An empirical study on store attributes, self image and fashion life styles

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out how consumer's perception of their self-image and fashion life styles could be utilized in delineating salient store attributes and improving strategic retail positioning. Hence; the study was administered in izmir with respect to fashion clothing retailers. Market positioning is the most crucial strategic proplem facing the retailing executive. Therefore; much research has been conducted to depict variables that can be used to predict store patronage. Hence, these variables could reveal consumer categories tha.t,would effectively be used to segment markets. ~ .. Life style retailing is widely suggested as one of the competitive strategies of the 1980's, since the demographic variables were found to be limited in classifying the consumer categories that could serve as a basis for effective market segmentation. Thus Blackwell (1983) defines life style retailing as "the policy of tailoring the retail offering closely to the life styles of specific target market segments." (p.53) An understanding of why shoppers select one store over another and what factors generate store loyalty has been an area of much debate. Martineau (1958) was one of the first to suggest that a consumer selects a store which has an image congruent with his/her personality. Thus; various personality and self-image criteria was dev~loped to provide better means for positioning. · ., · A literature review of Self Image and Life Style Retailing is the primary focus of this paper and is followed by an integrative study which adapts and applies the works of (Bellenger, Steinberg, Stanton, 1976), (Gutman, Mills 1982) and (Hansen, Deutscher., 1978) on market positioning based on store attributes, self-image profiles and fashion life styles to the fashion clothing retailers in Izmir. The results reveal that consumer with different self-image profiles have indicated "merchandise", "service" and post purchase satisfaction as the most salient store dimensions. Moreover; emphasis is given to having access to more price competitive dependable products, courteous and friendly sales personnel and post purchase exchange and return facilities. The Assertive, Passive, Objective and Impulsive profiles exhibited distinct fashion life style orientations. Accordingly, the Assertive shopper is socially active, therefore; she needs wide variety of clothes, spends much money on clothes and fashion related activities. Moreover, she is a fashion leader in her style and enjoys shopping. Conversely; the Passive shopper possesses the reverse profile. The objective shopper on the other hand is more cost concious, traditional and practical percieves herself as a fashion follower rather than a leader and does not go out shopping frequently. Demographic differences were however, relatively unimportant in depicting segmentation variables except for age and education. The older shoppers lend to be more utility oriented and show less interest in fashion and are more cost concious and traditional. On the other hand; college graduates bend to be more cost concious then high school graduates. As a result, this study has some implications for the fashion clothing retailers, researchers and academics. As for the fashion clothing retailer, merchandise quality, sales personnel and post purchase facilities should be the primary operational cues to be emphasised to attain competitive advantages. The other attributes ~ • I I which form the peripheral cues could be elaborated to fit tPe requirements of the target market. Moreover; making use of.the selfimage and life style determinants, the retail executive should select a specific segment to serve· effectively. Thus; if the retail executive stresses the specifics of his target market maximum impact can be achieved successfully. The fashion retailer should show great care in preserving a distinct store image before deciding on the design and physical attributes of the store. Because the consumers rely heavily upon perceptual cues in developing store images, ambiguous stimuli may distract the consumer attention. Future research in order to fill the present gaps in the literature should aim at providing comperative studies with respect to image among different types of retail institutions alias department stores, specialty chains and mass merchandisers. Attention should be directed at generating various other self-image profiles in order to broaden the horizons of life style retailing ~rid other areas. More effective measurement techniques like multivariate scales should be devised inorder to get more information out of the available data and to increase external validity of the studies. Finally; a lot of responsability rests on the academics in providing information to the retailing industry with respect to the findings secured from previous studies, guiding the retail executive on planning and implementation of strategic positioning and adapting existing strategies into areas that prove to be possible and feasible. I'