Search results

The aim of this study is to identify and analyse the main strategic differences between fast and ultra-fast fashion supply chain management.

This study uses a qualitative approach, using document analysis and in-depth interviews with industry specialists.

Ultra-fast fashion differs from fast in the following supply chain strategies: avoids any excess inventory, focuses on local manufacturing, on-demand production, and shorter lead times from a few days to a week with a combination of agile, lean, responsive supply chain strategies.

The limitations of this research are due to the cut-off period and the use of a restricted sample. As implications, technological capabilities are underexplored in the fashion industry. Although important to the traditional and fast fashion industry, technology is viewed as a tool and not as a capability that can generate competitive advantage. This paper addresses technology as capabilities to make ultra-fast fashion retailers more competitive.

Ultra-fast fashion could potentially impact current fast fashion retailers to partially move their business model and operations towards an ultra-fast approach. Fast fashion retailers desiring to speed up their production processes launch more weekly collections to cater to consumers who are more fashion-conscious.

There is a rapid emergence of new start-ups that are calling themselves ultra-fast. Newcomers wanting to adopt this new segment’s business model, develop technological capabilities to meet the challenges of this supercompetitive market.

This paper seeks to address the complex nature of fast fashion buying through case studies with a supermarket, department store and own brand label. The phenomenon of fast fashion raises questions about traditional approaches to sourcing and buying, which are addressed here.

Case studies were compiled with companies managing fast fashion, alongside other purchase and retail activities, namely a supermarket, department store and specialist fashion chain.

Reveals the buying practices for fast fashion, namely, a combination of global and local suppliers, a leagile approach is typical; trust is an important factor in the supplier‐retailer relationship to ensure fast delivery at an agreed quality; and integration of key internal activities and processes to facilitate the speed of buying decisions that may be required.

Gives insight into the factors affecting buying behaviour for fast fashion.

Very little fast fashion literature focuses on pleasure‐seeking activities or luxury‐fast‐fashion and the purpose of this paper is to start addressing these gaps from the perspective of the customer.

Over eight months, a naturalistic inquiry obtained publicly available online information from customers who during their normal daily lives freely shared their opinions and reflections about fast fashion purchases.

A clearly apparent and unexpected finding is that pleasure‐seeking consumers enjoy creativity associated with ephemeral fashions and uniqueness, as these add value to the customer in different ways, depending on whether the customer is a fast fashion or a replica customer.

This study is limited to the fast fashion context and lays the foundation for future researchers to consider other contexts of fashion or luxury brands to qualify or quantify the extent of pleasure seeking and its contribution to the fashion experience in the context of the designer, the fashion brand and the customer.

Developing fashion games or fashion applications that enable the user to create and design fashion items, or mix and match fashion items will reinforce enjoyment in the design experience and linking these to the brand should reinforce positive affirmations toward the fast fashion brand.

This paper takes a fresh approach to uncover and describe hedonic customer responses to replica and fast fashion, the results of which update fast fashion and the luxury brand literatures and demonstrate the importance of creativity in the experience.

The paper aims to establish how fast fashion is translated and communicated in the retail store environment.

An interpretive paradigm and inductive methodology made use of participant observation and key informant interviews.

Whilst efficiencies in the supply chain have facilitated fast fashion's success, centralised control structures have meant that these efficiencies and flexibilities have not been translated into the retail store environment. Marketing communications activity is evident in relation to aspects of fast fashion, for example, through the use of “hero pieces” as identified in this research, however, availability and retail presence must support the fast fashion proposition.

The paper has a UK focus where fast fashion is well established, therefore generalisations relating to other fashion markets may not be appropriate.

Retailers may have interest in the findings to gain competitive advantage in fast fashion.

Academic research on fast fashion research is still in its infancy, however this paper provides some unique insights into the phenomenon which may add to the nascent literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore fast-fashion consumers’ post-purchase behaviours and examine relationships among fast-fashion purchase, disposing, hoarding, participation in recycling, and environmental attitudes.

A survey questionnaire was developed and a total of 335 college students completed it in a classroom setting. Of the data collected, 274 students who purchased fast-fashions were used for this study. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data and Pearson correlations were conducted to examine relationships among the variables.

Results of Pearson correlations indicated that fast-fashion purchase was positively related to disposing and hoarding, but negatively related to participation in recycling. Apparel hoarding was positively related to recycling, but no relationships were found between environmental attitudes and any of the following: fast-fashion purchase, disposing, hoarding, or participation in recycling.

Fast-fashion suppliers should encourage consumers’ participation in recycling and should take responsibility for collecting their post-purchase products.

This paper provides important contributions to the literature about fashion retailing/marketing and post-purchase behaviours. Although young fashion-oriented consumers easily purchase and dispose of trendy and cheap fast-fashions, little is known about their post-purchase behaviours. Findings of this study showed that fast-fashion consumers had positive attitudes towards the environment, yet they did not participate in recycling. The finding implies that fast-fashion suppliers need to develop a culture to support sustainability of consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of actual purchase behavior vs satisfaction at the point of purchase and the antecedents of actual unplanned vs planned purchase behavior.

By using both survey and actual purchase data from a total of 3,300 shoppers of a Korean fast fashion brand, the multivariate regression analysis and two separate logistic regression analyses were compared to respond to the research questions.

