An Exploratory Study for Dividing Fashion Product Buyers

The fashion market focuses on consumers and maximizes consumers' satisfaction. The fashion market has been segmented to better satisfy the variety of consumer group. Although market segmentation has been studied, efficiency and effectiveness of market segmentation continuously bring problems. Also, problems of prediction about real consumer behavior, and efficiency and effectiveness of standards are pointed out. The purpose of this study is to determine the most important variables for dividing fashion product buyers. This study was designed as qualitative study and in-depth interview was conducted. The in-depth interview was conducted with five experts in fashion intelligence agency. In-depth interview was completed by an analytic induction and an investigator triangulation. Questions were about characteristics, demographic characteristics, important factors and fashion buying relationship,and interests of current clothing shoppers. The results of qualitative research demonstrated that clothing shoppers,with their valuable consumption and selective buying behaviors, seek differentiated products. They also long for high quality apparel for its price, because of their valuable consumption and price centered tendency. They illustrated active sides, such as enthusiastic information searching and emotional or experiential consumption, rather than attitudinal sides. The variables for dividing fashion product buyers included: "innovative seeking", "symbolic seeking", "personalized seeking", "quality-seeking", "selective seeking", "price-seeking", "utility-seeking", "hedonic seeking", "sensitive seeking", "brand-seeking", "digital seeking", "information-seeking", and "eco-seeking"