Consumer Behavior In The Fashion Industry

Introduction

This study is aimed at analyzing the consumer behavior towards the fashion industry especially in consideration young and mature women in London. Fashions are concerned with the production of fashion clothing. Most consumers in the world today are concerned with the features of the product as they form most important factor in determining the consumer behaviors. Take for example of products of fashion show for young and mature women. The industry is involved in the manufacture clothing. Due to increase and growth of consumerism, the clothing should come up with clothes that make women move with times thus increasing consumption and production.

Consumer behavior in the automotive industry especially in consideration to general motors is influenced by culture factors, social factors, Personal factors and Psychological factors.

Look more: the consumer buying process begins when essay

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 

The answers to this question will enhance my professional knowledge and competence in many ways.  As a professional I will understand factors influencing consumption in the industry and will enable me make recommendations on improving the fashions market share.

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The answers to this question also will assist me as a professional by motivating me to ensure that that I work improves their products.

1)To review literature on fashion behaviour and the factors influencing
2)To compare and contrast the buying behaviour of mature and young woman in London regarding buying of fashion clothing
3)To identified the key factors influencing the buying process of fashion clothing in young and mature woman in London
4)To provide recommendation to manufacture of fashion clothing and fashion retailer.

Scope of the study

The scoop of the study follows literature review of factors influencing. The researcher manages the entire gamut of processes from initial stage of identifying the problem to final stage of report writing. The capabilities required by the researcher in this research in managing the entire project and providing real time for information sharing, decision synchronization and research optimization to all stake holders. What are necessary attribute required by a researcher to manage the dynamics of marketing based on the requirements by industry. However, this study assumes that other factors like family background financial, stability of the family place of birth, race, have no impact on the consumer behaviors.

The proposed study will be used as a supplementary framework to focus entirely on the competence of the research. The objects of the study will include;

• Experimental
• Correlation
• Survey
• Grounded theory
• Ethnography
• Narrative
• Mixed method
• Action research.

This study will be based on a process based on experiment using practical’s as a platform to develop method which will be used as evaluation criteria for the research and researcher in this research question and future researchers

The critical review

Literature review

Consumer behavior in the consumption of any product any where in the world is influenced by culture factors, social factors, Personal factors and Psychological factors.

Culture factors

In world today culture is one of the most fundamental determinants for one when deciding the product to consume. This is because of a wide range of products and services.  Most of the people due to their cultural influence have started preferring certain products.  Children growing up will learn the culture of parents or peers thus preferring specific values that are crucial to a determining consumption. One of the values they like most is comfort.  These values common in children remain in them even if they grow up.

From the culture, somebody may develop certain spending patterns is not something strange.  A child growing up in specific culture is exposed to achievement, success, beliefs and other cultural factors that influence behavior towards consumption.

Cultural factors real influence a consumer behavior. Where people believe in values like efficiency and practicality it will influence their consumption is such a situation products that are known to be very efficient in their operations will be preferred.

Each culture consists of smaller subcultures that provide more specific identifications.  To its some people consist of racial groups such as the Africans, Americans, Europeans and Asian each have good distinct cultural styles.  They are known to prefer products for example consumption of pork may be rare in middle east because culture and religion.

Social factor

 Another factors consumer behavior is greatly influenced by social factors like statuses, family and reference groups.  When once goes to the market to purchase a product he will take consideration to his membership groups, social class and family.  These are groups having direct influence to once buying decisions.  These are the groups one associates with most of his time.

We have some groups like the upper class prefer buying some products which are not preferred by lower class.  Since companies produces many types of products that fulfill needs this groups and attracts many people.  The influence of a family is very great.  These families using specifics brands greatly encourage their family members to also consume similar products. Co-worker also influence one’s buying decision.  If a boss buys a given commodity the juniors will also try to buy the same.

