Abstract
It is evident that consumers have higher level of fashion innovativeness (e.g., fashion adopters/leaders) are more likely to consume and display a new product at the early stage of its lifecycle (Kang and Park-Poaps, 2010). Thus, it is imperative for fashion practitioners to understand this consumer group in order to offer better products, develop effective marketing strategies and ultimately increase the sales. In this study, three product types (t-shirt, evening dress and socks) and ten product cues (four extrinsic cues and six intrinsic cues) were used to examine how fashion adopters and followers perceive and evaluate these products and what product cues may significantly affect their purchasing decision. Six items of the domain-specific innovativeness (DSI) scale (Goldsmith and Hofacker, 1991) were adopted to identify the fashion consumer groups (adopters and followers), and cue utilization theory was used to measure the salient effects of ten product cues among three apparel products. According to the results, both fashion adopters and followers perceived fit as the most salient cue for both t-shirt and evening dress followed by style and colour. In terms of socks, comfort was the most important evaluative cue followed by price and fabric. Clearly, the product type played a relatively more important role than the consumer type. Consumers used different evaluative criteria to judge the quality of different products. The visual appearance or aesthetic attributes such as fit, style and colour deemed to be more important for evaluating the publicly consumed products (dresses and t-shirt) than the privately consumed ones (socks).
Keywords
product type, product cue, fashion adopter, fashion follower
Citation
Rahman, O. (2012) Perceptions toward Specific-Product Types and Product Cues – Fashion adopters and fashion followers, in Israsena, P., Tangsantikul, J. and Durling, D. (eds.), Research: Uncertainty Contradiction Value - DRS International Conference 2012, 1-4 July, Bangkok, Thailand. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2012/researchpapers/114
Perceptions toward Specific-Product Types and Product Cues – Fashion adopters and fashion followers
It is evident that consumers have higher level of fashion innovativeness (e.g., fashion adopters/leaders) are more likely to consume and display a new product at the early stage of its lifecycle (Kang and Park-Poaps, 2010). Thus, it is imperative for fashion practitioners to understand this consumer group in order to offer better products, develop effective marketing strategies and ultimately increase the sales. In this study, three product types (t-shirt, evening dress and socks) and ten product cues (four extrinsic cues and six intrinsic cues) were used to examine how fashion adopters and followers perceive and evaluate these products and what product cues may significantly affect their purchasing decision. Six items of the domain-specific innovativeness (DSI) scale (Goldsmith and Hofacker, 1991) were adopted to identify the fashion consumer groups (adopters and followers), and cue utilization theory was used to measure the salient effects of ten product cues among three apparel products. According to the results, both fashion adopters and followers perceived fit as the most salient cue for both t-shirt and evening dress followed by style and colour. In terms of socks, comfort was the most important evaluative cue followed by price and fabric. Clearly, the product type played a relatively more important role than the consumer type. Consumers used different evaluative criteria to judge the quality of different products. The visual appearance or aesthetic attributes such as fit, style and colour deemed to be more important for evaluating the publicly consumed products (dresses and t-shirt) than the privately consumed ones (socks).