Fast Fashion Stores Research Articles

Research on Visual Merchandising Window Display Design for Fast Fashion Brands Based on Consumer Purchasing Intention

In the context of a gradually improving real economy, fast fashion brands actively pursue innovative visual merchandising strategies. As the most direct and influential visual merchandising tool in stores, window display design requires continuous innovation to increase customers’ attention and purchase intent. This paper explores the impact of visual merchandising window display (VMWD) design on shopping behavior from the perspective of consumers based on the visual merchandising literature. A total of 366 consumers were surveyed online and offline about their shopping experience at fast fashion store chains both domestically and abroad to determine whether they were satisfied with the different VMWD design elements and whether these design elements affected their purchasing decisions. Based on previous research, this study summarizes and proposes a model to investigate the factors that influence consumer satisfaction and purchasing intentions in relation to the window display design of fast fashion brands. After survey data were collected, the model was optimized through exploratory factor analysis. Subsequently, an importance-performance analysis (IPA) quadrant analysis was conducted to assess the importance and performance of various design elements. By analyzing the survey data, this study found that fast fashion brands’ VMWD designs must balance visual appeal and brand consistency while considering the emotional and information needs of consumers. The study provides fast fashion brands with a practical reference regarding window display design and visual merchandising strategies.

Why do consumers leave fast fashion stores? Role of shoppers' confusion

PurposeThe study aims to examine fast fashion consumers' negative in-store experiences focusing on the effect of the two store environment factors, product overload and store ambiance, on their confusion and consequent shopping avoidance behavior.Design/methodology/approachA research model of fast fashion consumers' confusion and store avoidance behavior is proposed using the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework. A pretest and the main online survey with 281 samples are analyzed, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) is conducted to test the proposed model.FindingsThe SEM results support the proposed paths statistically. Consumers' confusion, measured with the two dimensions, inefficiency and helplessness, is significantly influenced by their perceived product overload and negative perception of store ambiance in the fast fashion shopping environment. Subsequently, fast fashion consumers' confusion results in less time spent in the store.Originality/valueThe study sheds light on utilitarian shopping value in the fast fashion shopping environment by focusing on the fast fashion consumers' confusion in association with overloaded information caused by too many products and store ambiance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study implies that improving fast fashion stores' inherent issues with too many products and store ambiance might help consumers mitigate their confusion and prevent customer attrition. However, the study includes only two factors. Future studies may include other various fast fashion store factors. Additionally, one of the dimensions of confusion, irritation, did not emerge in this study. More work is needed to investigate fast fashion consumers' confusion, such as using a multigroup analysis by age.

Awareness of the Environmental Impact of Clothing Production and Consumption among Slovenian Women Customers

The textile industry, where clothing industry has an important share, is one of the most polluting industries in the world, wherefore clothing consumption has a significant impact on the environment. The consumption of clothing has been increasing quickly along with the growth of the middle classes in developing nations and the fast-fashion business model. At the same time, consumers are becoming more and more aware of the importance of sustainability, and they have been changing their consumer behaviour accordingly. In this study, we focused our attention on awareness of the environmental impact of clothing production and consumption from the point of view of consumer knowledge, linked to different generations, marital statuses, living environments, family income and type of purchasing store. The study reveals a high-level consumer-evaluated knowledge regarding the effects of clothing production and consumption, but also still the purchasing preference in fast fashion stores.

Generating loyalty towards fast fashion stores: a cross-generational approach based on store attributes and socio-environmental responsibility

Research background: Faced with multiple media scandals concerning the pollution resulting from manufacturing activities, and encouraging the overconsumption of clothing, international fast fashion retailers have often had to resort to the elaboration and implementation of sustainable strategies aimed at environmental protection and reducing resource consumption. Generating customer satisfaction and loyalty depends increasingly on the extent to which retailers manage to employ socio-environmental responsibility besides the traditional retail store attributes. The purpose of this article: The objective of the paper is to evaluate the influence of consumer-oriented store attributes in generating satisfaction and loyalty towards the fast fashion store, highlighting the influence of socio-environmental responsibility on the two constructs. Methods: Based on the literature review, a conceptual model considering the effects of stores? attributes on store satisfaction and store loyalty and influenced by socio-environmental responsibility is proposed. Data were collected with the help of face-to-face administrated questionnaires before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in an emerging market (Romania). The data were analyzed via structural equation modeling in SmartPLS, for the three considered consumer generations: Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z. Findings & value added: For all consumer generations, all store attributes contribute to the direct generation of fast fashion store satisfaction and store loyalty; nevertheless, the intensity varies in levels of significance. Socio-environmental responsibility does not significantly determine store satisfaction, but does have a strong influence on fast fashion store loyalty. The results detailed according to the generations indicate a similar situation: each store attribute influences the satisfaction of one or other generation, apart from socio-environmental responsibility. This work makes an essential contribution to the extension of the generational theory, highlighting the various individualities, perceptions, and behaviors. This cross-generational research broadens knowledge on how different consumer generations behave when shopping from fast fashion stores. The research also extends the S-O-R model, which is used to understand the relationship between store attributes (stimulus), consumer satisfaction (organism), and consumer loyalty (response) towards fast fashion stores.