The noticeable point of the findings is that the factors influencing the level of satisfaction and the probability to purchase were different. As common factors for both actual purchase and satisfaction, value for money, and affordable price are the first things that the practitioners have to keep in mind when developing a strategy for fast fashion stores. However, unplanned shoppers, who are over half of buyers, are negatively influenced by the affordable prices in their buying decisions.

The results of this study have implications for the retailers, especially those selling fast fashion products in South Korea.

The current study has merit because of its use of secondary data collected by a large marketing research company on Korean domestic fast fashion brand. In particular, the combination of the large sample survey data collected right after shopping and the actual receipt of purchase has its unique value.

The current research explored both pre-purchase and post-purchase factors of consumer behaviour. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships that may exist among consumers’ perceptions of perishability, scarcity, low price, attitudes, impulse buying, post-purchase emotions, and product returns within the context of the fast fashion environments.

A total of 246 usable questionnaires completed by female undergraduate students, who made purchases and product returns at fast fashion retailers, were analysed in SPSS and AMOS 23.0. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses.

Consumers who are attracted to scarcity due to limited supply and scarcity due to time, referred to as perceived perishability, have a positive attitude towards the fast fashion retailers in which products are presented in scarce environments. Likewise, consumers have a positive attitude towards fast fashion retailers due to low priced merchandises they offer. Consequently, consumers who have a positive attitude towards the fast fashion retailers are likely to purchase products from them impulsively. Moreover, impulse buying behaviour positively influenced some negative post-purchase emotional responses, which in turn positively influenced product returns in the fast fashion environments.

The results of the current study contribute to a greater understanding of apparel-related consumer behaviour in general. A theory formation of fast fashion consumer behaviour from acquisition to disposal can be drawn from the results of this study. Because some fast fashion retailers do sell clothing for both men and women, researchers could compare the responses of males and females to examine differences in consumer behaviour related to demographic characteristics. In the future, an examination of actual emotional responses and return behaviour would be beneficial for a more complete understanding of post-purchase consumer behaviour.

Fast fashion retailers could use this information to carefully design shopping environments that induce impulse buying behaviour because it may result in product returns. Fast fashion retailers need to understand the causes of the return behaviour, whether consumer related or product related, to better meet the needs of their target market. Return policies must be considered.

This research is the first to examine the impact of negative emotions following consumers’ impulse buying on product returns in the fast fashion retail environments.

The phenomenon of fast fashion is under‐researched academically, yet has received attention in most of the fashion and business press. Therefore, as it would seem timely, this article aims to present the findings of some exploratory research.

The concept of agile supply chains or supply chain theory is explored with reference to fast fashion requirements. The research was carried out using in‐depth interviews of key informants in the fashion industry.

The major findings of this exploratory research demonstrate a developmental process occurring in supply chain management when fast fashion comes into the equation. This research provides additional complexity on the existing model of supply chain management for the fashion industry.

This paper presents a research agenda for future exploration. There are implications for theoretical perspectives of supply chain management as well as retail operations.

This paper offers insights into the impact of fast fashion on the supply chain and the links in the process which deserve further research attention.

The study aims to examine fast fashion consumers' negative in-store experiences focusing on the effect of the two store environment factors, product overload and store ambiance, on their confusion and consequent shopping avoidance behavior.

A research model of fast fashion consumers' confusion and store avoidance behavior is proposed using the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework. A pretest and the main online survey with 281 samples are analyzed, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) is conducted to test the proposed model.

The SEM results support the proposed paths statistically. Consumers' confusion, measured with the two dimensions, inefficiency and helplessness, is significantly influenced by their perceived product overload and negative perception of store ambiance in the fast fashion shopping environment. Subsequently, fast fashion consumers' confusion results in less time spent in the store.

The study sheds light on utilitarian shopping value in the fast fashion shopping environment by focusing on the fast fashion consumers' confusion in association with overloaded information caused by too many products and store ambiance.

The study implies that improving fast fashion stores' inherent issues with too many products and store ambiance might help consumers mitigate their confusion and prevent customer attrition. However, the study includes only two factors. Future studies may include other various fast fashion store factors. Additionally, one of the dimensions of confusion, irritation, did not emerge in this study. More work is needed to investigate fast fashion consumers' confusion, such as using a multigroup analysis by age.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the factors affecting consumer’s fast fashion brand loyalty by examining US college students’ perceptions and loyalty toward fast fashion.

Using consumer-based brand equity approach, a research model which examines the factors affecting consumer’s brand loyalty in the fast fashion context was proposed. It was hypothesized that consumer’s perceptions of fast fashion, including brand awareness, perceived quality, perceived value, brand personality, organizational associations, and brand uniqueness, affect consumer brand loyalty. Based on the valid data from 419 US college students, this study employed structural equation modeling to investigate the factors affecting US college students’ brand loyalty toward fast fashion.

Results reveal that for the US college students, brand awareness, perceived value, organizational associations, and brand uniqueness are the contributing factors to generating consumer’s loyalty toward fast fashion brands.

Due to the fact that fast fashion has become a key feature of the global fashion industry over the last decade, there is phenomenal growth in the availability of fast fashion brands in the US markets. This study provides valuable insights about young consumers’ perceptions of fast fashion brands and the factors’ contributions to their brand loyalty.