The physically disabled South African female consumer’s problems in purchasing clothing

Physically disabled women today have to face the inconvenience of shopping for their own as well as their families’ clothes and the inability of finding fashionable clothes that fit any disability. A total of 40 physically disabled women between the ages of 21 years and 60 years were interviewed on the problems they experienced when shopping for fashionable clothes that fit their disabilities. A total of 40 clothing shops were observed to get information on the extent to which the shops cater for the needs of the physically disabled consumer. Results from the interviews showed that the majority of physically disabled female clothing consumers experienced major problems in finding fashionable clothes that fit their disabilities. It was also clear that these women experienced problems with unusable access routes, unsuitable parking lots, display racks that are too high, spaces between racks that are too narrow, inadequate space in fitting rooms and a lack of assistance in shops. The observations were compared with the complaints the women had and it was found that these women had not overestimated their problems.     

Expanding opportunities for online shoppers with disabilities

The Internet promises many opportunities for consumers who shop online. While prior studies identify problems with online access for persons with disabilities, research has not examined whether consumers with disabilities shop online similarly to persons who are not disabled. The study attempts to fill this gap in two unique ways. First, this paper specifically considers the frequency of online shopping, the amount spent, and reasons for shopping online among both disabled and non-disabled persons. In addition, the study groups persons with disabilities into six major categories according to disability type rather than aggregating into one general category. Telephone surveys of 1053 persons reveal both differences and similarities that suggest opportunities for improving online access and developing a richer understanding of the online shopping motivations and needs of persons with disabilities.     

It is about inclusion! Mining online reviews to understand the needs of adaptive clothing customers

The adaptive clothing market, which focuses on the inclusive design of clothing and footwear for people with varying degrees of disability, has grown substantially in recent years. However, few scholars have sought to understand the perspectives of online adaptive clothing consumers. This study employed topic modelling, sentiment analysis and collocation analysis to discover common themes and insights emerging from online customer reviews, scraped from a third-party review platform and three retailing web sites. We utilized customer value and functional, expressive and aesthetic theories to group the results from topic modelling into key themes. Clothing function is the most frequently discussed theme in online customer reviews, followed by customer service and clothing aesthetics. Collocation analysis revealed the cause underlying each theme vis-à-vis customer satisfaction (e.g., fit and material quality) and dissatisfaction (e.g., sewing defects and lost shipment). The findings contribute to understanding the clothing needs and wants of people living with disabilities. It also provides practical guidelines on product offerings and online service optimization for adaptive clothing retailers.     

Managing customer experiences in online product communities

Many companies have established online product communities or forums as a vehicle to extend product support services to their customers. Customers' interactions in such online forums with peer customers and vendor representatives resolve their product-related queries as well as inform on their product purchase decisions. Despite the significance of such interactions, there has been limited theoretical attention so far on how companies can manage customer experiences in online product communities. Drawing on theories and concepts from diverse areas including computer-mediated communication, consumer psychology, and online communities, this study proposes a four dimensional construct - Online Community Experience (OCE) - to capture customer experiences in such online product communities, and examines its impact on customer attitudes regarding the product, the company, and the quality of service. Data collected from customers in online product forums offered by four companies is used to test the study hypotheses. Implications for research on online consumer behavior and marketing are discussed.     

Consumer satisfaction with shopping experiences and clothing products in the children's wear market

This study, utilizing a model of the satisfaction process in retail settings, analysed the relationship between problem disconfirmation and satisfaction with (i) shopping for children's clothing and (ii) the quality of children's clothing. In addition, the effect of shopping satisfaction on product satisfaction was also examined. The sample comprised 957 children's wear consumers from one mid-western state. Factor analysis and ordinary least-squares regression were the statistical techniques used to analyse the data. The results indicate that sizing and fit problems are significantly related to satisfaction with the shopping experience. Product attributes related to the lasting ability of a garment, as well as those specific to infants' wear, were significantly related to satisfaction with product quality. Satisfaction with the shopping experience was also found to affect product satisfaction. These results have tangible implications for apparel marketers.     

Understanding factors affecting consumer intention to shop in a virtual world

The objectives of this study were to understand that factors affecting consumer intention to shop in a virtual world and to analyze the relationships among these factors. Particularly, this study explored consumer innovativeness (consumer novelty seeking, consumer independent judgment making) as an external variable that influences consumer intention indirectly through its effects on consumer experiences with the virtual world application (ease of use, control, concentration, enjoyment). The findings indicated that consumers’ perceived enjoyment and control positively influenced their shopping intentions. While consumer novelty seeking had no significant effect on shopping intention consumer independent judgment making significantly affected consumers’ intention to shop in a virtual world indirectly through its positive effects on perceived control, enjoyment, and ease of use.     

Window displays and consumer shopping decisions

Window displays are an ubiquitous and prominent but under-researched element of retail strategy. This paper explores how the store and product category information communicated by a store's windows are related to consumers’ shopping decisions, such as store entry and product purchase, and how these relationships vary for consumer segments that differ in terms of their knowledge of the retailer's product(s). Results of a study conducted in the context of clothing retailers demonstrate that the store entry decision is related both directly as well as indirectly (through acquisition of inferred, store-related information) to the acquisition of observed, store-related information from window displays. However, it is product category-related information (e.g. fashion and product-self fit) rather than store-related information (e.g. merchandise and store image) that is more strongly associated with the product purchase decision. Moreover, consumers with medium levels of clothing knowledge are more influenced by windows in their shopping decisions than those with low or high levels.     

Inclusive apparel shopping experiences for older consumers in China: product attributes and retail environment

ABSTRACT

The study explored apparel shopping experiences of older Chinese consumers, which integrate apparel product and retail environment aspects from an inclusive strategy perspective. Research questions include: What factors contribute to older Chinese consumers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction? What are the major implications of older consumers’ (dis)satisfying shopping experience? What role can fashion practitioners play to make the retail environment and apparel products more accessible to the aging segment? Critical Incident techniques were used for data collection at a community park in Beijing. A total of 151 usable critical incidents from 84 older Chinese informants (55 years and older) were included in the data analysis. Content analysis with deductive qualitative data analysis method was used. Findings suggest that the older Chinese consumers assess their shopping experiences largely based on shopping outcome achieved (product purchased). This is in contrast to the movement toward more experiential focus in the developed markets in the recent decades. A significant number of tangible product attributes (including design/styling, comfortability/fit, and material) and intangible attributes (such as price and product assortment) contributed to the older Chinese informants’ satisfying or dissatisfying shopping experience. Aspects related to retail environment, including retail atmospherics and service quality were also important, but to a lesser extent than product attributes. This study represents an early attempt to explore how the tangible and intangible aspects of product attributes and retail environment contribute to the aging Chinese consumer’s shopping experience. Findings of the Chinese older consumers’ utilitarian, rather than experiential focus in their shopping experience evaluation provide insights on this market segment and valuable implications are developed.     

Understanding consumer's brand categorization across three countries: Application of fuzzy rule-based classification

In multi-brand situations, people categorize all known brands into subsets called consideration, hold, foggy and reject sets. This is the Brisoux–Laroche model. Traditional brand categorization models including this, assume that consumers can properly categorize each brand into these subsets. However, a brand with both perceived positive and negative attributes increases the difficulty for a consumer to decide about the placement into subsets. This study investigates consumers' brand categorization when a brand has both perceived positive and negative attributes. We propose that a brand may belong to more than one subset (decision fuzziness). Using fuzzy-rule-based classification, this is investigated across three cultures (Chinese, Japanese and Kazakhstan) and two product categories: Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and beer. The findings confirm that decision fuzziness varies across cultures. Chinese consumers have less decision fuzziness for foreign brands than for local brands in the QSR market. In general, the opposite is found to be true for Japanese and Kazakh consumers.     

The effect of assortment and fulfillment on shopping assistance and efficiency: An e-tail servicescape perspective

The study focuses on comparative effectiveness of two e-tail servicescape dimensions, e.g., product assortment and order fulfillment on consumers’ online purchase intentions for fashion apparel shopping. The mediating effect of shopping assistance and efficiency between e-tail servicescape dimensions and purchase intentions is examined. Additionally, the moderating influence of fulfillment reliability between e-tail servicescape dimensions and shopping assistance is also examined. The survey instrument was used to execute the study and data were gathered from 442 participants from the national capital of India. The hypothesized relationships were verified using covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM), hierarchical regression analytics (HRA), and bootstrap procedure. The findings reveal that there are certain e-tail value disposition oriented benefits in investing order fulfillment landscape over product assortment. The mediating role of shopping assistance and shopping efficiency is empirically verified and the moderating influence of fulfillment reliability is also confirmed.     

Integrated consumer shopping decision model: A Japanese online supermarket context

Abstract

Online shopping is not a new marketing channel but has been growing tremendously throughout Japan. The rapid growth of Internet technology has enabled the Japanese to break away from their conservative culture and embark on different shopping experiences by shopping online. With the growing importance of online reviews to promote one’s business, Japanese online supermarkets are looking for ways to increase consumer-generated content. The purpose of this study is to investigate Japanese repeat online consumers and the antecedents that encourage them to review their shopping experiences, including the supermarket website they used and product availability in the online supermarket. It was found that online supermarkets must focus on establishing confidence with their repeat online consumers if they desire to increase the electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) of their online supermarket. Implications are discussed in relation to online supermarkets and repeat consumers’ intentions to review their online shopping experiences.     

Clothing outshopping in a rural Western community

Statistics reveal that over half of all women are gainfully employed outside the home. Professional working women have a certain status to maintain and it is reasonable to assume that their clothing needs might differ from women who are employed in other occupations and who remain in the home. Recent research has shown that considerable shopping occurs out of the local retail trade area (termed outshopping). Product-specific outshopping research has revealed clothing to be a product consumers are willing to out-shop to obtain. Professionally employed women might have to resort to outshopping more often than the other women in order to meet their clothing needs. For this project outshopping was defined to be the percentage of shopping which occurred at least 50 miles from the test site. This research represents the combined efforts of a graduate class studying trends in fashion merchandising; a telephone survey was developed and conducted by the class and responses from 100 female consumers were analysed using multiple step-wise regression. It was predicted and found that clothing outshopping behaviour could be significantly predicted by the degree of satisfaction with local retailing and number of children remaining in the home. Including the two variables professional/non-professional working status, and the age of female respondent as predictors, did not significantly improve the ability to predict outshopping behaviour. The implications for retailers are discussed.     

Why is Price Dispersion Higher Online than Offline? The Impact of Retailer Type and Shopping Risk on Price Dispersion

When physically similar products, of similar quality, are offered by retailers both online and offline, we often observe that the dispersion in prices of these products online is greater than the price dispersion offline. This observation runs counter to early theories that suggested price dispersion online would be smaller than that offline due to the ease of search and information availability online. This paper investigates and provides an explanation for this puzzling phenomenon by examining the impact of two important drivers of price dispersion: retailer type and consumers’ shopping risk. Retailer type refers to whether a retailer is a pure offline, pure online, or dual channel retailer. Shopping risk is defined as the product of consumers’ perceived risk of shopping and the transaction uncertainty related to shopping at different types of retailers.A game-theoretic approach is adopted to model consumers’ price search and product purchase, as well as price competition within and across retailer types in online and offline markets. Equilibrium pricing strategies are derived for different retailer types competing for different consumer segments with different levels of perceived shopping risk. The impact of retailer type and shopping risk on online versus offline price dispersion are quantified, and conditions when price dispersion is greater online than offline are identified.Results indicate that price dispersion is greater online when the number of pure online retailers is sufficiently large and is increasing in the number of pure online retailers. In addition, a reduction in online shopping risk may actually increase online price dispersion. Results further suggest that even without any online sales, dual channel retailers should maintain their online presence for the purpose of information dissemination, which justifies the importance for pure offline retailer to incorporate webrooming strategies, where consumers can search for prices online but purchase offline.     

Influences of retail brand trust,off‐line patronage,clothing involvement and website quality on online apparel shopping intention

This study examines the influence of retail brand trust, off‐line patronage, clothing involvement, and website quality on online apparel shopping intention for young female US consumers. Data for this study were collected from 200 young female consumers who completed an online survey. Participants were asked to select one of three pre‐determined apparel retail brands that they have either had experience with or were familiar with. Respondents were then asked to keep their selected retailer in mind when completing the questionnaire and were also asked to briefly visit the retailer's website shopping for a shirt or blouse. Factor, correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted to test our hypotheses. Retail brand trust, off‐line patronage, clothing involvement and two factors of website quality (usability and information quality, visual appeal and image) were found to significantly influence online apparel shopping intention. Off‐line patronage was the strongest predictor of online shopping intention. Implications for multi‐channel apparel retailers were discussed based on these findings.     

