Customer involvement, fashion consciousness, and loyalty for fast-fashion retailers
Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management
ISSN: 1361-2026
Article publication date: 25 May 2018
Issue publication date: 25 June 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer involvement in product development creates an emotional connection, satisfaction, and subsequent loyalty toward fast-fashion retailers across high vs low fashion-conscious consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to gain understandings of the impacts of customer involvement. To explore customers’ general perceptions of fast-fashion retailers, a focus group interview with 11 US students was conducted. Data for a hypothesis test were obtained from 306 US female consumers and analyzed through structural equational modeling.
Findings
The findings underscored the relational benefits of involving customers in product development and the substantial moderating impact of female customers’ fashion consciousness.
Practical implications
The study’s findings support that the customer-brand relationship can be solidified by proactively involving customers in product development. This is beyond benefits derived from leveraging customers’ operant resources in product innovation. Thus, apparel retailers should take such interactive opportunities to build relationships with customers. Also, involving customers in product development can be a critical way for fast-fashion retailers to establish an emotional bond with and loyalty from consumers with a low level of fashion consciousness. Thus, any digital opinion platform designed to foster customer involvement should be managed with the customer-brand relationship in mind.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the emerging body of literature on customer involvement in product development in fast-paced retailing by elucidating the psychological process through which their participation strengthens the customer-brand relationship manifested in emotional, evaluative, and behavioral responses to the brand, and by identifying a consumer attribute that fortifies this process.
Keywords
Citation
Kim, J., Park, J. and Glovinsky, P.L. (2018), "Customer involvement, fashion consciousness, and loyalty for fast-fashion retailers", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 301-316. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-03-2017-0027
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited