A cross-national study of young female consumer behaviour, innovativeness and apparel evaluation: China and India

Abstract

In order to advance our knowledge about consumers' shopping behaviour and preferences in two emerging markets (China and India), the current study was undertaken to investigate (1) apparel consumers' shopping behaviour; (2) the effect of consumer innovativeness, and (3) the salient impact of apparel evaluative cues. An online self-administered survey consisted of shopping behavioural questions, the Domain Specific Innovativeness (DSI) scale, twelve apparel cues, and demographic questions were used for this study. In total, 266 and 236 usable data were collected from Chinese and Indian female participants respectively. The findings indicated that Chinese and Indian fashion innovators tended to spend more money on new clothes than non-innovators. Chinese fashion innovators spent significantly more time shopping online than did Indian innovators. In terms of the importance of evaluative cues, fashion innovators and non-innovators in both countries considered fit to be the most important cue; style, colour, and comfort played a relatively important role in clothing evaluation as well, but ease of care and durability were cited as relatively less important among many other cues. The two least important cues were brand name and country of origin.

The circular economy and consumer behaviour: The mediating role of information seeking in buying circular packaging

“…For instance, Chao, Reid, and Mavondo (2012) highlighted how domain‐specific innovativeness rather than a consumer's innate innovativeness is the main driver for the adoption of very new products, in the context of electronic products. Rahman, Chen, Fung, and Kharb (2020) suggested that fashion innovators tend to spend more money on new clothes compared with non‐innovators. Truong (2013) found a positive effect of CI on the attitude to service‐based innovation.…”

Young Chinese Consumers’ Choice between Product-Related and Sustainable Cues—The Effects of Gender Differences and Consumer Innovativeness

“…Extrinsic cues are relatively easy to process, interpret, and understand, whereas intrinsic cues involve judging the physical properties of a product, which requires technical/practical knowledge and evidence from earlier consuming experiences. According to Swam and Combs [38], intrinsic cues can be further divided into psychic/appearance cues and physical/performance cues, with psychic utility being associated with aesthetic and hedonic aspects of a product, such as style and colour, whereas physical utility is associated with functional and utilitarian aspects such as durability and comfort [39]. It is important to note that the "product attribute" and "product cue" are used interchangeably in this article.…”

“…According to some studies [88,95], the measures of DSI scale are more reliable and predictive for the adoption of new products as compared to global innovativeness. In addition, many studies [39,[96][97][98] demonstrated that the DSI scale was suitable for measuring consumer innovativeness in a specific product domain such as apparel. Therefore, the DSI was adopted for the current study.…”

“…Previous research has suggested that consumer innovativeness, in general, is a better indicator of product adoption than socio-demographics, such as gender, age, and income [39,99,100]. Fashion innovators are more interested in fashion and tend to spend more money on clothing than fashion non-innovators [39,101].…”

“…Previous research has suggested that consumer innovativeness, in general, is a better indicator of product adoption than socio-demographics, such as gender, age, and income [39,99,100]. Fashion innovators are more interested in fashion and tend to spend more money on clothing than fashion non-innovators [39,101]. A study conducted in the United Kingdom [102] found that fashion innovators often relied on media and celebrities for fashion information, and also shopped more frequently and spent more money on clothing than non-innovators.…”