Gender, Fashion Consumer Groups, and Shopping Orientation

This study examined how individual's demographic and psychographic differences influence consumers' shopping orientations. The purpose of this study was to compare shopping orientations for clothing between fashion consumer groups and gender. A convenience sample of 276 American college students was recruited. A 2 x 2 between-subjects multivariate analysis of variance followed by analysis of variance was used to test hypotheses. Findings of this study revealed that women and men differ in convenience, recreational, and fashion-conscious shopping orientations, but do not differ in impulsive, quality, brand, or price shopping orientations. Fashion change agents tended to be higher than fashion followers in all seven shopping orientations. There was a significant interaction between gender and fashion consumer group on six shopping orientations, but no interaction on brand shopping orientation existed. Findings of the study extend the understanding of today's young male consumers in clothing shopping showing that they are convenience oriented, impulsive, searching for bargains, and they care about brand names and product quality. Results further indicate that male fashion change agents have higher motivational attitudes in impulsive, quality, convenience, and price shopping orientations than other groups. Findings suggest practical implications for segmenting fashion consumers using their shopping orientations.