With the consolidation of online shopping, there is a need to gain insight into consumer decision-making within the digital sphere. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that influence online shopping intention of fashion products, among female Millennials. By means of a proposed conceptual model, seven hypotheses were tested and data was collected from three hundred young females in South Africa. The data analysis was conducted using SEM in SPSS 23 and AMOS 23, and the results indicated that four of the seven hypotheses were supported. The results from this study provide online fashion retailers with insight into how they can utilise online shopping platforms to reap the financial results from this concept.

Unlike slow fashion that takes workers, consumers and environmental welfare into consideration, fast fashion is criticized for neglecting these. This study investigates attitudes and adoption intention of the slow fashion concept among young adults in South Africa, a highly socio-economically unequal emerging market. An extended information adoption model will be adapted and tested through a self-administered survey of 300 respondents. The results will provide marketing professionals, environmental and consumer interest groups and policy makers with valuable insight into barriers and motivators of slow fashion idea adoption among young adults who are a large, influential and profitable consumer segment.

As a result of the growing abandon of traditional advertising approaches, luxury brands are strategically focusing on social media marketing influencers for product and services’ endorsement through daily narratives (Abidin, 2016; De Veirman et al, 2017). Nowadays, social media are an integral part of marketing and advertising. The use of social media sites as twitter, facebook, instagram etc has started to be a part of the luxury fashion brands « advertising » campaign and has shown a valuable opportunity for luxury fashion brands to position themselves in new markets. Social media, in their being a two-way platforms for communication by allowing users to interact with each other (Kim and Ko, 2010) and share information but also with influencers, may represent a fundamental tool to increase customer awareness and improve customer relationship in particular in China. This study aims at exploring and analysing how a Chinese social media became the main trend setter for luxury fashion brands in China and how its influencers played a key role in reinforcing customer relationship for the luxury fashion market in China. The study focus will be on the main Chinese social media platform for luxury fashion, Wechat, and the role of influencers in increasing Chinese luxury customers’ brand awareness and relationship. Through the study of the social platform and its SMM – social media marketing – influencers’ and advertising followers, the article will analyse and provide the success factors for Wechat social media platform in positioning itself as the most influential SMM platform for luxury fashion brands in China.

For the past decade, the convenience of sharing information online has improved drastically with the development of smart devices and social media. Such changes have contributed to regarding online word-of-mouth (WOM) as one of the most important consumer information sources. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine online WOM effects (acceptance/redelivery intention) with the two-way interaction effects of fashion involvement and the market maven. The empirical study consisted of an offline survey that collected data from 341 respondents and analyzed the data by factor analysis, independent t-test, and two-way ANOVA with SPSS 20.0, producing the following results. First, the market maven effect was found to differ significantly based on the level of fashion involvement, and is also higher when fashion involvement is high. Second, fashion involvement primarily affected online WOM acceptance, while the market maven significantly affected redelivery intention. Moreover, fashion involvement and market maven had relevant two-way interaction with both of the online WOM effects. Third, market maven had measurable effects on WOM redelivery types (objective/subjective) and directions (positive/negative/ neutral), whereas fashion involvement did not have any primary effects on them. However, fashion involvement and market maven had two-way interaction effects on the positive and negative direction of WOM redelivery. Based on these findings, the study suggests the importance of investigating and understanding the complicated online WOM behaviors of consumers, specifically from both managerial and theoretical perspectives.

The current study aims to analyze the process of fabric production planning in Dongdaemun Market, which is a successful model case industrial integration in South Korea. We followed the changes in perception among fabric experts, regarding their recognition of fashion trends, and the following planning and process of fabric production. We used the purpose sampling method to select participants for interview in the Dongdaemun Market, then we carried out one-to-one interviews. Our analysis reveals 4 points of importance. First, the fabric planning stage either employed the trend book swatch, or simply reused the model fabrics already available. Even though the experts felt the need to accept the latest fashion trends, very few considered the trends as positive influences in fabric planning. Whereas trend was a key element in identifying the flow of the fashion industry, there were obstacles in carrying out the study. Second, experts frequently participated in domestic fabric seminars, but not in textile exhibitions. Third, domestic and overseas market research has been performed typically at department stores, and typically at Japan. Fourth, the influx of Chinese fabrics has both positive and negative influences, such as low price, and low reliability. In conclusion, experts were less amenable to accepting the latest fashion trends. pre-requisites in real life to meet the use of the current trend of each company. More studies on the Dongdaemun Market from perspectives of practitioners are warranted.

