Consumers in a social network: the perception of clothing quality per gender.
| Autor | Castelo, Jose Sarto Freire |
I Introduction
Consumers' perception of the intrinsic and extrinsic components of a garment is an important element in the decision-making process of the manufacturers on what to offer. This is essentially because consumers change their buying behaviors depending on their perception of the overall quality of a garment. The evaluation of the quality of the product is not only limited to the functional aspects, but also includes the aesthetics. Aesthetics can be defined as the study of human reaction to the non-instrumental qualities of an object. The total aesthetic experience includes the appreciation of the expressive and symbolic formal qualities of a garment, its appearance, its origin and performance (De Klerk & Lubbe, 2008; Fiore & Delong, 1994; Fiore & Kimle, 1997; Lu, 2015; O'Neal, 1998; Swinker & Hines, 2006).
Clothing products not only stimulate sensory reactions from consumers but also arouse emotional and cognitive reactions, which, according to Fiore and Kimle (1997), usually result from the formal qualities (such as color, texture, lines and trim) that make up clothing.
Rahman (2011) attests that intrinsic factors play a more significant role than extrinsic factors as he observed in the case of denim products. These formal qualities are inherent, especially in the style and materials that make up the garment. For the consumers, therefore, they not only refer to the functional quality of the garment but in fact, to all the sensory, emotional and cognitive satisfaction that can provide a complete aesthetic experience as part of the quality of clothing (De Klerk & Lubbe, 2008; Fiore & Damhorst, 1992; Fiore & Kimle, 1997; Swinker & Hines, 2006). However, consumers (Men and Women) differ in their buying behaviors when assessing the overall quality of a garment, sometimes having limited information about the intrinsic and extrinsic components of a garment. Men and Women, in many buying experiences, are not fully aware of how to evaluate the items that make up the garments. Therefore, in these situations, consumers decide whether or not to buy the garments, without due attention to important factors that could play a significant role in the decision-making process (Brown & Rice, 1998; Chen-Yu et al., 1999; De Klerk & Lubbe, 2008; Shim & Bickle, 1994).
However, Dickerson (2003) argues that the apparel industry faces difficulties in satisfying the consumer, because consumer priorities changed significantly in the previous decade (the 1990s). During the 1980s and into the 1990s, consumers tended to buy fashionable clothing without much consideration of the price of a particular brand. However, consumers today are generally more value-oriented, that is, they demand more than they can afford.
At the same time, Rabolt and Solomon (2004) corroborate the fact that the demands of clothing consumers have increased since the 1990s, and they find themselves less satisfied with what has been offered, since clothing is important in their lives. In this context, Tungate (2005) states that there is nothing more internalized in everyone's mind than fashion, although there is no consensus on this topic. It would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of fashion in society. Clothing and accessories are expressions of the way people see themselves, and how they want to be treated by others.
Regarding gender, female consumers are often responsible for purchasing not only their own but also their family's clothing. They buy clothes both in traditional stores and on the internet (Goldsmith & Goldsmith, 2002; Hye & Stoel, 2002; Pentecost & Andrews, 2010). They also differ from male consumers on how to evaluate garment quality (Gitimu, Workman, & Robinson, 2013) and in the characteristics of the decision-making process (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2006).
In this context, the general objective of this article is to evaluate the determinant attributes of the perception of the quality of clothing by consumers (users of social networks), and to verify if there are differences of evaluation of these determinants between genders. This objective is relevant because, according to De Klerk and Lubbe (2008), there is a shortage of research addressing how consumers evaluate the quality of clothing products during the purchase decision making process. In addition, the application of our research model, based on the Swinker and Hines (2006) model, has original aspects such as the fact that: the research participants, regardless of gender, answered questions about the factors related to the quality of clothing for both men and women; the position of men and women are assessed separately and compared; and, our model is applied for the first time in the Brazilian context. Hence, this research filled in some theoretical and methodological gaps with regard to giving emphasis to gender differences in clothing quality assessment. This is in line with the conclusions of quality research made long ago, such as Olson and Jacoby's (1972), which findings are specific to the type of product and/or consumer investigated. Therefore, generalizations beyond the product or the consumers examined are of dubious validity.
