Fashion innovativeness in India: shopping behaviour, clothing evaluation and fashion information sources

ABSTRACT

There are limited empirical studies that have focused on apparel consumers in India, and none of the previous research has explicitly examined the relationship between fashion innovativeness, consumers’ shopping behaviour, product evaluative cues and fashion information sources. This study is intended to address this research gap. A self-administered survey was used for this study. In total, usable data were collected from 230 female participants aged from 18 to 25 years in New Delhi, India. The results indicated that fashion innovators spent more money on new clothes and shopped more frequently online/offline per year than did fashion non-innovators. Garment fit and comfort were perceived as the two most significant cues for both consumer groups. Fashion innovators relied more often on impersonal or marketer-dominated sources – for fashion information including magazines, store/window displays and celebrities, while fashion non-innovators were more reliant on personal or non-marketer-dominated sources including parents, friends and siblings.

KEYWORDS:

• Fashion innovativeness
• consumer behaviour
• clothing
• product evaluative cue
• information sources
• young consumers
• India

Acknowledgments

This research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research (SSHRC) Council of Canada (Insight Development Grant #430-2014-01100). This assistance is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: [Grant Number Insight Development Grant #430-2014-01100].