Hedonic and utilitarian shopping motivations of fashion leadership

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between fashion innovativeness/opinion leadership and utilitarian/hedonic shopping motivations. This study seeks to develop a better understanding of fashion leadership and determine the primary shopping motivations associated with fashion leadership. Design/methodology/approach - A survey was completed by a total of 150 students at a large university in the southeastern USA. Multiple regression analyses, MANCOVA, and ANCOVA were employed to test the research hypotheses. Findings - The results indicated that fashion innovativeness was significantly related to various hedonic shopping motivations; fashion innovativeness was positively associated with adventure and idea shopping motivations, whereas it was negatively associated with value shopping motivation. Fashion opinion leadership was positively associated with utilitarian shopping motivation. Practical implications - The results of the study help to suggest various marketing and retailing strategies to stimulate fashion innovative behaviors through adventurous, stimulating, and up-to-date new fashions. They also suggest that fashion opinion leadership could be activated by focusing proper shopping environments or advertising on information/features for cognitive stimulation. Originality/value - The study investigated a direct relationship between fashion leadership and shopping motivations for the first time. The findings of the study strengthen academic research on fashion leadership by identifying pre-positioned shopping motivations that trigger fashion leadership, as well as practical applications.