a good possibility to influence the consumer?s behaviour in the fruit and vegetables department. Compared to other products, like pasta or rice, there are few brands represented in the f & v-department.

Today's consumer society has led to never-ending choices in terms of brands, products and prices in an endless variety of shops. The retail industry is a very complex industry that includes many different types of sales channels and many different types of products. A consequence of this trend is that brand owners today face difficulties in understanding how their products are being evaluated and difficulties in knowing which final cause that make a consumer willing to by their product is hard to figure out. The industry is very diversified, which means that for a company to really understand their position and their role on the market it requires that the company put a lot of effort and also a lot of money in the process of trying to figure it out. We will with this paper try to explain a small piece of that understanding and we hope to get results, which contribute to the further research in this area.

This study aims to explore how self scanning affects consumers impulse buying. Up til this day researchers are not aware how technologies like self scanning affects consumers behavior in-store. Consumers with self scanners are able to keep track of the rising sum, which could affect their buying behavior, especially when it comes to impulse purchase. Furthermore customers have to commit to scanning products which keep them from browsing the store for offers, which could limit the impulse buying. This study undertake a descriptive methodology with Beatty and Ferrells impuls model from 1998 as a theoretical platform where we examine disparities between self scanners and non self scanners.