This study seeks to explore the relationship between clothing adaptation and acculturation for married Chinese immigrant women. In addition, it aims to analyze the differences in their clothing consumption behaviors according to acculturation level. To achieve these purposes, a quantitative research study was conducted on 291 wives of Korean-Chinese multicultural families in Seoul and Gyeonggi. The data was analyzed using factor analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA, and the Duncun test. The findings were as follows. First, the women were divided into three groups based on their level of acculturation, which was defined as ‘assimilated’, ‘marginalized’ and ‘segregated’. Second, the relationship between their acculturation level and their clothing adaptation was identified. The marginalized group had the lowest level of clothing adaptation. Third, the groups’ differences in clothing selection criteria were analyzed. The segregated group considered the practical aspects (price, color, quality) of clothing to be more important than the other groups. The marginalized group scored the lowest in valuing the aesthetic factors (design, style, trendiness) of clothing. Finally, conformity of clothing consumption varied significantly based on acculturation level. The assimilated and marginalized groups showed higher levels conformity than did the segregated group. Clothing purchase location also varied significantly between the three groups. The assimilated and marginalized groups preferred online shopping, but members of the segregated group preferred to carry out their shopping off-line. This study showed that clothing adaptation and clothing consumption behaviors play key roles in understanding the acculturation of multicultural families.

The information technology has affected many aspects of retail world as in other areas of human life. This makes understanding consumers’ acceptance and usage of such technological innovations a critical task for both retail businesses and scholars alike. The technology acceptance model (TAM; Davis 1989) is one of the most widely adopted theoretical frameworks for explaining and predicting consumers’ acceptance of technology. Implementing the meta-analysis method, this study aimed at testing the validity of TAM for understanding consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward the various technologies adopted in fashion retail stores and online commerce sites. Specifically, the effect sizes of two TAM antecedents of perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use (PEOU) were estimated and compared. Moderating factors that affect the effect sizes of PU and PEOU on attitudes and behaviors were also explored. A meta-analytical SEM methodology was expected to deliver more thorough and valid test of the model than single sample studies, because accumulation of multiple samples through meta-analysis would bolster the test's statistical power (Hom et al., 1992). A sample of studies on consumers’ acceptance of retail technology in fashion retail context that adopted the TAM model were collected through a systematic search through the databases such as EBSCO, Google Scholars, and Dissertation Abstracts. Efforts were made to include unpublished studies to avoid publication bias. A total of 31 published and unpublished research reports that allowed the calculation of effect sizes of the key paths in the model were included in the final analysis. The effect sizes were calculated out of the identified samples, and the homogeneities of the effect sizes were tested using comprehensive meta-analysis software. The types of technology, product type (apparel vs. general merchandise), subject characteristics (gender; country; student vs. general), and study setting (actual experience vs. simulated situation) were considered as moderators to explain for the variances in correlations among variables. Finally, a meta-SEM model was tested on the aggregated data using AMOS.

Backed by the rapidly-growing economy, China sends the most tourists to Korea. Accordingly, growing consumption of Chinese tourists is strongly drawing attention of the Korean retail industry. Academia has conducted more relevant researches, such as effective branding of Korean Wave, and services to attract tourists. Despite a series of efforts, including specialized tour products and language services, there have been an increasing number of Chinese visitors complaining about their experience in Korea and Chinese tourists are urgently demanding improvements. Hence, comprehending sophisticated consumption behavior of Chinese tourists is becoming more important than ever before. Also, it needs to explore how shopping experiential value that they experience while purchasing fashion goods in Korea affects their satisfaction of the store and product. Previous literature has shown that perceived shopping value has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and behavioral intention (Mathwick et al., 2001). Previous domestic studies that targeted Chinese tourists have focused on investigating the shopping motivation and satisfaction (Ko, 2011) and market segmentation of Chinese tourist shoppers (Oh, 2014). Previous studies have approached this problem mainly from its cognitive aspect and few studies have focused on the emotional aspect during shopping. This study suggests that emotional behavior mediates the relationship between shopping experiential value and consumer attitude toward products and stores. According to the Korea Tourism Organization, the ratio of male to female Chinese tourists visiting Korea changed from 69:31 in 1995 to 59:41 in 2005. In 2013, female Chinese tourists outnumbered males at a ratio of 41:59. The number of Chinese female tourists continues to increase. Females are known to be more involved in fashion consumption. Hence, this study is conducted on 550 Chinese female tourists who have shopping experiences during their visit to Korea. The ages of the respondents range from 20 to over 50 years old, with a mean age of 33.5 years. Their shopping experiential value is measured by visual appeal, crowding, economic benefits, and service excellence, and is expected to trigger emotions of entertainment and escapism. Variables including entertainment and escapism are measured using the Experiential Value Scale developed by Mathwick et al. (2001). This study finds that three experiential values (visual appeal, crowding, and service excellence) have positive influences