User Value Identification Based on Improved RFM Model and K -Means++ Algorithm for Complex Data Analysis

In recent years, with the development of machine learning and big data technology, user data has become an important element in the production process of enterprises. For today’s e-commerce platforms, the deep mining of user’s purchase behavior is helpful to understand user’s purchase preferences and accurately recommend products that meet user expectations, which can not only improve user satisfaction but also reduce platform marketing cost. To accurately identify the user value of online purchasing on an e-commerce platform, this paper uses an improved RFM model to extract user features and uses the K -means++ clustering algorithm to realize user classification. The indicators of the traditional RFM model characterize user features from three angles: recent purchase time ( R ), purchase frequency ( F ), and total consumption amount ( M ). The user group and scenarios studied in this paper are different from the previous literature: (1) the user group is relatively fixed, (2) the consumer goods are relatively single, and (3) the characteristics of repeated purchase are obvious. Therefore, based on the existing literature, this paper extracts the user characteristics studied and improves and models the traditional indicators. Based on the real purchasing data from September to December 2018, it calculates the indicators that improved RFM, empowers the weight to indicators, and finally classifies the value of users by using the K -means++ algorithm. The experimental results show that the user classification based on the improved RFM model is more accurate than the user classification based on the traditional RFM model, and the improved RFM model can identify the user value more accurately, which provides a strong support for the e-commerce platform to realize the accurate marketing strategy based on big data.

The impact of customer behaviour on the corporate competitiveness in the European environment

Research background: Corporate competitiveness is closely connected with the competitive advantage. Contemporary developed European countries are characterised by being highly competitive. Thus, the competitive advantage is particularly bound by fulfilling the customer preferences and needs. However, there is a necessity to preserve and strengthen customer satisfaction and loyalty, in the long-run. Purpose of the article: In the current globalised world, there is apparent high pressure on the sustainable development of the whole society. This trend was shifted from the mere legislation scope to the society-wide discussion. However, the previous researches prove that this trend is not reflected in the real purchasing behaviour in Czechia. Thus, the main aim of this article is to explore the role of customer behaviour in the corporate competitiveness paradigm concerning the current trend of corporate social responsibility. Methods: Primary quantitative research is based on a questionnaire survey with Czech managers at the top and middle level. The data collection was conducted from April to June 2021 via personal interviewing. The questionnaire contained mainly close-ended questions. However, if it was relevant there were also used additional open-ended questions for a closer explanation of the question point. Findings & Value added: The results indicate that the Czech business mostly perceives as a key factor of corporate competitiveness innovation potential, not direct relationships with customers. However, this factor has a significant indirect connection with customer satisfaction. CSR has the lowest impact on corporate competitiveness according to the respondents. However, they predicate the upward trend of this factor, similar to the global environment.

Green Marketing: The Environmentally-Friendly Attributes of Products and Decision to Purchase

Research background: Currently the degradation of the environment which consumers contribute to is an important problem. Purchase behavior plays a key role as it is associated with the choice of products by consumers who are increasingly taking into account environmentally-friendly criteria. The effective implementation of marketing strategies that take into account the principles of sustainable development is possible under the condition of changes in the behavior of purchasers. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of environmentally-friendly attributes for product purchasers. Research methodology: The research was conducted among 650 Polish consumers. An online survey method was applied. Results: The study confirms that environmentally-friendly attributes do not play a primary role while choosing products. Hedonic, health and economic benefits take place before environmental benefits. For women, eco-friendly attributes were more important when choosing products, while men were more driven by economic and functional benefits. Young people are hedonists guided by taste and aesthetics, and they do not pay much attention to the environmentally-friendly attributes of products. In turn, older respondents are economical and pragmatic buyers for whom energy efficiency and product durability are of particular importance. Novelty: The research adds the value as for understanding the phenomenon of the green purchase gap, especially in developing countries where positive attitudes towards green products are not translated into real purchasing behavior. The research quotes some implication for marketing, especially for marketing communication strategies.

Effects of Reduced-Nicotine Cigarettes Across Regulatory Environments in the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace: A Randomized Trial

Introduction Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Recent efforts have explored the potential health and policy benefits of reducing nicotine, an addictive component, in combustible cigarettes. To date, an experimental, prospective analysis directly comparing the effects of varying regulatory environments on purchases of multiple products has yet to be conducted. The present study compared real purchasing of conventional cigarettes, reduced-nicotine cigarettes, and a variety of other nicotine and tobacco products across a range of regulatory environments. Methods Participants were assigned to one of five groups, each associated with a different nicotine level (mg of nicotine to g of tobacco) in SPECTRUM investigational cigarettes (15.8mg/g, 5.2mg/g, 2.4mg/g, 1.3mg/g, and 0.4mg/g). Across sessions, participants made real purchases for nicotine/tobacco products in an Experimental Tobacco Marketplace. Each session corresponded with a distinct regulatory environment wherein different nicotine/tobacco products were available for purchase. Results Our results suggest that the primary drivers of cigarette and nicotine purchasing are regulatory environment and the presence/absence of alternative nicotine and tobacco products. Perhaps surprisingly, nicotine level does not appear to be such a driver of purchasing behavior under these experimental conditions. Investigational cigarette purchasing is lowest when other preferred combustible products are available and highest when investigational cigarettes are the only combustible product available for purchase. Conclusions If a reduced-nicotine policy is implemented, great care should be taken in determining and making available less harmful nicotine/tobacco products as the availability of preferred combustible products may result in undesirable levels of purchasing. Implications This is the first experimental study investigating different potential regulatory effects related to a reduced-nicotine policy by examining purchasing across a range of nicotine/tobacco products. Our results suggest the presence of affordable, highly preferred combustible products is likely to maintain tobacco purchasing at undesirable levels. To promote switching to less harmful products, affordable alternate nicotine and tobacco products should be readily available. Finally, our results suggest availability of noncigarette products, not cigarette nicotine level, will most likely affect purchasing of reduced-nicotine cigarettes.

