Abstract
Successful marketing strategies for clothing business are strongly dependent on understanding the way in which consumers become involved with clothing product before making a purchasing decision. This study revealed that African-American college students have higher mean scores of clothing involvement than the other ethnic consumers have, which is caused by the highly skewed distribution pattern of clothing involvement. 240 completed data were analyzed to explain such unique characteristics of African-American students’ consumption behavior using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA). As a result, many of African-American college students think it is very important to choose clothing that makes them look good with the fit and style. In particular, the high-involvement groups tend to follow the latest fashion trends and dynamic clothing styles in order to create their better personal image with best-fitting clothing. Fashion magazine is one of the most important information sources to them because it usually deals with lots of the current fashion issues for young consumers compared to other information sources.
Highlights
As steadily increasing the purchasing power of college students (Alberton, 2017), the nation’s largest racial minority market, which African-American students constitute, have much attention from marketers
This study revealed that African-American college students have higher mean scores of clothing involvement than the other ethnic consumers have, which is caused by the highly skewed distribution pattern of clothing involvement. 240 completed data were analyzed to explain such unique characteristics of African-American students’ consumption behavior using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA)
Respondents were asked to respond to 8 items related to clothing involvement on a 7-point semantic differential scale (e.g., “important (7)”-“unimportant (1)”, “of concern (7)”-“of no concern (1)”, “appealing (7)”-“unappealing (1)” etc)
Summary
As steadily increasing the purchasing power of college students (Alberton, 2017), the nation’s largest racial minority market, which African-American students constitute, have much attention from marketers. According to the Nielsen report (2016), the purchasing power of African-American college students are expected $162 billion in the U.S marketplace. Such African-American college students become a vitally important U.S market due to their larger purchasing power as well as increasing population. In setting up marketing strategies for clothing business targeting such African-American students, it is crucial to understand the ways in which they become involved with apparel products and to understand how clothing involvement affects various consumers’ purchasing behaviors. The unique characteristics of African-American students shown in clothing involvement profile attempt to be understood through the analysis of relationship between clothing involvement and product attributes/information sources
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