Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management

Purpose – This study aims to examine whether gender, fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership, and need for touch have effects on consumers' multi-channel choice and touch/non-touch shopping channel preference in clothing shopping.

Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted using a convenience sample of 123 male and 154 female US college students. Data were analyzed using PASW Statistics 18 and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) 18.

Findings – Results showed that participants' multi-channel choice was influenced only by fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership such that consumers high in fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership tend to use more than one shopping channel. Touch channel preference was influenced by need for touch and multi-channel choice such that participants who had higher need for touch and used more than one channel for clothing shopping preferred local and non-local stores. Non-touch channel preference was influenced by fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership and multi-channel choice. Regardless of gender, those high in fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership who used more than one channel preferred TV retailers, catalogs, and online stores.

Research limitations/implications – Results cannot be generalized to the larger population of other consumer groups. Future research should include other population groups.

Originality/value – This study is the first to investigate the effects of consumers' gender, fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership, and need for touch on their multi-channel choice and touch/non-touch shopping channel preference in clothing shopping.