Today, consumers are becoming more sensitive to price since price have been an essential motivation for them to choose the electronic retail venue. Recently, it is recognized that social commerce, with higher rate of daily active users, is ahead of traditional electronic mobile commerce in Korea. One of strengths in social commerce is attractive price deals for fashion brands, which positively lead to purchase probabilities. Therefore, fashion retailers should understand consumers’ price perception and their responses toward sales promotions on the social commerce. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of consumer price perception and choice heuristics on impulse buying behavior for sales promotion of fashion brands and to examine the moderating effect of an engagement level in the social commerce. A self-administered questionnaire was developed, and mainly included consumer price perception (e.g., price consciousness, sales proneness), choice heuristics (e.g., affect referral, price referral), engagement, impulse buying and demographics. An online survey was undertaken by a research agency. A total of 235 usable responses were obtained from Korean consumers who had purchased fashion brands from social commerce sites (e.g., Coupang, Wemakeprice, Ticketmonster, etc.) using mobile devices. Respondents represent more females (n=129, 54.9%) than males (n=106, 45.1%). They are aged from 19 to 39 years old (Means=29). Results showed that consumers’ sales proneness had a positive effect on affect referral and price referral heuristics, which positively lead to impulse buying behavior. However, consumer price consciousness had a negative effect on impulse buying at the social commerce sites. Also, the mediating effect of the engagement was significant in the relationship among sales proneness, choice heuristics, and impulse buying behavior for sales promotion of fashion brands in the social commerce sites. This study discussed marketing implications for social commerce to effectively manage promotional program in the social commerce market.

The personal luxury goods market in the Middle-East is the 10th largest in the world, right before Hong-Kong and Russia, which are both well-established markets for luxury products (D’Arpizio, Levato, Zito & Montgolfier, 2015). However, luxury consumer behavior consumption in the Middle-East and its influencing factors have largely been left unexplored. This paper builds on previous research among German luxury consumers and investigates the formation of brand love and its impact on willingness-to-pay among Arab luxury consumers. Compared with the German study, it is found that Arab luxury consumers show weaker brand love tendencies. In addition, materialistic characteristics and tendencies for conspicuous consumption among Arab consumers strongly influence brand love in the context of luxury fashion and accessories, which confirms previous findings. Results further document that for Arab luxury consumers neither conspicuous consumption tendencies nor brand love can be interpreted as a predictor for an increase in willingness to pay. Hence, for those consumers, long-lasting emotional consumer-brand relationships are not responsible for generating additional profits and do not explain why the willingness to pay for luxury goods was significantly higher among Arab consumers. Finally, results indicate that though some elements of luxury consumption are shared among German and Arab luxury consumers (e.g. fashion involvement, the evaluation of particular brands, gender and brand love tendencies) there are significant differences in terms of e.g. brand preferences, general willingness to pay for luxury fashion and accessories and willingness to pay for conspicuous luxury goods. This research provides insights into the formation of brand love among Arab luxury consumers and how it informs luxury consumption. Moreover, it sheds light on similarities and differences across the two samples and increases the understanding of luxury consumption in a broader geographic context.

On the one hand, organic food consumption has emerged as a rapidly growing consumption trend, juxtaposed against the unsustainability of industrialized food provisions. On the other hand, recent reports highlight that premium food consumption is one of the fastest growing luxury market segments worldwide. This paper draws on the theory of social practices in order investigate how organic food consumption can be understood as an emerging luxury fashion trend, comprised of multiple interrelated ‘nexuses of doings and sayings’ that represent the elements of, and situated within the broader context of consumer culture. In this endeavour, we have conducted a situated investigation of organic food consumption in South Korea. Our findings illustrate that Korean consumers engage in organic food consumption not merely for their superior health benefits or sustainability concerns. Instead, organic consumption conveys three distinct consumption value types – namely, functional (e.g., superior quality), experiential (e.g., feeling better about themselves because they purchase eco-friendly produce), and symbolic (e.g., allows them to convey their social status). Importantly, when these value types are taken together, they closely resemble the value derived from luxury fashion, which lead us to the conclusion that organic food consumption can be conceived as a particular type of luxury fashion trend. The paper concludes with the discussion of theoretical contributions and managerial implications.

