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Case studies were conducted with two small apparel businesses in Mexico to determine the physical and human resources critically influencing full‐package apparel manufacturing and export. Data analysis deductively focused on the use of local resources, the role of technology, understanding of the export market and the ability to develop a product suitable for that market, business skills needed for production and delivery, and availability of capital. Based on the results, a study guide was developed for use by individuals, small business owners, cooperatives, and communities as they promote development and job creation in Mexico through apparel production and export under NAFTA.

US consumers admit they are not knowledgeable about the global apparel industry; however, they hold positive beliefs about US apparel industry labour practices. Consumers have much less regard for the foreign industry. There is a slightly higher level of concern for US workers versus foreign workers. Governmental regulations, labelling and store boycotts are agreed upon solutions for abolishing sweatshops. Implications of consumers' beliefs and attitudes to the global apparel industry and governmental policy are discussed.

The purpose of this research was to examine the relative importance of socially responsible attitudes, along with catalogue shopping involvement and product‐related attributes, as predictors of consumers' intentions to purchase apparel. Data were collected through a mail questionnaire to randomly selected customers of an alternative trade catalogue; the 320 respondents represented a 67 per cent response rate. Data were analysed by a maximum‐likelihood estimation procedure using LISREL VII. The proposed model exhibited good fit to the data as evidenced by chi‐square, GFI, AGFI, and RMS measures. Social responsibility, desire for individuality in dress and shopping involvement were all positive predictors of intention to purchase apparel. Desire for individuality exerted the greatest influence, followed by attitudes toward social responsibility.

This study aims to find the model fit to understand the consumer behavior in context to the hyper-personalization through digital clienteling by using structural equation modeling. The traditional method of customer passive observance has been transformed to dominance, where, the fundamental challenge for companies is to understand consumer behavior, work on cost-efficiency and implement sustainable innovation.

To investigate this emerging issue, this study aims to find the model fit via applying “Technology Acceptance Model” (TAM) and “Theory of Reasoned Action” (TRA) in context to the hyper-personalization through digital clienteling with special reference to women ethnic fashion wear.

The study findings depict the perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) of technology, attitude toward clienteling and subjective norm toward customization impact on customer intensions. The findings posited that perceived usefulness is having the strong relationship with purchase intention as compare to other variables. So, the analysis postulated that customer considered hyper-personalization is having perceived usefulness for customer and it also helps customer in getting the information about the product on the Web page.

Because of lack of availability of resources, a specified sampling method has been used for this study. A new research, which will cover the fashion apparel from all the categories with a detailed study from the branded and non-branded point of view, will provide better description on this topic.

By having personalized Web page through big data analytics, customer will have positive experience and positive association with the company. The other parameters also play an important role toward the customer behavioral intention. The current study approaches new way of understanding the participative management of the personalization and tool to guide the work of strategy professionals and management of fashion e-commerce sector internationally and even in the other sectors also.

Because of advancement of technology, the usage of online media is increasing day by day and this change is having high impact on the society, though we can innovate in any field or industry. Hyper-personalization has an impact on the online consumer buying behavior, which will affect the methods of searching information for consumers.

This new area of research is having large scope of future research from the fashion industry point of view. This paper is working as one of the element in the area of hyper-personalization through digital clienteling to gain sustainable results in the fashion industry.

Brand management, marketing management and retail.

This case is applicable to postgraduate business management students.

Mr Rajesh Jain promoted Miraaya chain of stores in the year 2010. Currently, Miraaya is a fast-evolving retail chain selling women's wear, and this case describes Miraaya's journey since its inception and its attempt to build a brand with limited resources and to carve a place for itself amidst growing competition and fast-growing customer awareness. Though Rajesh almost singlehandedly led the brand, the organization has professionals in each function and there has been process orientation – both for front-end functions as well as back-end functions, right from the beginning. In the second year of operation, the revenue grew very rapidly, but in the third year, when faced with the challenge of stagnant revenue, the organization could still increase the profitability. With a focus on product innovation, he and his team have been able to retain the customers' interest, which is at a premium with widespread competition from both organized and unorganized women's apparel retailers. With innovations like salwars in knitted fabric and cropped trousers with elastic waistband, Miraaya remained ahead of the pack. To keep the costs low, Rajesh and his team worked constantly on expanding via franchising and shop-in-shop formats as well as on online sales, thus also increasing the brand awareness. Students might come to the class with an understanding that brand building is done mainly through active communication in the media, while this case would create an opportunity for the students to appreciate that word-of-mouth, online media and building customer relationships via product innovation can be very exciting, affordable and successful media.

With the help of this case, students would learn about customer-based brand equity model and its factors. The case would also help to understand the challenges of brand building in retail in a country like India. It also defines the latest buying behaviour of Indian women and their aspirations.

The case illustrates the challenges and opportunities for a retail entrepreneur in an Indian environment. The case is a nice piece of work to showcase how a new retailer should build the brand in a highly competitive market. This case can be a source of inspiration among budding entrepreneurs.

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The purpose of this work was to identify segments of the US teen girl market based on the importance that these consumers assign to various product attributes in the apparel purchase decision process and to characterize these consumer segments in relation to their engagement in fashion and social responsibility.

