A Study of the Effects of the Internal Characteristics of Fashion Brand Salespeople on Core Sales Tasks

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to reveal the effects of internal characteristics, such as fashion involvement, personality characteristics, and customer orientation of fashion brand salespeople on the core sales tasks, and how the core sales tasks and internal characteristics differ depending on differences in the way salespeople are remunerated. The data were collected as a questionnaire to fashion brand salespeople in Gwangju from September to October 2020. Using 235 responses, the data were analyzed with SPSS 21.0 for frequency analysis, reliability analysis, t-test, factor analysis, and regression analysis. The research results were as follows. First, fashion involvement comprises factors such as ‘fashion passion and sense’and ‘fashion trend interest’, and the greater the ‘fashion passion and sense’, the better the ‘sales management’and ‘customer relationship management’jobs. Second, 'esthetic openness', 'responsibility' and 'extroversion' of the big five personality characteristics have a positive impact on 'sales management' and 'customer relationship management' tasks. Third, customer orientation comprises factors such as ‘customer-centric understanding’and ‘gain customer trust’, the greater the customer-orientation, the better the ‘sales management’and ‘customer relationship management’tasks. Fourth, according to the position of the salesperson, the group of professional salespeople at manager level had high responses in core sales tasks, fashion involvement, customer orientation, and characteristics such as ‘agreeableness’, 'esthetic openness', and 'responsibility'.