Prestige Clothing Shopping by Consumers: A Confirmatory Assessment and Refinement of the Precon Scale with Managerial Implications

Abstract

Although shopping behavior based on the prestige qualities of products and stores has long been accepted as ubiquitous, no comprehensive measure of the factors underlying this behavior has been available to assist in identifying and quantifying this market. To address this concern, an assessment and refinement of the PRECON Scale, an instrument intended to measure factors underlying consumers’ preferences for clothing and store prestige, was undertaken. Data were collected from 321 randomly sampled consumers. The stringent confirmatory factor analysis procedures employed resulted in a nineteen-item instrument that demonstrates sound psychometric characteristics while providing an explanation of consumers’ prestige shopping preferences.