An online survey was administered to 157 teen girls (14-18 years). The questionnaire included demographic items and measures of the importance of product attributes in the apparel purchase decision, fashion involvement, materialism, charitable/social cause involvement and past socially responsible apparel purchasing behavior. A two-step cluster analysis, employing Ward’s method and k-means clustering, was conducted on each participant’s factor scores on the four dimensions of the product attributes scale.

Three clusters were identified: the Conventionalists (n = 50, 31.8 per cent), the Self-Satisfiers (n = 34, 21.7 per cent) and the Embracers (n = 73, 46.5 per cent). MANOVA revealed differences among the clusters related to fashion involvement, social cause involvement, materialism and past socially responsible apparel purchasing behavior.

Results suggest that teen girls may respond positively to trendy apparel products designed with attention to issues of the environment, labor and/or charitable/social causes, particularly if the products are perceived as esthetically appealing and provide utilitarian value.

This work offers unique insights into teen girls’ apparel consumption behaviors by employing a benefit segmentation approach to explore the role that issues of social responsibility may play in teen girls’ apparel purchase decisions.

Given that a “one size fits all” strategy might not be sufficiently robust enough to capture all the idiosyncrasies of the ethnic minority market in Britain, due to the heterogeneous nature of their consumption behaviour, the purpose of this paper is to specifically explore clothing acculturation of Black African women in London, UK.

A total of 20 in‐depth interviews were conducted with women of Black African ethnicity resident in London, as recruited through the use of purposive and snowballing sampling methods.

Essentially, the study shows that clothing acculturation among these women is influenced by a number of interconnected factors which are identified and categorised in this study to be weather condition, social factors, religion, and personal factors.

Theoretically, the study supplements the existing ethnic minority studies in the literature, and extends understanding on acculturation and women's consumption of clothing. The implications of the study for marketing practice are discussed especially in relation to the use of segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy by organisations towards satisfying their disparate target markets in the society.

The study examined the role of collective self-esteem (CSE), online communities, green attitudes and the influence of celebrities on green clothing involvement and consequently its impact on green clothing purchase behavior of Indian consumers.

A mix of convenience and random sampling was used for data collection via an online survey. The sample (n = 403) comprised consumers having awareness about green clothing. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for analysis.

Online communities, green attitudes and influence of celebrities predicted green clothing involvement and in turn their purchase behavior. CSE had no impact on consumers' green clothing involvement.

The findings can help green apparel manufacturers and designers to use celebrities and online communities to educate and promote the benefits of green clothing. Social media can be employed to share experiences and engage consumers about green clothing.

Since online networking sites are gaining predominance in influencing behavior, the study extends the earlier research on social influence by examining its role along with celebrities and CSE on green apparel involvement and purchase. The study combines celebrities, online communities and collective identity influences (offline and online) in predicting green clothing purchase in India.

The purpose of this study is to identify distinct segments of apparel shoppers based on their fashion shopping orientation. The difference among the segments based on mall attractive dimension is also examined.

The data were collected through mall intercept survey from the mall shoppers. Samples of 375 respondents are used for data analysis purpose. Exploratory factor analysis is used to extract the factors of fashion shopping orientation and mall attractive dimensions while K-means cluster analysis is applied to identify the segments.

This study resulted in three factors of fashion orientation of apparel shoppers, i.e. fashion involvement, variety seeking and economic value, and four factors of mall attractive dimensions: convenience, entertainment, atmosphere and architecture design. Based on these factors, this study came out with three distinct segments of fashion shoppers: pragmatic shoppers, variety seeking shoppers and highly fashioned shoppers. These three segments are attracted towards the mall dimension differently.

This paper presents the three distinct profiles of fashion shoppers based on their fashion shopping orientation and mall attractive dimensions. The findings of this study may help retailers and mall developers to target mall visitors appropriately.

The purpose of this study is to examine effects of gender, need for uniqueness, and attitudes toward American products on dimensions of brand equity for a US and local apparel brand in the Indian market.

Three dimensions of brand equity are evaluated based on the respondents' shopping experience related to the selected US and local apparel brands. Data are collected from a convenience sample of college students in India.

The empirical tests show that, for a US apparel brand, there are direct and indirect effects of Indian consumers' gender, need for uniqueness (NFU), and attitudes toward American products on three dimensions of brand equity: perceived quality, brand loyalty, and brand associations with brand awareness. For local apparel brands, these effects are found for only one brand equity dimension: perceived quality.

The study uses only one US apparel brand, which may limit the generalization of the findings to all product categories and countries.

US marketers need to improve Indian consumers' attitudes toward American products through marketing and promotional campaigns. On the other hand, Indian marketers should overcome the negative relationship between Indian consumers' attitudes toward American products and their quality perception toward a local apparel brand.

Little attention has been given to individual differences in evaluating the three dimensions of brand equity. By assessing brand equity based on the individual characteristics of gender, need for uniqueness, and attitudes toward American products, results of the study can help marketers to obtain more specific knowledge of brand equity about a target consumer group and thus enable them to plan and implement well‐suited strategies for improving their brand equity.