Credit Card Use, Hedonic Motivations, and Impulse Buying Behavior in Fast Fashion Physical Stores during COVID-19: The Sustainability Paradox

The health crisis caused by COVID-19 has affected consumption and payment patterns worldwide. Consumers have had to change their habits and deal with new sanitation guidelines and have often struggled with lengthy infrastructure closures. These factors significantly influenced both the choice of payment methods and purchase decisions made by consumers. Still, consumption patterns during the pandemic as a new social situation have not yet been thoroughly investigated. As the unsustainable consumption of resources is an important issue, this paper aims to analyze the relationship between credit card use, hedonic motivations, and its impact on the impulsive buying behavior in physical fast fashion stores during the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted on a sample of 300 regular fast fashion buyers in physical stores. Structural equation modelling was used for the data analysis. The results show that there is a significant relationship between credit card use and impulse buying behavior for fast fashion in physical stores, as well as between credit card use and social shopping. It is also observed that hedonic motivations such as gratification shopping, value shopping, novelty-seeking shopping, and adventure-seeking shopping are related to impulse buying behavior. Therefore, this evidences the unsustainable overconsumption, thereby having a higher negative environmental and social impact. With the increased popularity of cashless payment methods, including credit cards relaxing tighter budgets during the pandemic, fast fashion impulse buying should be considered an important issue in individual, social and environmental well-being. Consequently, the need for more responsible consumption and sustainability-focused value orientation arises so as to mitigate the environmental impact of the fast fashion industry.

Sustainable practices in slow and fast fashion stores: What does the customer perceive?

Sustainable practices in slow and fast fashion stores: What does the customer perceive?

The Influence of Visual Merchandising on Store Patronage in the Fast-Fashion Stores in Indonesia: The Role of Shopping Value and Self-Congruity

The study examined direct and indirect effects of visual merchandising on store patronage in a fast-fashion retail context. Adopting the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, this study aimed to investigate the relationships of visual merchandising, self-congruity, consumers’ perceived shopping value in determining store patronage. While studies about fast-fashion and store patronage behaviour have been extensively conducted in various market regions, research in an emerging middle-income country like Indonesia is still in its scarcity. The study is therefore among a few attempts to better understand the Indonesian consumers’ buying behaviour of fast-fashion brands. A survey was completed to 250 fast-fashion store shoppers in Surabaya, the second largest city and well-known shopping tourism destination in Indonesia. Partial Least Squares (PLS) path modelling method was utilised to estimate the proposed structural model. The results revealed that visual merchandising, shopping value, and self-congruity had positive and significant effects on store patronage. The study has also found that the indirect effects of consumers’ perceived shopping value and self-congruity as mediating variables as to how visual merchandising affected store patronage, were stronger than the direct ones. Managerial implications based on the findings and recommendations for further research were described.

Store disorderliness effect: shoppers' competitive behaviours in a fast-fashion retail store

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of store messiness and human crowding on shoppers' competitive behaviours, in-store hoarding and in-store hiding, through the mediating effect of perceived scarcity and perceived competition.Design/methodology/approach2 (store messiness: messy × tidy) × 2 (human crowding: high × low) between-subject factorial experiment was conducted online to manipulate retail store atmospheric factors. A total of 154 responses were collected through Amazon MTurk. The hypotheses were analysed using ANOVA and PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) procedure.FindingsResults suggest that store messiness and human crowding within a fast-fashion store lead to perception of scarcity and competition that further affects competitive behaviours. When consumers experience store messiness, they are likely to hide merchandise in store, thus making it inaccessible for other consumers. Further, when they experience human crowding in the store, they feel that the products will be gone immediately so they have a tendency to hoard them.Research limitations/implicationsThis study examined the effects of scarcity perception by studying the case of fast-fashion retailers; generalizability needs to be established across different contexts.Practical implicationsRetailers by manipulating human crowding and store messiness can create a perception of scarcity in their stores, thus enhancing sales. However, they should also pay attention to deviant behaviours such as in-store hoarding and in-store hiding as these behaviours may decrease the store sales.Originality/valueThis research contributed to the retailing literature by finding a significant relationship between human crowding, store messiness and competitive behaviours through perceived scarcity and competition.

