Lowering consumers’ perceived risk of shopping color cosmetics online

This paper aims to to analyze how to lower the consumers’ perceived risk of shopping color cosmetics online by focusing on product presentation and its visual and informational aspect. Interviews were conducted and research on established concepts in online consumer shopping behavior was performed. A comparison between cosmetics- and fashion retailers’ sites was performed as well as some additional research on new technologies. Finally, suggestions of how to update the way of presenting color cosmetics online were found. There are several new tools available to help consumers shopping color cosmetics online, not to mention other practical nontechnical solutions

Social Media, Halal Marketing and Consumer Behavior (Study in Fashion and Cosmetic Product)

Consumers have become more sensitive to what they consume. Comprehensive information search and more accessible information acquisition will make it easier for consumers to make decisions. Social media is a supporting aspect for consumers in making decisions. Social media, which was previously used for personal communication, has now been used for communication in the broader business realm and plays a role as one of the supporters in the halal marketing process. The use of social media in marketing helps producers or sellers inform that the products being sold are halal products for Muslim consumers. Through social media, consumers can also easily obtain detailed information about a product before consumers make purchasing decisions. Halal marketing has become phenomenal in recent years because several products not in the form of food products have been branded as halal products. Products that are pioneers in halal branding include fashion and cosmetic products. This effort has altered the view that halal products are only limited to food products. This study used an interview method with 106 samples of productive age from several districts and cities in South Sulawesi Province. The results showed that 80% of the sample wanted cosmetic products to be halal to make purchasing decisions. In contrast, for fashion products, only 30% of the samples required the product to be halal to make a purchase decision

eBay users form stable groups of common interest

Market segmentation of an online auction site is studied by analyzing the users' bidding behavior. The distribution of user activity is investigated and a network of bidders connected by common interest in individual articles is constructed. The network's cluster structure corresponds to the main user groups according to common interest, exhibiting hierarchy and overlap. Key feature of the analysis is its independence of any similarity measure between the articles offered on eBay, as such a measure would only introduce bias in the analysis. Results are compared to null models based on random networks and clusters are validated and interpreted using the taxonomic classifications of eBay categories. We find clear-cut and coherent interest profiles for the bidders in each cluster. The interest profiles of bidder groups are compared to the classification of articles actually bought by these users during the time span 6-9 months after the initial grouping. The interest profiles discovered remain stable, indicating typical interest profiles in society. Our results show how network theory can be applied successfully to problems of market segmentation and sociological milieu studies with sparse, high dimensional data.Comment: Major revision of the manuscript. Methodological improvements and inclusion of analysis of temporal development of user interests. 19 pages, 12 figures, 5 table

Ethical Judgments of Sexual Appeals in Advertising Image - Based Products to Teens

The use of sexual appeals in advertising is increasingly prevalent in the United States. Perhaps the use is in response to the preponderance of advertisements in everyday life. The advertisements most often featuring such appeals are for image-based products. Actual images in ads can often convey emotions powerfully, which may explain the frequent use in marketing image-based products. These products include: candy, liquor, cigarettes, jewelry, fragrance, cosmetics and fashion goods. It is advertisements for products such as, but not limited to these, that often use sexual appeals. The use of such appeals is constantly scrutinized in terms of ethics, regardless of the target audience. Considerable research has been done on ethics in marketing, partly because marketing is the business function most often charged with unethical practices. Ethical judgments are subjective and complex, and deal with cultural norms. Yet, there is another dimension of ethical questions when sexual appeals are used to promote products to teens. Teens (12 – 17 year olds) are an increasingly attractive market segment for advertisers, as their disposable incomes are growing. Also, teens have an ability to influence the purchase decisions of their parents and friends, and often develop a brand loyalty, which continues into adulthood. Sexual appeals have the ability to get the attention of teens, and may help to sell products to that market segment. In an effort to quantitatively analyze the ways that sexual appeals are used in media targeting teens, I performed a content analysis. Magazines were used because of their clear targeting from a marketing standpoint: with a wide variety of titles, across large demographics, advertisers can use magazines to hone in on their target market. Using the Media Research Inc. (MRI) database, which compiles magazine readership statistics much like ACNielsen publishes television viewership, I selected magazines with comparatively high teen readership. 600 advertisements in eight leading magazines that reach teens were reviewed: four publications targeted at females and four with high teen male readership were selected. The results were analyzed in conjunction with the ethical questions about the use of sexual appeals. While 20% of the ads used a form of sexual appeal, they tended to use light innuendo, humor, and degree of fantasy that create a disconnect with real sexual behavior. Only 0.7% of all the advertisements showed models engaging in erotic behavior. Because there is virtually no pornographic or offensive content, these ads will continue to be used to sell products to teens. Advertisers are currently protected under the interpretation of the Constitution’s free speech first amendment as commercial speech. However, the influence of consumer watchdog groups in this country has proven their effectiveness in the past, and will continue to play a role in marketing responsibility

