A comparison of apparel quality: outlet stores versus department stores

Fowler, Deborah; Clodfelter, Richard

doi:10.1108/eum0000000007279

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The quality level of an item of clothing is a difficult factor to isolate and define when this item of clothing has to be evaluated. (Fowler & Clodfelter, 2001).…”

Section: Analysis and Discussion Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In many cases, men and women are not informed on how they should evaluate the items that make up the garments. (DeKlerk & Lubbe, 2008;Fowler & Clodfelter, 2001;Goldsmith & Goldsmith, 2002;Hye & Stoel, 2002;Pentecost & Andrews, 2010).…”

Section: Analysis and Discussion Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In general, quality can be defined as the superiority or excellence of a product, while the observed quality can be considered as the evaluation of the total superiority or excellence of a product by the consumer (De Klerk & Lubbe, 2008;Fiore & Damhorst, 1992;Zeithaml, 1988). Fowler and Clodfelter (2001) argue that the quality level of an item of clothing is a difficult factor to isolate and to define when an item of clothing has to be evaluated. However, quality is still considered to be one of the main reasons for consumer dissatisfaction with clothing products.…”

Section: The Concept Of Quality and The Quality Of Clothing Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Consumers in a social network: the perception of clothing quality per gender

Castelo¹,

Cabral²

2018

RBGN

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Purpose -The general objective of this paper is to evaluate the determinant attributes of the perception of clothing quality by the users of a social network and to verify if there are any differences of evaluation of these determinants between genders.Design/methodology/approach -To achieve the objective, a survey was conducted with a sample of 295 consumers. All participants, regardless of gender, were asked to access the SurveyMonkey site link and to answer the questions regarding the quality of clothing for both men and women. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and variance analysis (ANOVA).Findings -The main results show that: 1. The consumers of garments regard as highly important to take into consideration quality attributes when deciding to buy clothes, especially for women in relation to menswear; 2. Women has a higher perception than men as for the evaluation of the quality attributes of both women's wear and menswear; and, 3. Clothing consumers, in particular consumers of women's products, only consider to purchase such products if they have, in particular, style, fabric quality and fair price.Originality/value -This research filled in some theoretical and methodological gaps with regard to giving emphasis to gender differences in clothing quality assessment. This is in line with the conclusions of quality research conducted long ago, such as Olson & Jacoby's (1972), which findings are specific to the type of product and/or consumer investigated. Therefore, generalizations beyond the product or the consumers examined are of dubious validity.

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“…The quality level of an item of clothing is a difficult factor to isolate and define when this item of clothing has to be evaluated. (Fowler & Clodfelter, 2001).…”

Section: Analysis and Discussion Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analysis and Discussion Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Concept Of Quality and The Quality Of Clothing Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Consumers in a social network: the perception of clothing quality per gender

Castelo¹,

Cabral²

2018

RBGN

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“…Similar in form and development to SERVQUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988), the development of the ApparEx scale began with the determination of eight potentially overlapping dimensions. Drawn from studies of consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction with apparel items (Fowler & Clodfelter, 2001), texts documenting apparel manufacturing standards (Solinger, 1988) ', 1972), the eight proposed dimensions of apparel quality included: 1) garment care, or the means of maintaining a garment's original appearance; 2) durability, or the ability of a garment to retain its original proportions and condition over time; 3) color, or the ability of a garment to retain its original hue after wear and laundering/dry cleaning; 4) fabric, or the raw material (piece goods) from which a garment is constructed; 5) notions/trims/closures, or the materials or stitching which provide support or decorative detail for the outer shell of a garment, as well as the means for keeping a garment in place on the body; 6) construction/workmanship, or the process by which the various components are assembled into a finished garment; 7) fit, or the degree to which a garment conforms to or differs from the body; and 8) style/fashion, or the aesthetic appeal of a garment. The definition of these dimensions of the domain of apparel quality was intended to establish a basis for content validity of the scale.…”

Section: Scale Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Apparel Product Quality: Its Nature and Measurement

Rayman¹,

Burns²,

Nelson³

2011

Journal of Global Fashion Marketing

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An important issue of apparel -apparel product qualityhas not been significantly addressed in past research, particularly where the pre-purchase perceptions of consumers are concerned. The goal of this study is to identify how consumers define intrinsic apparel product quality. This will be accomplished by 1) examining the issue of quality as applied to products, 2) exploring past research on apparel product quality, 3) constructing a scale (ApparEx) to assess intrinsic apparel product quality, and 4) relating ApparEx with service quality as measured by SERVQUAL.Product quality is the consumer's judgment of the standard of performance for a product. The cues used by consumers to judge quality can be classified as either intrinsic or extrinsic. While the topic of apparel product quality has been examined in the literature, the focus of such efforts has been largely on perceptions of apparel quality resulting from post-use or post-exposure analysis. What has not received significant research attention are the pre-use expectations or beliefs about intrinsic apparel quality. These pre-use expectations can be expected to be a primary determining factor of consumer purchasing behavior.The initial stage in the development of an instrument to measure prepurchase perceptions of intrinsic apparel product quality is to generate a set of items deemed to cover the domain of the intrinsic apparel product quality construct. Since the literature suggests that this construct is multi-dimensional in nature, the scale was developed with the goal of identifying and measuring the salient dimensions of intrinsic apparel product quality. Drawn from studies of consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction with apparel items, texts documenting apparel manufacturing standards, and from technical standards drawn by the American Association for Textile Technology, eight dimensions of apparel quality were proposed. Seventy-four items were developed based on the above sources to address each proposed dimension of the construct. Four forms of the instrument were constructed, each focusing on a different apparel product classification (underwear/lingerie or sleepwear, casual sportswear, Ⓒ 2011 KAMS. All rights reserved. dresswear, and coats and jackets (outerwear)).The sampling design used in this study was a purposive one, using students enrolled in upper-division (junior and senior level) university business courses at major universities located in the Midwest and in the Southern U.S. The instrument was administered on-site to students present in selected business classes chosen to preclude the possibility of students being solicited more than once. Of the 984 questionnaires distributed, 131 were not determined to be usable, resulting in a usable return rate of 86.6 percent. Interestingly, the results suggest that the findings were not significantly different between the product categories indicating that the subject data may reasonably be pooled. A factor analysis resulted in seven factors being retained: 1) performance, 2) components, 3) garment ca...

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“…In an investigation into consumer use of criteria for evaluating women's apparel, Abraham‐Murali and Littrell (1995b) found that less than 4% of female apparel consumers pay attention to accessories such as trims, zippers and buttons. According to Fowler and Clodfelter (2001), garment construction entails the methods used to assemble the garment. Construction methods include seams, hems, darts, collars, sleeves and cuffs.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluative criteria applied by South African female fashion consumers when purchasing casual daywear

Hugo

Aardt

2012

Int J Consumer Studies

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Criteria used by fashion consumers to assess the quality of apparel products during the decision‐making process are a good indication of what considerations marketers and retailers should keep in mind for customer satisfaction. Evaluative criteria used to a great extent by apparel customers when judging garment quality are intrinsic attributes, embracing physical features such as design/style, materials and construction as well as performance features such as aesthetic and functional aspects of clothing. The broad research aim of this exploratory study was to determine which intrinsic criteria were used by female fashion consumers in the Vaal Region to evaluate apparel quality when purchasing casual daywear. A self‐administered, structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Section 1 measured the importance of intrinsic clothing evaluative criteria, while section 2 gathered demographic information of the respondents. A representative sample was chosen from the academic personnel of all seven tertiary institutions in the Vaal Region in South Africa. The majority of the lecturers (38%) was between the ages of 31 and 40, which was relatively young. The predominant population group was white (65.7%), while 25% of the respondents were black. They all had a tertiary qualification, indicating a relatively high educational level, and an average income, based on research by Stellenbosch Bureau for Economic Research. Regarding the application of evaluative criteria for quality assessment, these respondents used intrinsic apparel attributes extensively. Three functional performance aspects namely durability, comfort and fit were rated equal and most important for judging quality. Three clusters of respondents could be distinguished, each with a specific disposition towards the evaluative criteria.

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A comparison of apparel quality: outlet stores versus department stores

Cited by 13 publications

References 5 publications

Consumers in a social network: the perception of clothing quality per gender

Consumers in a social network: the perception of clothing quality per gender

Apparel Product Quality: Its Nature and Measurement

Evaluative criteria applied by South African female fashion consumers when purchasing casual daywear

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