| Abstract: | Department store’s revenue is one of economic growth index in Taiwan. In recent years, Taiwan department stores face the challenges from international environment change and competition within the industry, they must not only adjust their strategies to meet consumer’s needs and wants but also try to maintain or increase the main revenue from the related companies.
Relationship marketing has become the most important topic in theory and practices. Many researches pay more attention to long-tern business–to-business relationships, and relationship commitment has been the core element of relationship marketing. In general, the most revenue of department stores is from the products that supplied by the apparel company, therefore, relationship commitment for department stores to apparel company will be more important than the past.
This study aggregated results of some researches and found there are 11 determining factors that may influence relationship commitment, and use depth interviews which asking 6 senior managers who work for Taiwan famous department stores. The main purpose of this study is to know the priority of what factors may impact the relationship commitment for department stores to apparel company. The results of the analysis are as follows.
1. The most important impact factor is relationship benefit. Especially, department store that has large chain may focus on revenue, department has only one store may focus on apparel company’s brand.
2. No matter the differences from the organizational level of manager in department stores or from the competitive position of department stores in the industry, all interviewers expressed that the top three impact factors of relationship commitment for department stores to apparel company are relationship benefit, reputation, and relative performance. That means department store’s manager perceived the more relationship benefit, reputation, and relative performance, they commit to the apparel company more.
3. In general, managers illustrated that the priority of 11 impact factors of relationship commitment for department stores to apparel company are relationship benefit, reputation, relative performance, trust, satisfaction, relationship/transaction specific investment, alternatives, communication, and length of relationship. The less important factors are relationship conflict and opportunism.
4. This study also found some other factors, such as the location and culture of the department stores existed, these factors also may impact relationship commitment for department stores to apparel company. |