Preloved Shopping

Online shopping has become part of public shopping activities, through social media such as Facebook, Instagram, etc., with various shopping convenience. Since the rise of online businesses, Instagram is one of the most popular shopping media, both for new and preloved goods. While a number of existing literatures concentrate on online shopping with various new items, little if any deals with preloved shopping with specific items, focusing on its management. This article fills this gap. This study was conducted on social media Instagram on preloved goods seller accounts through which preloved goods are sold. The informants in this study were female sellers and buyers of preloved goods, as they are the dominant preloved sellers and buyers, particularly cosmetics and fashion. There were 11 women participated in this study, they are varied based on age (between 19 and 25 years), occupation (six female students, a celebgram, entrepreneur, influencer, and barista respectively), and status (six buyers and five owners who at the same time act as administration staff (admin). The study indicates that cosmetics and fashions are two types of preloved item which are popularly sold and bought in Instagram. Although used goods are very diverse, the term preloved is used limitedly, and used products such as cosmetics and fashion are included as preloved items. Among other preloved items in Instagram, cosmetics (such as make up and skin care) and fashion (such as bags, shoes, assesories, clothes) are the most popular items. Reduced price (“harga miring”), brand (merek), and trying out (coba-coba) are three main reasons why women buy preloved cosmetics; while brand (merek), style (model), reduced price (“harga miring”), and quality are four main reasons why preloved fashion are bought. In addition, brands and "reduced prices" are two reasons that intersect between preloved cosmetics and fashion, and quality is always related to price, as it is with brands, which show that some factors are interrelated to one another. However, each type of goods has its own unique reasons why it is bought. For preloved cosmetics sellers, selling preloved goods is to make cosmetics available for use before the expired date. As for preloved fashion sellers, the fashion goods are sold because they are rarely used or are not use at all. Both cosmetics and fashions sellers have common reason to sell preloved items, that is to make money from used goods instead of being left useless. There are two types of preloved account in Instagram. They are special account and private account. Special account is divided into two, namely celebgram and non-celebgram accounts. Celebgram account consists of self-managed accounts, managed in groups, and managed by administrative staff (admin). Non-celebgram account consists of individual account and group account. In addition, private account is an inseparable account between a personal account and preloved sales account. Most accounts are managed by its owners who are at the same time act as administration staff, except one type of celebgram account. Group account manages their account by division of labour system. In promoting existing items, they use a variety of strategies, ranging from using other’s accounts which have many followers, packaged promotion, discounting, to using celebgram services

Visuality, Consumerism, and the New Woman: Gordon Browne\u27s Illustrations for THE SORCERESS OF THE STRAND

Gordon Browne’s illustrations for L. T. Meade’s The Sorceress of the Strand feature visual repetition of illuminated, exposed female victims and a shadowed, observing male detective to reflect cultural stereotypes of women as both beauty-obsessed consumers and beautiful objects of visual consumption. By mirroring these stereotypes, the illustrations interact with and reveal the consumeristic villainy behind another visual element of the Strand: its advertisements, which use images of women’s bodies to sell merchandise and turn female readers’ attention to their own physical deficiencies. Depictions of the detective’s scrutinizing gaze invite consideration of the Strand’s relationship with its female audience within this consumeristic context. At the same time, Browne’s depictions of Madame Sara and Helen Sherwood complicate the serial’s implicit argument about women’s status as passive consumers by both revealing the perils of obsessive beauty culture and encouraging women readers to resist objectification within consumer culture by turning their own critical gaze upon it

Modernity, femininity and Hollywood fashions: women's cinephilia in 1930s French fan magazines

My broad aim in this article is to explore the reception of Hollywood fashions in French mass circulation film magazines of the 1930s as it intersects with specific ideals of modernity, femininity and national identity. These magazines allow for a case study exploring the nexus between the global and the local in the construction of particular models of modern femininity in consumer culture. I want to suggest that these publications offered a key site for French women’s negotiation of modernity and were a key locus of a popular, feminine cinephilia neglected in existing accounts of cinephilia

The Ugly Truth About Appearance Discrimination and the Beauty of Our Employment Discrimination Law

The keynote speaker for the conference begins by reminding the audience that a mere quarter of a century earlier there was no federal law that expressly prohibited discrimination in employment based on physical appearance. Considering the difficulty of crafting and enacting an appearance-based employment discrimination law should lead to a fuller appreciation of not only our employment discrimination laws generally, but also the Americans with Disabilities Act specifically

Entrepreneurship and the development of global brands

Over the course of the twentieth century, entrepreneurs developed a number of successful global brands in consumer-goods industries. However, few independent brands survived the merger waves of the 1980s. To address the question of why so few independent brands survived, this paper examines successful brands in industries that rely principally on advertising for competitive success. Successful consumer-goods brands in several industries and countries are compared in order to highlight innovative strategies pursued by brand managers. The analyzed brands are mainly owned by Europeans, although a few examples of American and Japanese brands are covered as well