People are also influenced by reference groups in three ways.  Reference groups usually expose a person to a new behavior and lifestyle.  One can belong to a group whose lifestyle believes at consuming a certain product.  If a company produces high quality brands it stands at a better chance of making more sales to such reference group. Reference groups also influence one’s attitudes because their desires fit in these groups.

People may prefer some products from a certain company, hence once could like to join his friend or family member towards belonging to the same social class by buying a that product. Also reference groups influence similarity and conformity that may make a person to alive at a specific decision.  So doing one will eventually buy a product similar to that of his friend.

People who are in the same social class share similar values, interests, and behavior.  For example there is upper class people who are social elite with a good family background.

Personal factors

Age and life cycle stage greatly influence consumer buying behavior of almost all products from all industries. Most Bachelors tend to prefer specific brands associated by most youths. But those who are newly married, young and better of financially prefer buying consume different products.

In making the final decision of buying a product one’s personal characteristics like his age and life-cycle stage, lifestyle, occupation, economic circumstances and personality will influence his choice. Companies take much consideration to personal characteristics of various groups of people before coming up with a product in order to meet the needs and demand of its people.

A child growing up and exposed to some values like material comfort, external comfort and achievement and success will be influenced by those characteristics to consume.

For example in America people like buying products that gives them external comfort.

People in various professions like occupation managers, school heads, senior government officers, mayors, engineers, lawyers and physicians usually buy some products with the most recent technology.

Economic circumstances also influence once buying pattern.  Most people especially those who are highly paid with good saving and with good personnel incomes buy expensive products.

The lifestyle of a person influences his or her buying pattern.  People may belong to the same occupation, social class and subculture but leading different lifestyles usually prefer products that feed that group.

Personality and self-concept: Personality and self confidence also influence consumers buying behavior products and services. For example expensive car, which are electronically controlled and having four wheel drive systems are associated with people who have high Self-confidence

Psychological factors

Motivation: some people get satisfied when they buy specific products.  people feel that they have satisfied specific needs by buying certain goods and services.

Perception: once a person has been motivated he is willing and ready to act.  Most people to be motivated in order to act will depend mostly on their perceptions of the situation. Two people in the same motivated state may act differently depending on how they perceive the situation. A product may appeal to the perception of a specific customer.  For example various colors that cars are attractive giving customers a good picture of the real quality of this car.

Beliefs and attitudes: most people follow some set of belief when making a decision on the type of product to consumer.

A belief about a certain product will also influence consumption.  These beliefs make up brand images and most people have been proved to act on these images.

People always have good attitude towards specific products and if this product meets the performance according to the needs, desire and attitudes consumption will be influenced.

METHODOLOGY:

The purpose of the study is to find out factors that influence fashion consumption in UK. The phenomenological research design that will be used will involve a study of the consumer behaviors and consumption in fashion industry. This particular study will be done in two phases where the first phase will involve completion of a questionnaire which is commonly known as a questionnaire survey by individuals. This questionnaire survey will be done on a sample of twenty fashion show owners within London . And the second phase will involve the use of some interview which will be in some way semi structured. Each given phase in this design will address the different research questions and their concerns. At some point within the first phase, there will be cases of the first qualitative phase relying on the some quantitative phases that might have been in use in the design.

The interviews that will be used in the design will be carried out in a sample of twenty fashion show owners. The interviews will serve to give out information concerning buying behaviors’ among women. These surveys will therefore give some contextual information about the consumption of a specific fashion. Some studies will be conducted using single stage designs and others like this one will be conducted using the two-stage design. When using the two stage design, the contextualization that will be given in the first stage will be very much helpful (Jasper, 1994).

The survey will provide a specific frame for which sampling will be done from for the semi structured interviews that will be done on the fashion operators and buyers. And gaining access to the twenty fashion owners will be very essential to getting the right information concerning the consumption of fashion among young and mature women from the sampled group of a given part of city which will be a representation of the whole population of the young and mature.

