The need for services and technologies in physical fast fashion stores: Generation Y’s opinion

ABSTRACT

This study answers the question of in which services and technologies should fast fashion retailers with physical stores invest. Fifteen improvement options were identified through a literature review, corporate practice and expert interviews. Then, a sample of 255 members of Generation Y evaluated and classified these options as attractive, indifferent, must-be, one-dimensional, or reverse according to Kano’s approach using the segmented Kano perspective. Results show that Generation Y generally values service improvements (e.g. with respect to salesperson friendliness and competence) higher than technology improvements. However, this evaluation differs among customer segments: whereas quality-conscious fast fashion shoppers are mainly indifferent to technology improvements, other customer segments rate ‘3D Bodyscan’, ‘Barcode App’, ‘Click&Collect’, ‘iDressroom’, ‘iTerminal’, ‘Loc Aware App’, or ‘Self-Checkout’ as highly attractive.

KEYWORDS:

• Fast fashion retailing
• Generation Y
• Kano’s approach
• segmented Kano perspective
• service and technology in physical stores

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexandra Rese

Alexandra Rese ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor at the Chair of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She completed her dissertation in sociology and entrepreneurship at the University of Karlsruhe and her habilitation in business administration at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. Her works have appeared in journals such as R&D Management, Creativity and Innovation Management, International Journal of Innovation Management, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Research Policy and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Her current research focuses on the acceptance of innovative applications in retailing, e.g. augmented reality or chatbots, as well as abilities and roles in innovation management.

Tobias Schlee

Tobias Schlee was a student of Business Administration at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. As a trainee student at a management consultancy specialised in digital retailing his main research interest is the implementation of in-store services and technologies in the fast fashion industry.

Daniel Baier

Daniel Baier is Professor of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His research interests are in market-oriented design of products and services, adoption and diffusion of new products and services, multivariate statistics, data and web mining. He studied computer science at the University of Karlsruhe where he also completed his dissertation and habilitation in business administration. He has published in journals such as Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Annals of Operations Research, Creativity and Innovation Management, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and R&D Management.