Determining the values that influence consumers’ behavioural intentions towards fashion E-stores

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests a need for online fashion marketers to find alternative and effective ways of differentiating themselves to ensure customer retention. This, owing to the observed failure rates of pure play fashion retailers, which is attributable to the fact that online firms operate under near perfect market conditions where they find themselves facing many competitors offering similar products to their own. However, the identification of future behavioural intentions of consumers can have a diagnostic value in that it pinpoints to management whether customers could switch to competitors or not. Moreover, given that consumers purchase fashion products for what they symbolise, it is crucial for fashion marketing managers to know the value components their products promote in the perceptive minds of actual and potential customers. In view of that, the importance of focusing marketing efforts to the development and maintenance of value-based offerings cannot be disputed. Notwithstanding this, there have been no scholarly attempts to establish the existence of path relationships between value components with behavioural intentions through the attitude and customer satisfaction constructs. While other researchers have identified a link between these variables, albeit within traditional shopping contexts, there is a dearth of published research that focuses primarily on fashion e-store consumer behaviour among a South African sample. The aim of this study was to determine the behavioural intentions of South African online shoppers by ascertaining the causal relationships between selected value components, attitude, customer satisfaction and behavioural intentions. In 2015, an online questionnaire was administered on a single cross-sectional sample of 600 online shoppers identified from the SurveyCentric™ database that comprises South African online shoppers. From the self-administered questionnaires, 563 were completed and considered usable. The collected data were analysed by means of SPSS version 23.0. Initially, descriptive statistical analysis was conducted with a view to condense the sample composition. Correlation analysis was conducted with a view to identify the existence of relationships among constructs, while indirectly confirming the absence of multicollinearity in the data set. As a prologue to

applying stringent multivariate statistics, the attainment of data normality was corroborated using Kolmogorov-Smirnov’s (K-S) test as well as Shapiro-Wilk’s (S-W) test. Thereafter, it was possible to test a measurement model using confirmatory factor analysis. The measurement model was verified using various statistical accuracy tests, thereby confirming that the behavioural intentions model was a six-factor structure comprising utilitarian value, hedonic value, intellectual value, attitude, customer satisfaction and behavioural intentions. A structural equation modelling procedure was then performed with a view to test the theoretic-based model that was proposed in this study. The SEM procedure revealed that fashion e-store consumers derive utilitarian value and intellectual value from their shopping experiences of which both value components have a direct significant influence on the consumers’ satisfaction evaluations of their shopping experiences. Intellectual value and customer satisfaction have a positive significant effect on consumers’ attitude towards fashion e-store shopping while hedonic value was found to have a negative significant association with attitude toward fashion e-store shopping. Moreover, a direct, positive relationship was found between both hedonic value and customer satisfaction with behavioural intentions towards fashion e-store shopping. Findings from this study could aid marketers’ to advance a workable model that can be used as the starting point in informing the development of segmentation and loyalty strategies to enhance the cogency of the e-store merchandising formulae. Even though the senses of touch and smell are lacking, the results of this study indicate that fashion e-stores can still successfully recreate the character elements of their online fashion merchandise in order to support positive behavioural intentions. The ultimate goal is to push beyond aesthetics and create online e-store interfaces that add value for the consumer by leveraging utility, entertainment and community in fashion e-store shopping. In view of that, the recommendations suggest utilitarian, hedonic and intellectual value-based marketing strategy guidelines tailored at effectively targeting the fashion e-store market segment.