Online Consumer Buying Behaviour towards Fashion Apparel

Abstract

During the last decade, the internet has become popular medium for shopping and is adding newlinegreater value to the retailing business. E-retailing in India is becoming popular and growing in all newlinekinds of service and product groups. India s e-commerce industry has been on rise, and it is newlineprojected to surpass China as the world s second largest e-commerce sector by 2034. According newlineto CAGR Indian e-commerce industry is growing at 27 per cent over 2019-24. According to newlineIndian Ecommerce Industry Report (August 2020), grocery, fashion accessories, apparel and newline newlineclothing are likely to be the key drivers for the incremental growth and development of the e- newlineretailing in India. The Indian ecommerce industry growth has been triggered due to increased newline newlinepenetration of internet and smartphone. Consumers growing interest with the internet has made newlineonline shopping the focus of attention since last decade. Online shopping has become a way of newlinelife for most of the Indians especially working couple, women and youngsters in the recent years. newlineConsumers buying of fashion apparel and clothing as well as their expenditure at fashion newlineapparel and clothing online sources is increasing and it is giving threatening revenue competition newlineto the brick-and-mortar stores which had traditionally dominated in this segment. Therefore, it is newlineimportant for online fashion retailer to profile the fashion consumers and their decision making newlinein an online buying of fashion apparel and clothing. This study aims at examining the factors newlineinfluencing consumers for buying fashion apparel and clothing online and decision making. The newlineresearch study was conducted to investigate the structural equational relationship among external newlinefactors namely Quality Factors and perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived newlinerisk on behavioural and actual intension of buying of fashion apparel online. To examine newlinerelationships among these variables the research study has primarily adopted the Technology newlineAcceptance Model (TAM) developed by Davis (1989). The Technology Acceptance Model newline(TAM) developed by Davis is a theory that helps to develop the models to determine how users newlinecome to accept and adapt to use the technology. The model was expanded to fit the online newlinefashion apparel retailing environment by incorporating external factors namely Quality Factors newlineinfluencing consumers perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived risk on newlinebehavioural and actual intension of buying of fashion apparel online using structural equation newlinemodel (SEM). newline newlineThis study included both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine to online consumer newlinebuying behaviour towards fashion apparel. Structural equational modelling techniques were used newlineto test the hypotheses using the model. The results supported the proposed hypotheses and newlinemodel. The research study aimed to examine the factors influencing and restricting consumer for newlinepurchasing fashion apparel online. And, the study revealed that consumer purchasing of fashion newlineapparel online is mostly influenced by the discount offers, social network, colleagues, friends, newlinefamily and the personal knowledge and experience. The findings of the study indicated that the newlinefactors like website security and payment security are restricting consumer for purchasing of newlinefashion apparel online. This study also investigates the factors that influence the extent of usage newlineof different sources of information in pre-purchase information search by the consumers. The newlineanalysis of data shows that consumers tend to use both offline retail stores and online sources newlinebefore deciding to purchase fashion apparel online. newline newlineBased on the findings, it is emerged that even though consumers find purchasing of fashion newlineapparel online is useful, there are factors like website security, payment security and low trust on newlineonline sources are hindering them from purchasing online for fashion apparel. This can be a newlinesuggestion for e-retailers to resolve this security issues by making use of advanced technology. newlineFor future research, different methods can be adopted to study the different factors affecting and newlineinfluencing consumers for purchasing of different types of fashion apparel online. newline