The need for services and technologies in physical fast fashion stores: Generation Y’s opinion

ABSTRACTThis study answers the question of in which services and technologies should fast fashion retailers with physical stores invest. Fifteen improvement options were identified through a literature review, corporate practice and expert interviews. Then, a sample of 255 members of Generation Y evaluated and classified these options as attractive, indifferent, must-be, one-dimensional, or reverse according to Kano’s approach using the segmented Kano perspective. Results show that Generation Y generally values service improvements (e.g. with respect to salesperson friendliness and competence) higher than technology improvements. However, this evaluation differs among customer segments: whereas quality-conscious fast fashion shoppers are mainly indifferent to technology improvements, other customer segments rate ‘3D Bodyscan’, ‘Barcode App’, ‘Click&Collect’, ‘iDressroom’, ‘iTerminal’, ‘Loc Aware App’, or ‘Self-Checkout’ as highly attractive.

The Economic Impact of Consumer Purchases in Fast Fashion Stores

Abstract In recent years fast fashion has become a new trend. Fast fashion has changed the way how consumers are dressed and think about fashion. Clothes became cheaper, and shopping became a form of entertainment. The aim of the paper is to identify the economic impact of consumer purchases in fast fashion stores. Authors discuss fast fashion situation using results of own consumer survey, case studies, research studies and secondary data applying analysis, Abstraction, synthesis, deduction, comparison, description, and specification. Authors conclude that consumers’ purchases have a big impact on economics, because how we found out, fast fashion has a growing trend both in stores and in ecommerce. Form our survey it is evident that majority of consumers cannot link the high perceived quality of the clothing during shopping in fast fashion stores with achieved low level of durability during wearing. Increasing customer consumption can have a positive effect on economics, but also a negative impact on environment.

Fast Fashion Store Image, Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty on the Young Vietnamese Perspective

Fast fashion has become a trend in emerging markets in Asia such as China, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam for over a decade. During the last few years, Vietnam has become the hub for global fast fashion retailers creating fierce competition in the Vietnamese clothing market. Most of past research on fast fashion brands focuses on the global supply chain whereas its interest on the consumer behavior of their target markets is quite limited. This research work explores the store image of fast fashion stores specifically perceived by the Vietnamese target customers as store image has long been considered a key marketing differentiator for retailers over competitors to lure shopper patronage. It further investigates the inter-relationship among each component of the fast fashion store image with store satisfaction and loyalty with the structural equation modeling analysis. The author's findings indicate that the commercial and corporate image components positively influence store loyalty via customer satisfaction as a mediator.

Civil responsability in beachwear: creation and branding / A responsabilidade civil na moda praia: criação e marca

With the popularization of prêt-à-porter, the fashion sector and the Law have experienced an unprecedentedlevel of proximity. The rise of fast fashion stores, whose outstanding features are high-scale production andlow prices, and the increasing competition in the sector have accentuated the need to protect the industrialand intellectual property of brands and creations. In Brazil, the exuberance of its shores has resulted in thedevelopment of beachwear, a segment that we are a worldwide reference and in which there is a landmarkcourt decision with regard to the applicability of copyright in fashion creations and compensation for damagesresulting from these activities. From a casuistic and doctrinal analysis, this academic article aims to contributeto the debates on the fashion world from the point of view of civil responsibility theory, highlighting the legalsolutions applicable to the segment and the need to take into account the specific nature of this consumermarket.

