Segmenting women fashion magazine readers based on reasons of buying, fashion involvement and age: a study in the Turkish market

Abstract

The objective of this study is to understand why women buy fashion magazines and to cluster them accordingly. Hence fashion magazine consumers are clustered into groups based on why they buy fashion magazines, their fashion involvement levels, and their ages. According to the findings of the study, the reasons why women buy fashion magazines may be defined under 13 dimensions. Moreover, three distinct clusters are found and labeled as “Young occasional buyers interested in being informed on different styles and brands”; “Elder deal-prone low-fashion-involved buyers interested in current events and assessments on current events”; and “Settled high-fashion-involved regular magazine buyers interested both in trends and in content, design and visuality of magazines.” All three clusters are distinct and thus should be subject to different marketing strategies. The study is significant because although fashion magazines are one of the most important distribution channels for fashion marketing, research on them is very limited. Moreover, this research will offer insight both for fashion magazine marketers, who will be able to determine marketing strategies according to the varying clusters formed, and for academicians who are interested in fashion marketing.

本次研究目的是识别消费者对女性杂志的期望，并根据她们的偏好原因将时装杂志消费者分类。在主要研究之前进行的预调查结果的基础上，问卷内容包括了五个构念（经常阅读的杂志、用来找出消费者购买女性时装杂志的原因的主要量度、时尚参与度、购买杂志的频率和人口特征），分发给了512个受访者。本次调查中运用了便利抽样和面访的方法。结果表明13个主要维度对消费者购买时装杂志有影响。根据结果划分了3个独特的消费者群体，分别是对各种风格和品牌信息感兴趣的偶然购买者、对时事和时事评论感兴趣的低时尚参与倾向的购买者、对潮流和杂志的内容、设计和视觉都感兴趣的高时尚参与的定期购买者由于样本容量和抽样方法的限制，本次调查在外部效度上有自身局限。本次调查针对土耳其市场，关注女性杂志和识别女性购买时装杂志主要要因。另外，划分出来的独特消费群体对女性时装杂志的经理们制定市场战略有很大的启发。

Keywords:

• fashion marketing
• market segmentation
• fashion magazines
• consumer fashion involvement
• clustering

Keywords:

• 时尚营销
• 市场细分
• 时尚杂志
• 消费者时尚参与度
• 聚类