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As the number of Internet purchases of fashion items increases, the problem of inaccurate color representation on the Web becomes more significant. Color inaccuracy has many negative consequences for marketers, including loss of sales, increased returns and complaints, and customer defections. This research reports the findings of a survey conducted as part of an initial investigation into consumer opinions about fashion merchandise purchasing over the Internet. Results indicate that companies are losing customers and sales as a result of having colors on e‐commerce sites that do not accurately represent the actual colors of the products being sold. Increased dissatisfaction on the part of consumers leads to greater costs in both customer service and reverse logistics. Further, a majority of the respondents indicated that they would not make additional purchases from an e‐tailer if they received items in colors different than they expected. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

The deficiency of the mapping between fashion color (FoCo) value and linguistic color expression causes the difficulty of machine-based fashion understanding tasks that are heavily associated with color matching. The purpose of this paper is to propose the FoCo system and construct it with four steps, in order to bridge this gap.

The color distribution in HSB color space is analyzed to estimate the rough number of color categories. Similar color values are grouped to obtain the initial HSB value range for each color category. The intra-category color differences are calculated to determine their final HSB value ranges and Pantone color is used for fine-tuning.

With practical applications in mind, the FoCo system is designed as a hierarchical structure with three layers.

The FoCo system is designed as a hierarchical structure with three layers: color units for color matching-related tasks, color categories for style analysis tasks and color tones for color recognition tasks. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the FoCo system.

The objective of the research is to characterize various key factors affecting apparel design and product quality.

In the fulfillment of the objective, the Delphi method and a survey questionnaire were used to collect related materials. This was followed by descriptive statistics, reliability, and factor analysis in order to set up the “house of quality” using the method of quality function deployment.

The factors that were found to affect the quality of apparel design were fashion sensitivity, ability of material application, colour sensitivity, fashion trend, fashion market positioning, and management. Fashion style, cloth quality, cutting quality, discount, and personal favourites were the key factors affecting consumers when choosing apparel. Keen observation ability, marketing analysis, and market development were very important for designing and producing high value‐added products.

The survey was conducted in Taiwan, which perhaps limits the usefulness of the findings elsewhere.

The article may assist apparel designers to understand the requirements of consumers of fashion products.

Apparel design rules have been formulated in Taiwan using the method of quality function development to assist apparel designers to improve design quality and production performance.

This paper aims to describe the cross-channel challenges experienced by a leading US fashion retailer and illustrates the adaptation to consumer needs as led by a female divisional head and female executive.

The teaching objectives include to understand the assortment planning complexities experienced by merchandise managers; address critical issues surrounding channel strategies; identify the data needs for assortment improvement and cross-channel management; investigate responsive solutions for customer-focused assortment diversification; and explore the challenges associated with continual retail channel adaptation.

The fashion retailer Spirit & Free (S&F) (pseudonym) is a Fortune 500 retailer. As a multi-channel retailer, S&F is proud of the consistency of the brand’s identity across channels. However, recently, S&F has noticed a difference between their mobile (m-commerce, social commerce) and in-store/e-commerce customers. Through this case study, students will follow the Women’s Apparel Divisional Merchandise Manager and explore how the business will maintain a consistent brand identity and capture both sets of customers through assortment planning. Resources will be provided for assortment planning analysis, and students will be asked to consider assortment opportunities regarding category mix and pricing strategy.

The case would be relevant to upper-level undergraduate courses or introductory master's level course in retail, management, fashion merchandising and omni-channel retail.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 8: Marketing

Gives a resume of the Benetton operation, describing how 80 per cent of Benetton retailing is franchised with the majority taking place outside Italy. Studies, in depth, the experience of one franchisee in Burnley, Lancashire, by financial analysis and a survey of customers purchasing in the store. Results show that the Benetton message is getting across to consumers; brand is associated with colour, style and fashion for which premium prices are deemed acceptable. However, while the franchiser continues to retain tight control over product range, the sales period provides the only opportunity for the franchisee to improve stock and cash control and, ultimately, to survive.

The fashion in car colours changes with almost as much rapidity as do the fashions for the ‘modern miss’. Metallics, so popular for the last decade, are now losing ground to more solid colours, except for imported German cars, and the once popular duo‐tone finish is hardly ever seen.

The purpose of this paper is to examine motivational research (MR) – the most maligned and misunderstood branch of market research. It argues that MR has been too easily dismissed by researchers. In so doing, they have ignored a potentially significant insight into the post World War II consumer's motivations and domestic life.

This paper utilises previously unexamined primary source material to examine David T. Bottomley's construction of MR.

By looking at in‐depth market research studies, a greater, more rounded picture of the postwar consumer can be gained. Throughout the 1960s, some market researchers turned to consumer motivations to uncover the psychological dimensions of purchasing behaviour by determining the symbolic meanings goods had to their consumers. Rather than viewing consumer behaviour as predictable by factors such as economic class, motivational researchers held that consumers are multi‐faceted subjects and life‐stage and attitudes to colour are important factors influencing consumer behaviour.

Research that considers consumer motivations should not be so easily dismissed as deceptive or corruptive research without genuine merit for historical research. Nor should Dichter's style of research be considered to be the only version of MR.

Previous scholars have largely ignored the significance of market research to the development of the consumer market and the construction of the postwar consumer. Given the dearth of scholarly examinations, the paper is based almost entirely on primary research data.

Color is ubiquitous and is a source of information. People make up their minds within 90 seconds of their initial interactions with either people or products. About 62‐90 percent of the assessment is based on colors alone. So, prudent use of colors can contribute not only to differentiating products from competitors, but also to influencing moods and feelings – positively or negatively – and therefore, to attitude towards certain products. Given that our moods and feelings are unstable and that colors play roles in forming attitude, it is important that managers understand the importance of colors in marketing. The study is designed to contribute to the debate.

This article reviews the literature relating to color psychology in the context of marketing, highlights inconsistencies and controversies surrounding the color psychology, and, examines the impact of colors on marketing.

Findings of the study are that managers can use colors to increase or decrease appetite, enhance mood, calm down customers, and, reduce perception of waiting time, among others.

The direction for future research and limitations of the study are presented.

Reviews the literature relating to color psychology in the context of marketing.

Retailers talk about giving value to consumers, but the literature yields no clear definition of value. This study represents an initial attempt to define value empirically from a retailer and consumer perspective based on consumer user experience with apparel products and retailers chosen to shop. If one can determine the attributes that are most important to consumers, then it may be possible to utilise value as a strategic competitive advantage in differentiating a retailer and a product in what consumers ever‐increasingly see as commoditised products and stores. There are importance attribute differences for the retailer chosen to shop and values related to the product and the store.