The given questionnaires will have the contacts so that the used sample can be contacted incase more information will be needed. The quantitative data that will be gotten from the phase of questionnaire survey will now be used to get through to the qualitative sample. The questionnaire surveys have always been made with the above additional purpose in mind.

In the cases where one researcher will have to make attachments of qualitative sub samples to samples that will be statistically derived will lead to another mixed method of designs in qualitative research methods (George, 2000). Such mixed methods of designs will most of the time benefit the qualitative researchers in that they give them the chance to have a selection of the specific cases from which they will be able to draw upon information that will be contextual that will also enable them to put their hypothesis under test on a large samples that will be statistically be represented.

Therefore in most cases, the researcher will have to be decided on which research design he will use in his project. Some researchers do use multiple designs while others will use single designs. This purely depends on the project that one is doing and which research design the researcher will be most comfortable with.

There are three major components in a research design model and they are; determination of the limits of the people to be investigated and also what will be investigated, the collection of data and the last component is the analysis of the collected data in a phenomenological manner. In the first component, the researcher will have to know to what limits the participants in the survey will get in trying to give him the required information.

Here the researcher will have to put in mind the limits of the twenty fashion owners in trying to give him information as far as matters of fashion consumption. In addition, the researcher will have to have specific issues which he would want to research on (Joan, 2004). At this point in time, the researcher will have to carry out his project purely on the safety of the crane operators. In trying to get information, the phenomenologist will have to engage himself in an in-depth probing so that quality information may be found.

After identifying the sample group that will help in giving the required information, the following step will now involve identifying the most efficient data collection methods. The following methods will be the most preferred methods for this particular survey; the in-depth semi structured interviews that will have to be tape recorded and later on be transcribed.

The second data collection method will be the use of a documentary study from which the writings of the subject matter will have to be reviewed so that their meanings can be properly derived from them. This second method will be used hand in hand with the first method (Johnson, 2000). The third and the last data collection method will be the technique of the participant observation. This particular technique will lead to a generation of some kind of an interview. It will be worth noting that in phenomenological research tape recording is important because the tapes will later be transcribed.

Sampling designs strategies in qualitative research.

There are many different qualitative sampling designs that will be used at the different stages of the research or still they will be used for the different purposes of the research. There are those questions that the researchers should constantly be asking themselves which will serve to give relevant information on the sampling strategy design that the researcher would have chosen to use.

It will be very crucial for the researcher to give a clear definition of the objectives of the research. The time that will be spent making clarification with the client will be a time that will be well spent (Kendy, 19976). Most of the times, in qualitative research, the objectives of the project might be refined as the research will keep on progressing.

Sometimes the available resources will try to undermine the progress of a researcher’s project. This should be prevented to happen by considering the available human resources to the project at hand and also the nature of the method of data collection.

The length of interview that is the qualitative interview will have a great impact on the qualitative sampling design strategy and the final decision of the given sample size. For instance longer interviews will provide detailed data than shorter interviews. With this in mind a decision may be taken on whether to carry out longer or shorter interviews.The sampling size should also be put in mind. This will basically depend on the homogeneous or the heterogeneous nature of the population to be sampled and the requirements of the methods of the data collection that will be employed in this research.

Data analysis

After the researcher will collect the data, she/he will tabulate the data into tables and analyze it using frequencies descriptive and percentages.

The processing of the survey results.

The processing of the survey results need not to wait until has been completed, but can begin as soon as the first questionnaires are received. The main steps are;

Coding. Nowadays the computer is used widely to process information. For that reason it is often advisable to code the information or even use a preceded questionnaire to facilitate the necessary processing and calculations.

Punching. Subsequently the information can be punched for computer purposes.

Data tabulation. With the aid of a computer, raw tables may be compiled. These tales are often only preliminary and may serve as guidelines for further analyses and condensed into possibly more meaningful tables.

Statistical processing. With the previous step as a basis the information can be processed further until it yields objectives and clear answers to the problem or opportunity which is being investigated.

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