Comparison of Clothing Evaluative Criteria Used by Taiwanese University Students between In-store and Online Shopping

Abstract

Clothing is an essential product sold on the online shopping market in Taiwan. In addition, literature showed the major consumers for online clothing shopping are college students. However, most researchers have focused on examining clothing evaluative criteria used by consumers for in-store shopping as well as a few studies for online shopping. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the differences of evaluative criteria used by Taiwanese university students for purchasing casual clothing between in-store and online shopping. Convenience sampling was used in this study, with 300 male and 285 female Taiwanese university students, who completed a self-administered questionnaire. Data were analyzed by the paired-sample analysis t-test, two-sample analysis t-test, and ANOVA. The results indicated significant differences for the clothing criteria of comfort, size/fit, quality, country of origin, and appropriateness for campus wear used by Taiwanese university students for purchasing casual clothing between in-store and online shopping. Moreover, there was a difference in the clothing evaluative criterion, which rated identified as the most important, based on mean importance scores utilized by university students to purchase casual clothing between in-store and online shopping. In addition, the demographic factors had similar effects for using clothing evaluative criteria by university students for shopping casual clothing on both in-store and online.