Effects of need for touch, centrality of visual product aesthetics and gender on channel preference for apparel shopping

The purpose of this study was to examine how apparel consumers' preference for physical or virtual shopping channels is related to gender and consumers' dispositional traits of need for touch (NFT) and centrality of visual product aesthetics (CVPA). A survey was conducted using a convenience sample of 276 US college students. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, MANOVA and ANOVA. Results of this study indicate that participants with high NFT or CVPA had a greater preference for virtual channels than participants with low NFT or CVPA. Gender by itself was not an important influence in preference for shopping channels; however, the results of this study revealed that gender interacted with NFT and CVPA on preference for virtual channels. Men with high NFT or CVPA showed the highest preference for virtual channels, while women with high NFT or CVPA did not differ from other groups in their preference for virtual channels. There were no main effects and no interactions among variables on preference for physical channels. This study is the first to investigate the interactions of gender with NFT and CVPA in preference for apparel shopping channels.