Funny Money: Philanthropic Giving and the Money Illusion

This study argues that the size of philanthropic gifts is affected by donors’ perception of the value of their money. The essay examines aggregate giving to Bread for the World in former East Germany before and after two currency reforms and shows that decades of overvaluing the West German Deutschmark led East Germans to give less after the first currency reform while the second currency reform did not lead to such a drop off. The essay employs East German jokes to illustrate popular views of both East and West German currency that developed over time. It indicates that East Germans developed a perceived value of money separate from its real purchasing power, which affected their philanthropic donations. These findings are applicable to small and large philanthropic gifts, especially across currencies, as in international giving.

Are Housing Prices Associated with Food Consumption?

Objective: Since January 2010, the U.S. has experienced economic recovery, including a 39% increase in home prices nationally. While higher home prices represent a wealth increase for some homeowners, it may decrease real purchasing power for others. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between local area housing values and consumption of four food categories. Design: Observational study using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System between 2011 and 2015. Outcomes included number of times per week food was consumed and binary measures denoting consumption ≥2 times per day for four categories: vegetables, fruit, legumes and fruit juice. The primary explanatory variables were metropolitan/micropolitan statistical area home and rental price indices from Zillow. Differential associations by home ownership, age, race/ethnicity and education were examined. Results: Overall, housing values were not associated with intake of vegetables or fruit juice. Among homeowners, a $10,000 increase in home price was associated with small, but statistically significant reductions in fruit and legume consumption. These inverse associations were pronounced among Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black adults. Conclusions: Lower fruit and legume consumption associated with greater housing values may represent one of several explanations including a decrease in purchasing power, given increases in home prices and limited wage growth since 2010.

Peraturan dan Pengendalian: Menjelaskan Penurunan Produksi Pangan di Jawa 1940-1946 dan Kelaparan 1944-1945

The paper discusses the major reasons for the drop in food production in Java during the period of Japanese occupation. Statistics on the acreage and production of six main foodstuff during the year 1940-1946 showed significant reduction of food production in Java after 1942. This reduction is explained as the result of several physical limitation to the production and marketing process of foodstuff. The article explicate several other factors that added to the principal reason for the fall in food production after 1942. The principal reason is laid on the control system of the Javanese rice economy that had reduced the real purchasing price of grain. This resulted in little incentive for peasants to pursue surplus production outside of their household subsistence needs. The only incentive was a negative incentive of forced deliveries.

GLOBAL BUSINESS NETWORK: OFF-SHORE MODEL’S DIVERSIFICATION AND IMPACT

Modern literature lacks systematization and assessment of impact of network of international corporations and their off-shore models on development of national economies in post-industrial times. There is variety of tools besides well-known multinational corporate accounting policies and strategies of MNCs that provide mechanism for the management of transaction costs in reporting period, thus reducing the amount of taxable profit due to application of the method of accelerated depreciation and channels of tax deferrals, which allow to reduce corporate tax payments owing to the objective reduction of real purchasing power of money over time. The purpose of the article is to propose in-depth systematization of balanced pros and cons for further development of national FDI policies aimed at network of MNCs. The paper utilizes a compound methodology of review and systematization to calculate overall impact of offshoring that exceeds 1% of global GDP. While modern financial and economic activities of MNC’s distinguish both internal and external offshoring, the paper focuses upon endogenous one. The key attention is on dominant ones – tax inversion phenomenon is known as base erosion and profit shifting, tax planning strategies, international debt shifting, models of tax treaty shopping, tax deferral, tax hybrids, strategic transfer pricing tools. In business and financial management MNCs resort to the development of extremely complex network structures of parent and subsidiary companies in order to increase international competitive advantages. MNCs make special efforts to recruit staff capable of effectively performing key functions in the field of corporate offshoring. We find huge regional asymmetries in MNCs impact on development of national economies. On one hand, a number of highly profitable corporations pay almost zero tax in favour of their countries of registration; on the other, MNCs create jobs, markets, volumes and asymmetries of geographical structure of differences in the value of goods and services supplied through international trade between developing and developed countries due to enormous scale of business offshoring.

ANALYSIS OF THE MAIN DETERMINANTS OF THE RUSSIAN CONSUMERS’ CURRENT MOOD

The socio-psychological phenomenon “consumer mood”, which is interpreted as an emotional and evaluative summary of the subjective understanding of the individual of various information elements that form the semantic structure of his implicit theory of consumption, has been investigated. A hypothesis has been put forward that the formation of the semantic field of the implicit theory of consumption of an individual is based on two system-forming factors: 1) the real purchasing power of the consumer, 2) the dynamics of his socio-economic status. In the event that both factors have negative actual indicators, the mood of consumer will be characterized by a negative emotional tone and high stability over time. The proposed hypothesis is confirmed by the revealing and analysis of the main determinants of the current mood of Russian consumers, and their subsequent comparison with the consumer sentiment index, identificated empirically.