consumption, has been attempted to replace with sharing economy which is consumer-to-consumer’s activity of obtaining, giving, or sharing the access to goods and services (Hamari et al., 2016). Research argued that the sharing economy develops based on information and communication technology (ICT) as it is an emerging economic-technological phenomenon, proliferation of using social networking site (SNS) (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube), and increased consumer awareness (Belk, 2014; Hamari et al., 2016). SNS refers to a digital environment that allows individual to create his/her space where sharing and constructing relationship with others are possible (Lin & Lu, 2011). Among the numbers of SNSs, Instagram is gaining notable attention as powerful marketing tool which may especially be important for fashion industry. Hutchins (2017) reported that number of its daily active users exceeds 400 million, and 90% of users are under 35 who may be familiar with the idea of the sharing economy. In terms of marketing, 53% of Instagram users are found to follow their favorite brands (Hutchins. 2017). According to Ryan and Deci (2000), consumer behavior of using information technology such as Instagram was influenced by extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Although numerous researches have done with the sharing economy and SNS respectively, despite the recognized role of SNS in the sharing economy, comprehensive and empirical study of the sharing economy and SNS is very limited. Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate consumer’s motivations to use Instagram for participating sharing economy by developing research framework based on the motivation theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) perspective.

This paper aims to analyze the characteristics of the contemporary Chinese fashion market and the competitiveness of Korean fashion brands in China. Fashion professionals experienced in both the Korean and Chinese fashion markets participated to investigate the Shanghai market and consumers. The results of in-depth interviews show that Shanghai is the most favorable city among Tier 1 cities for Korean fashion brands planning on entering into the Chinese market. Shanghai consumers are open to international brands and highly prefer newness in fashion. Contemporary menswear was selected as a potentially big market due to the increase of unique, young, upper-middle-class male consumers. The Korean fashion brands’ strength is that they are capable of satisfying Shanghai consumers with excellent product planning and sensory design capabilities. Their disadvantage is that their brand recognition is weaker than that of global and international brands, and their ability to localize to the Chinese market is weak. The opportunity comes is from the Korean Wave, which is a positive for Korea's products and has good geographical access. The threat is that the Shanghai market is fiercely competitive; having access to many worldwide brands, and the competitiveness of Chinese brands is on the rise. To enter the Shanghai market, creative design ability, trendy product development, skill, and appropriate PR methods such as using Korean culture contents would be required to satisfy the young, powerful consumers in Shanghai.

The market distribution channels has changed from single to multi-channels due to the diffusion of digital development products. In addition the new consumption emergence has been applied in showrooming and reverse-showrooming. One of well-known shopping district in South Korea, Dongdaemun, has been introduced Dongdaemun-based fashion brand which use on/offline multi-channel distribution. This study aims to segment multi-channel attributes of Dongdaemun-based fashion brands and analyse the effects of customer equity attributes, customer satisfaction, and re-purchase intention. The goals of this study are as follows: 1) to identify multi-channel attributes of Dongdaemun-based fashion brands, 2) to analyse the influence of multi-channel attributes on customer equity, customer satisfaction, and repurchase intention, 3) to explore the consumer group differences on shopping orientation. This study applied means-end chain theory to conduct in-depth interviews for the purpose of deriving the multi-channel attributes of Dongdaemun-based fashion brands and explore the influence of such attributes on customer equity, customer satisfaction, and re-purchase intention. This study collected 493 samples and structural equation modeling was used for final data analysis. The main findings of this study are as follows. The multi-channel attributes have a significant impact on value equity and brand equity. Relationship equity is influenced by product diversity, entertainment, and informativeness. The all of customer equity drivers have significantly impacts on repurchase intention and only brand equity have significant effect on repurchase intention. Also, customer satisfaction affects re-purchase intention. Brand equity have a significant influence on CLV. The consumers group differ in how consumers recognize multi-channel attributes of Dongdaemun-based fashion brands, based on channel preference. This study shows the importance of customer equity and suggests long-term implications for the development of Dongdaemun-based fashion brands.