on entertainment. For example, customers feel greater entertainment when visual appeal, service excellence and/or the number of customers in the store is greater. The emotion of entertainment turns out to have positive impacts on both store satisfaction and product satisfaction. According to the examination of how shopping experiential values affect escapism, crowding and economic benefits have a positive impact, whereas visual appeal and service excellence have a negative impact on escapism. Previous studies define escapism as an emotion of which customers are absorbed by entertaining activities and satisfied with shopping. This study assumes that all the shopping experiential values may have a positive impact on escapism. Escapism is a status where customers are deeply occupied with shopping without thinking of anything as if they were in another world, and a much stronger emotion of entertainment than usual pleasure from shopping. This study finds that the higher visual appeal and service excellence tends to generate the lower the escapism. This may be attributable to the fact that the survey was examined only on Chinese tourists. The respondents were asked to recall the most memorable item among the fashion products that they purchased during their visit to Korea. Their shopping experiences varied widely from well-organized malls, like department stores and duty free shops, to crowded environments, like Dongdaemun, traditional markets and subway stores. As a result, different experiential values have different impacts on escapism. Economic benefits and crowding which are experienced during shopping help to absorb in shopping, and these are likely to have positive impacts on escapism. On the other hand, visual appeal and service excellence may have different influences on escapism according to the shopping environment that Chinese consumers experienced. For example, Dongdaemun or subway stores are less visually appealing than department stores or duty free shops, but trigger stronger sense of escapism. Because survey questions to measure service excellence include Chinese (language) proficiency of sales staff, it is expected that higher language proficiency level of sales staff tends to generate lower degree of escapism, the sense of feeling that one is indeed in foreign country like Korea, for customers. Escapism has negative impacts on both product and store attitudes. Escapism is a status of absorption in which customers are emotionally occupied with pleasant feelings, and purchases along with a high escapism are likely to be less rational and more impulsive. In particular, this study examines tourist shoppers, and the respondents evaluate products they purchased in another country after they return home, and this may have caused the negative attitude toward products and shops. In fact, some previous studies found that overly positive emotions have negative impacts on purchase behavior (Liljander &Standvik, 1997; Andrade, 2005). This study confirms that the shopping experiential values perceived by Chinese tourists affect their product and store attitudes through the emotions of entertainment and escapism. It is particularly notable that this study verifies diverse roles of different emotions such as entertainment and escapism in the context of tourist shopping. This study employs empirical analysis on tourists, and provides practical implications including the importance of shopping experiential values for developing retail strategies.

The influence of tourists on the retail market continues to grow and China is destined to become the largest outbound-spending nation in the world; subsequently, the interest on Chinese tourists has increasingly grown. The advancement in information technology and increased usage of SNS allows Chinese tourists share a variety of information online before or after they embark on to others. Data from the Korea Tourism Organization indicates that, “shopping” is the most searched keyword for Korean tours in 2014. The main shopping item of Chinese tourists is fashion or beauty products and we need a better understanding of the consumption behavior of Chinese tourists in relation to Korean fashion. We should consider shared content by Chinese consumers to promptly respond to needs and concerns. This study researches actual attitude of Chinese consumers toward Korean fashion items and shopping tourism using content analysis based on Chinese SNS. We investigate the representative portal search site Baidu (百度) and Weibo (微博) SNS primarily used by Chinese. Our investigation is limited to posts or comments one month before and after China’s National Day. Our analysis used translations of Chinese into Korean. A total of 70 words were selected based on the mentioned frequency by R Program forthe final analysis. Words were divided into groups based on content analysis similarity and word connectivity was researched using the Net Miner program. A total of 70 words used for the analysis were divided into three groups: shopping item, shopping behavior, and shopping place. The relevance of content to shopping item accounted for 39% and most of the shared information was about where to find cheaper items, various styles, or the latest fashion products. Shopping behavior accounted for 17% and the shared information was about how to compare products before purchase, how to communicate with salespersons, and how to obtain refunds after purchase. Shopping places area dominant group with 43% and half of the words about retail trade. Significant information was available on the main characteristics of retail trade areas such as Dongdaemoon market or Myeongdong. More information was shared on underground shopping centers or general road shops than on traditional shopping places, department stores, or duty free shops. The trends are particularly notable and help in understanding how Chinese tourists are more interested in shopping places where they can have new experiences. This study confirms the shopping behavior of Chinese tourists in Korea using content analysis of Chinese SNS. The shopping trend changes; the average Chinese tourist age drops and the Chinese tourist pattern shifts from large group tours to individualized small group tours. Appropriate responses to Chinese tourists must be based on understanding of their changing shopping needs. This study is useful to understand the actual attitudes and needs of Chinese consumers toward Korean fashion based on shared online content.

