Fashion Involvement of the First-Time Mother: Online Purchasing or Face-to-Face Purchasing

Abstract

The first-time mother often uses the consumption process to overcome the disparity between her old and her new role and being viewed as the ideal mother in the public consciousness. Research shows that buying the right clothes and the right fashion is symbolic consumption often related to demographic variables like age or income, and to other relevant factors including personality traits and price perception. Becoming a mother for the first time is one of, if not "the", most significant transition in the women's life expressed in physical, emotional, psychological, and mental changes the pregnant and post-pregnant mother experiences. Therefore, offering a new approach to the marketers will help associate them to better identify and fulfill the women's new needs. This article attempts to illustrate ways to penetrate the new mother's world and behavior. Based on popular research it appears that new mothers often use fashion clothes for their first baby to activate self-esteem, as well as for prestige sensitivity [1]. Over the last decade online consumption has increased significantly both globally as well as in Israel. More new mothers are using the internet to compare and order goods This increasing and changing trend leads the authors to examine similarity or differences in the fashion involvement of the new mother. Using a focus group embracing eight first-time mothers, with their first newborn aged up to 15 months, the authors suggest that even though the online consumption in Israel is increasing rapidly, new mothers are still likely to buy using traditional stores. These findings indicate that the new mother is not using the internet as a purchasing channel, but is likely to collate information through the web while preferring to do her shopping face to face. The data consider that lack of time and high involvement in baby's clothes are the main reasons for not using online consumption. The research also advises the marketers to use the web only as a source of information and recommendation for the new mother, based on the fact that she needs a role model for her behavior in her new position.