Technology in Fashion Merchandising and Management

Categories: Fashion Generation Management Online shopping Shopping Social Media Technology

Essay, Pages 6 (1400 words)

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Abstract

Customer research and profile is a crucial part of every business organization as it helps to find effective solutions to the existing problems. It is essential for business to know customer pain points and address them for seamless shopping experience. Generation Y, the millennials also the tech savvy generation is the most upcoming generation who will have huge amount of money to shop in the future. Fashion industry is ever changing so it is essential for brands to have adequate information in order to find a practical solution to keep up to date in the market.

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The three Generation Y people- The Hairstylist, The Techie and The intellectual girl have preference offline shopping which also eradicated their customer pain points. They are also food lover and love to experience new food and it helps them socialize with people. They also prefer shopping as an investment rather than impulse buying and like to shop from sustainable and eco friendly brands. They love to spend time with family and friends and are always checking social media to stay updated with their friends social life.

They also prefer to share stories rather than posts on social media.

Introduction

The Generation selected for the paper is Generation Y also known as the millennials are born from the early 80s through to the turn of the Millennium, this is a cohort which largely came of age at the outset of a global financial crisis, but also amid a vast acceleration in digital technology (BBC, 2017).

Generation Y are the ones who have been exposed the most to the social media and have the benefit of both digital teenage and non digital childhood.

They have withstand the huge technological advancement and are hence tech savvy and ahead of the game in terms of technology. They usually love to be connected on social media with their friends and family and also shop a lot through social media.

Quantitative Research

Natasha - The Hairstylist

Meet Natasha, 25 years old, the hairstylist who works in a salon named Yo-C salon which is located near Union Square park, Manhattan. Natasha is also freelancing as the salon job doesn't pay sufficient for her to survive and in order to have extra income she works as a freelance hair stylist for shoots. She is a social media addict and loves to create good content for her blog and puts a lot of effort on maintaining her Instagram feed as she also gets new contacts and work through her instagram.

Since she is a hairstylist she loves to be up to date with all the fashion makeup and hair trends.

She likes to spend her time buying clothes from trendy online stores like Asos and also stores like shein.

Natasha's parents are from Singapore and she lives with her grandparents in Queens. Since she is studying in New York, it is not feasible for her to spend money on shopping so she is constantly looking for good deals and stores which provide fashionable stuff at a reasonable rate.

Natasha likes to hang out with her friends but usually works even on weekends. She is a fresher in the field and hence looking forward for more experience. She is currently looking for a new job in a salon in New York. Her favourite brands to shop are Zara, H&M, Bershka and Forever 21. She shops designers during thanksgiving sale like Kate Spade, Coach, Michael Kors. Since she likes to shop offline, generally tries searching products through instagram and facebook.

Biggest customer pain point is searching products online and not finding it in the store and also finding the products she likes. Shopping habits of her would be more like an impulse buyer but also uses the products as investments as she repeatedly creates looks for instagrams. She loves spending time with the family. Huge Food lover but also goes to gym and works out often and tries to follow a specific diet. She loves culture and festival like christmas, chinese new year and thanksgiving.

Navish - Techie millennial

Navish is 31 and he is senior consultant at Microsoft for the past 4 years. He has an apartment in Times Square in Ritz Plaza. Navish loves to travel often nad has visited 39 countries so far and is also a photographer. His 1 bedroom apartment also has a studio which he uses for fashion photoshoots as it is his passion and has a balcony overlooking the views of Times Square. Navish is also very active on social media showcasing his photography work. Navish plans on buying a house in New York as he wants to invest his money.

Navish prefers to shop offline and would prefer buying from stores, since he wants to try the clothes for fit and quality. He usually shops high end brands and loves wearing fashionable clothes. The stores he shops from are Sando Paris, Helmut Lang, Polo Ralph and All Saints. He is not an impulsive buyer and hence buys clothes as an investment. The biggest pain point for him is value for money of the clothes he buys, since lot of them are too expensive clothes. He also loves to cook and runs in central park during summers. He often visits India once a year to visit his family and friends. He loves to listen to Kygo music and attends various music concerts.

Joy- The Intellectual Girl

Joy who is 29 years old, is a lawyer with 3 masters degree who is from Harvard and Oxford. She lives in Brooklyn and her parents live in Boston. During her free time, she likes to dance. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. She is a huge Bollywood fan and without any doubt and also a part of dance groups like BFunk (Bollywood Funk) since she is a dancer and has recently shot a video for them. She also wants to pursue acting and hence works as a freelancer as this gives her a lot of time to write book which she is currently onto and takes up different projects.

Joy has a very calm soul. She is very understanding and down to earth. She often visits her parents and spends time with family and friends.

Her biggest customer pain point is returns specially returns in online shopping. She shops for classic styles and invests in good quality and fit clothes. She shops offline most of the time and her favorite brands are Rent the Runway which she has an unlimited membership, Express, & other stories, Forever 21, white house black market, banana republic and Zara.

Joy uses social media to stay updated with the latest news from her friends and usually posts lot of dance videos on social media. Joy also does not usually cook and often eats outside as she doesnt know how to cook.

Qualitative Research

It is seen that all three people like to shop offline in order to have good fit and good quality fabrics for their clothes. They have very different personalities but like to avail interactive shopping experience. They all have one thing in common which is love for food and usually spends a lot of money on food. Brands should offer in store cafes as this would help Generation Y have an more satisfied experience while shopping.

Brands should also offer omni channel retail which will help customers buy online and pickup in store hassle free and would eliminate customer pain points like product discovery, waiting for online shipping and waiting in ques for payment and trial. It is also seen that usually 2 out 3 people buy clothes that are long lasting and have classic styles. They also are more considerate about brands being sustainable and eco friendly.

The shopping budget of the three remains moderate price with around 50$ - 100$ being the average price and for the guy average price being 400-500$. They all have a social life and love to hang out with friends on weekends and also post pictures on social media with varied consistency. Usually seen that people like to upload more stories of what they are currently doing rather than uploading pics which is like old school and main stream for them. Brands should thus put more emphasis on this and promote and share people's stories with videos as that is more realistic than pictures.