Besides this introduction, this article presents four parts. The first refers to the review of the theoretical and empirical literature on the evaluation of clothing quality by consumers, concluding with the conceptual model of the study. The second presents the methodology, highlighting the population and sample of the research, the data collection and the analytical techniques employed. Following that, the analysis and discussion of the results are presented. Finally, the fourth part presents the conclusions of the study, including its limitations.
2 theoretical background
The perceived quality of garments is very important in influencing consumers' purchasing behaviors. There is, therefore, a long tradition of studies about the concrete attributes that determine the perception of the quality of the garments and in the end the buying-decision, as exemplified by the works of Dodds, Monroe and Grewal (1991), Olson and Jacoby (1972), Richardson, Dick and Jain (1994), amongst many others. Olson and Jacoby (1972), for example, found that intrinsic attributes were generally perceived as the most accurate indicators of quality.
The intrinsic or extrinsic attributes of a product are studied to make inferences about the quality and ability to satisfy the consumers' needs and desires. Intrinsic attributes are those which are inherent in the product and cannot be modified without altering the product, such as sewing or fabric techniques. In turn, extrinsic attributes, such as reputation and brand, are not part of the physical product (Olson & Jacoby, 1972; Swinker & Hines, 2006). The research on this topic has evolved a lot, while maintaining the emphasis on the role of these intrinsic and extrinsic specific attributes. This is exemplified by Bezuidenhout and Sonnenberg (2016) who investigated the relative importance of these attributes to female consumers of the apparel retail sector, and by Coelho (2016) who investigated the expectations of older female consumers regarding clothing attributes (construction, price, clothing care, fit, fabric, sizing, style and color). Bezuidenhout and Sonnenberg (2016) found that some attributes were evaluated as prominent whilst others were not. In turn, Coelho (2016) found that the women considered all attributes as being important or very important, in contrast to the performance rating of each, which was low. In this line, Gitimu et al. (2013) found that fashion leadership, fashion involvement, and gender significantly influenced how consumers evaluated garment quality.
In this area, many studies have shown differences in quality assessment depending on the context and the sector. In fact, Swinker and Hines (2006) point out that consumer perceptions of garment quality is a multidimensional concept and should be evaluated at various levels, since some studies have reported an effect of concrete attributes on consumer perceptions of clothing quality and others have not. For example, in the studies of Dickerson (1982) and Wall and Heslop (1986), a strong relationship was reported between the country of origin and the perceived quality of clothing. Zeithaml (1988), using means-end chain theory, also suggests that quality is a multidimensional concept, based on both the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes of goods.
However, Sternquist and Davis (1986) found no evidence of the later relationship. In line with these results and based on an in depth review of the literature, Swinker and Hines (2006) showed that the effect of concrete attributes such as fabric, fiber content, construction, brand or designer labels, country of origin, and store image on consumers' perceptions of clothing quality have presented contradictory results. Some of these studies have found an effect of these attributes on consumers' perception of clothing quality (e.g. Dickerson, 1982) and others have not (e.g. Sternquist & Davis, 1986), while other studies have found their relative importance (e.g. Hsu & Burns, 2002; Wu & Delong, 2006).
The differences in results are probably due to methodological aspects. Workman and Cho (2013) claim that preferences are affected by the culture in which an individual grows up as well as by individual differences between consumers such as differences in gender, fashion leadership and need to touch. They are also due to differences in context. For example, Lu (2015) recently conducted a study into the two largest apparel markets in the world (the United States and China) and found that the most important attributes taken into consideration by consumers in the evaluation of garments' quality in these countries are different: value performance for the American consumers; extrinsic attributes, appearance and comfort for the Chinese consumers.
Swinker and Hines (2006), also based on the literature...
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