Expectancy‐value theory contributes to understanding consumer attitudes towards cow's milk alternatives and variants

Although South Africans mostly consume cow's milk, cow's milk alternatives/variants are increasingly becoming popular and this could be attributed to higher demand and changing consumer attitudes. Using expectancy‐value theory approach, this study aimed to explore consumers' beliefs that exist to influence their attitude towards cow's milk alternatives/variants and consequently the acceptance or non‐acceptance thereof. Thirteen focus groups, each with four to eight participants, were conducted at the University of South Africa (Unisa) Science Campus in Florida, Gauteng, South Africa. Genders were separated to improve the facilitation of the discussion. The semi‐structured discussions explored and gave an insight into consumer attitudes and perceptions that influence acceptance of cow's milk alternatives/variants. The recorded discussions were transcribed and the content was analyzed for emerging themes and categories by two independent parties, who then compared these emerging themes and categories. Results showed that the primary factors that influence consumers' beliefs and, ultimately, attitude formation and predisposition to accept or reject cow's milk alternatives/variants are acquired through knowledge and perceptions coming from (1) direct experiences, such as familiarity with the products' internal and external attributes, conditional willingness and causal factors, (2) indirect experiences ingrained from childhood and (3) association, where consumers had no reference to the product to attach attributes for belief formation, leading to being astonished at the thought, being curious about the product or having no interest in it. This study demonstrated that consumers' acceptance of cow's milk alternatives/variants will ultimately depend on product‐related expectations.     

Perceptions of assortment variety: The effects of congruency between consumers’ internal and retailers’ external organization

This research shows that consumers’ perceptions of variety and satisfaction are dependent upon how the assortment is organized, both internally by the consumer and externally by the retailer. The results of three laboratory studies indicate that for familiar categories, congruency between a consumer's internal categorization structure and the external store layout leads to higher perceptions of variety and higher satisfaction with product choices, while for unfamiliar product categories, congruency between shopping goals and external structure leads to lower perceptions of variety but increased satisfaction with the store's assortment. However, if retailers institute external category filters congruent with consumers’ internal shopping goals that allow them to bypass products, consumers have both lower variety perceptions and satisfaction with the assortment offering.     

M-atmospherics: From the physical to the digital

This research draws on the stimulus-organism-response framework to explore how traditional, physical atmospheric variables relate to consumers’ internal value responses to the m-shopping experience. Further, this research exposes how fulfillment of consumers’ utilitarian and hedonic values relate to consumers’ experience of flow while shopping and their intentions to return to the m-shopping platform. Findings suggest the stimulus-organism-response framework provides a viable perspective on the design of mobile shopping experiences. Moreover, traditional atmospheric variables influence consumers’ shopping experiences in the mobile context. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.     

Creating a satisfying internet shopping experience via atmospheric variables

The purpose of this research was to identify the atmospheric variables that contributed to satisfaction for internet consumers with different orientations toward shopping. Atmospheric categories that were proposed for studying internet environments included external and internal variables, layout and design, point‐of‐purchase, and customer services. Some consumers had a convenience orientation toward shopping on the internet, while others were apprehensive, apathetic, and highly involved in internet shopping. A segment of internet consumers also exhibited positive orientations toward store shopping. Results showed that some atmospheric variables influenced satisfaction for all consumers, regardless of their shopping orientation; however, some variables were contributors of satisfaction for specific shopping segments.     

Shopping values of clothing retailers perceived by consumers of different social classes

With the advent of diverse forms of retailing, competition among retailers is becoming more intense. Due to this phenomenon, retailers now require marketing strategies that can differentiate themselves from other retailers. However, there is a lack of research on what kind of shopping values consumers perceive from the retailers they visit. This paper analyzes dimensions of shopping values consumers perceive and variations in perceived shopping values according to the types of clothing retailers, be it a department store, discount store, or internet shopping mall. More specifically, the paper analyzes the moderating effect of consumers’ different social class in perceiving the shopping values of each retailer. The results show that shopping value consists of five major constructs: experiential, diversional, reliable, efficient, and self-expressive shopping values. We also found that consumers perceive more experiential, diversional, and reliable shopping values in department stores and internet shopping malls than in discount stores, and self-expressive shopping value is highly perceived in department stores. However, consumers’ social class can moderate the perception of shopping values for department stores and internet shopping malls, but not for discount stores. Discount store shopping is likely to provide consistent shopping values to consumers of all classes. Based on these findings, managerial implications are then presented.