With the sweeping popularity of Korean Wave across Asia, the number of Chinese tourists to Korea has rapidly been increasing over the last decade. Korea Tourism Organization estimates that the number of Chinese visitors exceeded 6 million in 2014, and Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade estimates that their spending in Korea surpassed KRW 7.67 trillion in 2013 alone. In particular, Chinese tourists spend most of their money in Korea on shopping. Since Chinese have become the major customers of the Korean market, it is critical to understand their consumption patterns and behavior. Previous studies looked into tourist destinations and shops that Chinese people frequently visited, and also researched on product selection criteria regarding their preference on fashion products. However, this study focuses on how Chinese tourists feel while they are shopping in Korea and how such emotions affect their evaluation on the purchased products. Planned purchase refers to the situation where the buying intention of a consumer has already been formed prior to entering the store based on the perception of purchase necessity. An unplanned purchase is not anticipated or planned before the customer enters the store, and products are bought without planning similar to impulsive buying. Oliver (1980) suggested that emotions are an important factor when consumers evaluate a product. Therefore, this study focuses mainly on the emotion created during the shopping. We conceptualized product attitudes based on the expected consumer satisfaction paradigms of Oliver and Desarbo (1988). This study also explores the product usage satisfaction of tourists as a post-purchase attitude. According to statistics, majority of Chinese tourists who buy fashion products are women. The survey is conducted on 550 women in the age group between 20 and 60 years who have visited Seoul before, using an online panel of respondents sampled by an international survey firm. 530 questionnaires are analyzed, with the remaining responses determined to be incomplete. For the demographic characteristics of the sample group, the average age is 33.5 years old, with 201 in their 20s (37.9%), 190 in their 30s (35.8%), 107 in their 40s (20.2%), and 32 in or over their 50s (6.0%). As for the average household income, RMB 10,000 to 20,000 is the most frequent (210 or 39.6%). For residential areas, Hua Dong (East China) is the most frequent (207 or 39.1%). Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling by AMOS 20.0. Respondents were asked to recall most impressive fashion product that they bought in Korea during their visit, and to answer whether it was planned or unplanned purchase.This study also attempts to measure the emotions they had during the purchase in order to understand differences in attitude toward the purchased products. Although emotions cannot persist over time, previous studies have measured emotions during consumption to evaluate the situation. The study categorizes respondents according to their purchasing power into heavy and light buyers to determine the moderating effects of purchase amount. In the literature, purchasing power is described in terms of the number of purchase and purchase amount. Based on previous studies on purchasing power, consumers can be categorized as heavy or light buyers. This study focuses on purchase amount in the context of tourism shopping. The results find that planned purchases tend to deliver positive emotions, which in turn enhances product satisfaction. Unplanned purchases, positive shopping emotions have positive impact on their attitude toward purchased products. Interestingly, unplanned purchases have negative direct impact on the product attitude without the mediating role of positive shopping emotions, showing the importance of positive emotions that consumers feel while shopping When it comes to the impact of purchasing power, the effect of unplanned purchases of light buyers on shopping emotions or product attitude was not significant. Only planned purchases trigger positive emotions, many of which induced positive impact on product satisfaction. For heavy buyers, on the other hand, even unplanned purchases have positive impact on their product satisfaction when positive shopping emotions are developed. This study is differentiated from previous studies in that it deals with how purchase types (planned vs. unplanned) affect shopping emotions and post-purchase product attitude of Chinese tourists who account for the significant share of the Korean tour industry. It is also notable that this study groups tourists by their purchasing power and identifies the impact of their purchasing power, considering the fact that tourists are increasingly influencing the domestic consumption market. The Korean government and companies may tap into the results of this study to provide better environments to trigger positive shopping emotions to tourists. However, it should be considered that the subject of this study is limited to Chinese female tourists, which should be complemented by future studies.