Civil responsability in beachwear: creation and branding / A responsabilidade civil na moda praia: criação e marca

With the popularization of prêt-à-porter, the fashion sector and the Law have experienced an unprecedentedlevel of proximity. The rise of fast fashion stores, whose outstanding features are high-scale production andlow prices, and the increasing competition in the sector have accentuated the need to protect the industrialand intellectual property of brands and creations. In Brazil, the exuberance of its shores has resulted in thedevelopment of beachwear, a segment that we are a worldwide reference and in which there is a landmarkcourt decision with regard to the applicability of copyright in fashion creations and compensation for damagesresulting from these activities. From a casuistic and doctrinal analysis, this academic article aims to contributeto the debates on the fashion world from the point of view of civil responsibility theory, highlighting the legalsolutions applicable to the segment and the need to take into account the specific nature of this consumermarket.

Are the factors affecting satisfaction and actual purchase the same? Comparisons between unplanned and planned purchase

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of actual purchase behavior vs satisfaction at the point of purchase and the antecedents of actual unplanned vs planned purchase behavior.Design/methodology/approachBy using both survey and actual purchase data from a total of 3,300 shoppers of a Korean fast fashion brand, the multivariate regression analysis and two separate logistic regression analyses were compared to respond to the research questions.FindingsThe noticeable point of the findings is that the factors influencing the level of satisfaction and the probability to purchase were different. As common factors for both actual purchase and satisfaction, value for money, and affordable price are the first things that the practitioners have to keep in mind when developing a strategy for fast fashion stores. However, unplanned shoppers, who are over half of buyers, are negatively influenced by the affordable prices in their buying decisions.Practical implicationsThe results of this study have implications for the retailers, especially those selling fast fashion products in South Korea.Originality/valueThe current study has merit because of its use of secondary data collected by a large marketing research company on Korean domestic fast fashion brand. In particular, the combination of the large sample survey data collected right after shopping and the actual receipt of purchase has its unique value.

The behavioral responses to perceived scarcity – the case of fast fashion

The literature on scarcity has generally examined consumers’ attitudes towards scarce products and suggested that scarcity messages have a positive effect on the evaluation of and attitude toward the scarce object. However, literature has largely failed to explain consumers’ feelings or reactions to human-controlled scarce environments. This study examines how deliberate product scarcity influences the consumers’ behavioral responses, and provides an understanding of consumers’ reactions to conditions of scarcity that are strategically created by marketers. The context of this study is fast fashion retailers, as they are known to create extreme human-induced scarcity. We conducted 21 face-to-face interviews with fast fashion store managers, consumers, and an industry expert. Further, observational research was also conducted to observe the consumer buying behavior across 10 different fast fashion stores. The objectives were to (1) help the interviewees think about the various strategies adopted to induce scarcity within the stores (from retailer’s perspective), (2) understanding of scarcity in these stores (from consumer’s perspective), and (3) consumers’ responses to such deliberate manipulations. All the interviewees agreed that fast fashion stores were successful in creating perceived scarcity which reflected both limited merchandise supply as well as deliberate manipulation of merchandise availability by the retailer. The findings also suggest that consumers in these perceived scarcity conditions exhibit buying behavior like urgency to buy, which further leads to deviant and competitive behaviors like in-store hoarding and in-store hiding. Though perceived scarcity, urgency to buy, and in-store hoarding was consistent across the interviews with store managers and consumers, surprisingly, the phenomenon of in-store hiding behavior did not emerge from any of the interviews conducted with store managers, but was a consistent theme across most consumer interviews.

Consumer perceptions of higher and lower-level designed store environments

The role and influence of esthetics in the consumption of store environments remains poorly understood. Little is known about how esthetics propose substantial or adjunctive roles in consumers’ store experiences. The aim of this paper is to examine consumer perceptions of store design-architecture in high and low-level design contexts. Building on the esthetics, and environmental psychology literatures, our findings confirm consumers’ determinations of perceptual differences in the esthetic content contained in presented store environmental stimuli. Latent means comparisons confirm consumers’ perceptions of the presence of a high-level design in one fast-fashion store with a low-level design of a second store of the same retailer using a Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The results demonstrate the reliability and validity of the proposed constructs in confirming the presence of higher and low-levels of design. This research, thus, expands on the extant number of store specification and response constructs and prospectively opens up new lines of store environments research.

How Fast-Fashion Apparel Stores are able to Operate Sustainably in New Global Economy

In this modern era, it is vital for all retailers to have a set of knowledge to come up with efficient plans in order enhance customers’ purchasing behaviour when comes to handling patrons from all over the world. In this paper, we will talk about the different type of marketing strategies that are applied to fast-fashion industries so that they are able survive in terms of going into globalization. This paper also explains the purpose and goals of fast-fashion industries as well as how they keep their customers loyally towards their brand.