Capturing college students on the web: analysis of clothing web site attributes
Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management
ISSN: 1361-2026
Article publication date: 25 September 2007
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to identify the dimensions of web site attributes that represent online shoppers' perceptions of their favorite clothing web site and to examine the relationship with the evaluation of the relative importance of various clothing web site attributes.
Design/methodology/approach
US college students, who had online shopping experience and favorite clothing web sites that they especially like to visit, were surveyed. Hypothesized relationships between the relative importance of general clothing web site attributes and the perceptions of favorite clothing web sites were tested using canonical correlation analysis.
Findings
The results revealed three variables, the product information, customer service and navigation factors, were closely related to each other and create a well‐defined dimension in representing the respondents' perceptions of their favorite clothing web sites. These dimensions were fairly well predicted by the following set of independent variables: the product information, navigation, and customer service factors of general clothing web site attributes.
Research limitations/implications
Results cannot be generalized to all young adult consumers and to other consumers. Future research should include other population groups.
Practical implications
This research offers new insights to apparel e‐tailers in building effective web sites that can attract young adult online shoppers to the company and retain them through the web sites.
Originality/value
This study is the first to investigate young adult online consumers' perceptions of their favorite internet web sites in relation to their evaluations of the relative importance of general clothing web sites attributes.
Keywords
Citation
Seock, Y. and Norton, M.J.T. (2007), "Capturing college students on the web: analysis of clothing web site attributes", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 539-552. https://doi.org/10.1108/13612020710824599
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited