Over the past few years, companies have started moving into specific niches in plus-size fashion. The purpose of this study was to verify the marketability of young plus-size clothes in the USA. Data were collected from female consumers aged from 20 to 39 who have experience of purchasing plus-size items. A total of 282 responses were used for statistical analysis. The research result is as follows. First, the obesity stress is affected more by the subjective obesity level than by the objective obesity level and by how people recognize their body types. Second, from an analysis of the factors affecting the shopping orientation of plus-size consumers, style consciousness, pursuing reasonable, emphasizing comfort, and body consciousness are found to be important factors. Third, even if responders are aware of their exact body size, they actively look for the correct size. Fourth, fit evaluation of plus-size products is based on the factors of size fit and movement fit. The respondents were unsatisfied with chest and arm measurements, which deviate widely by body type for tops. Fifth, the overall dissatisfaction with the plus-size market is attributed to the fact that the product assortment range from which to select styles is narrow, and trend reflection is low. Sixth, the respondents tended to avoid fabrics that make their body type more obvious, textures that give the impression of a larger body size, or stiff textures. These results show that the psychological and physical characteristics of obese consumers should be considered to develop products for the young plus-size market.

Since Levitt’s (1983) utopic proclamation of globalization-driven market and consumer convergence the determinants, consequences and challenges of addressing globalization have been scrutinized by academics, managers and policy makers. After more than 3 decades of research, however, “there is [still] a dearth of empirical research on its [globalization’s] impact upon consumers” (Cleveland et al., 2016, p. 1090). Such research should also be positioned within a new conceptual framework of geo-economics – resulting in “unique outcomes in different geographic areas” (Merz et al., 2008, p. 169) – where the relationship between regionalism and so-called glocal consumer identities has remained relatively unexplored (Cleveland et al., 2016). International marketers have also been increasingly moving away from country- towards customer-centric approaches (Riefler et al., 2012, p. 285). Young-adult consumers (18-30 years) are believed to be a more homogeneous cohort in terms of their consumer behavior under globalization (Carpenter et al., 2012), as they are seen as glocal citizens (Strizhakova, Coulter, & Price, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to analyze two key consumption-based variables – innate consumer innovativeness (Baumgartner & Steenkamp, 1996) and consumer ethnocentrism (Shimp & Sharma, 1987) – for FMCGs among young-adult consumers across two regions – Central and Eastern Europe (Slovenia, Croatia) and East Asia (China, Japan). Table 1 summarizes the consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism scores from four matched student samples. Our preliminary results support young adult’s glocal consumer identity (Douglas & Craig, 2011), going beyond regional differences. 5-point ordinal scales Slovenia (n=246) Croatia (n=243) China (n=208) Japan (n=233) Con. innovativeness 4.49 (1.22) 4.70 (1.22) 4.69 (1.19) 4.33 (0.92) Ethnocentrism 2.78 (1.39) 2.93 (1.33) 2.46 (1.29) 2.87 (1.23) Pair-wise correl. 0.146 (p <0.05) 0.03 -0.151 (p <0.05) -0.03

The Chinese market has played an important role for the luxury industry in the past years, with double-digit yearly growth (except for last year). Luxury brands have tried to design strategies to meet the local requirements, be it in terms of retail formats or communication strategies. However, Chinese luxury consumers are evolving in terms of consumption habits and materialistic value: observations from the field show that there is less and less emphasis on logo display among certain consumers (Dubois & Laurent, 1994; Lin & Wang, 2010). Such changes might affect also young consumers, which already stand for a great share of luxury consumers (Source: Red Luxury,2012). Besides, past studies on Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward luxury and values behind luxury consumption have often relied on student-samples, acknowledging the potential limitation to their results due to a potential lack of representativeness of the population interviewed. Few studies have provided analyses of the causes of the values and behaviours of young Chinese customers towards luxury product consumption, focused on them as ‘young people’ (Wang et al., 2012; Xue & Wang, 2012). Besides, most of those that tried to do so relied upon student samples of Chinese students studying abroad (in the USA or Europe) (Chen & Kim, 2013). This paper attempts to investigate the contemporary young Chinese consumers’ behaviour towards luxury consumption, segmenting them into two groups : the international student group and mainland Chinese young consumer group. A quantitative survey collected data from 104 respondents within a month where the snowball sampling method was applied to broadcast both online and offline questionnaires. Qualitative data was analyzed through lexical analyzis, while quantitative data was analyzed with the help of SPSS (Levene-test and T-tests). This study mainly focuses on four features: Chinese culture, materialism, young Chinese generation culture and buying motivation. The results of the study mainly indicate that there have been some changes between generations. One such change is that Chinese youths are more individualistic than what was found in previous studies, and another change is that young Chinese consumers hold different points of view towards the values of luxury consumption. As far as differences between international students and local young people from Mainland China are concerned, we found the following differences: • Finding 1: International students purchase luxury products to fit-in with their friends & because they want others to view them as a member of the upper class & as a successful person more than their local fellows. • Finding 2: International students’ income is more able to support them purchase luxury products than for young locals, and they are more inclined to save money to buy luxury products that their local fellows. • Finding 3: Mainland Chinese young people usually go luxury shopping with their parents more than international students do and claim they will still purchase luxury products even if prices increase more than them as well. • Find 4: Purchasing luxury products make local young people happier than international students, and they care more about the style (as opposed to price) of luxury products than these lasts.  We believe such findings will help luxury companies refine their strategies for the coming generations and help researchers notice on which dimensions of luxury consumption using expatriated Chinese students might have an impact and lead towards biased results.

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature about social influence on products purchase intention. Specifically, it focuses on social influence among young adults’ purchase intention for luxury products, through investigation about Macau young adults consumption culture. Three types of social influence (informational influence, utilitarian influence, and value-expressive influence) are examined in this study. In terms of product conspicuousness, two types of luxury products can be identified based on the degree to which products usage is performed in public versus private. Hypotheses include that informational influence, utilitarian influence, and value-expressive influence will be significantly and positively related to consumer purchase intention for luxury products, both publicly and privately consumed. A convenient sample of 120 Macau young adults aged 18 to 24 participated in this study. The result of Regression and Analysis of Variance indicated that consumers have been affected by different types of social influence when they purchase different types of luxury products. Value-expressive influence is significantly and positively related to purchase intention for public products. Moreover, both informational influence and value-expressive influence are significantly and positively related to purchase intention for private luxury products. However, the effects of utilitarian influence are insignificant to both public and private luxury products, which are contrary to the hypotheses specified in this study and surprising findings about contemporary Chinese culture. Additionally, female has higher intention to buy luxury products. Based on the results of this study, marketing implications and managerial insights in the luxury retail market are recommended accordingly. Future research can provide a more comprehensive perspective of social influence than the exploratory one offered in the present study.