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The purpose of this paper is to investigate attitude, subjective norm, perceived integrity of participants, materialism, and previous experience with collaborative consumption (CC) offline as antecedents to the CC of apparel facilitated by the internet.

Survey research with convenience sample of consumers from within the USA.

Attitude toward CC of apparel was significantly related to intention to collaboratively consume apparel online as was subjective norms. Previous experience with CC of apparel offline was significantly related to both attitude and behavioral intention. Perceived integrity of CC participants was related to previous experience with CC of apparel offline and attitude. Materialism was significantly and negatively related to previous experience with CC of apparel.

Research limitations include the use of a convenience sample of consumers and the research was limited to one form of CC.

As a means to foster sustainable consumption, for those interested in promoting CC, consideration should be given to having existing participants of CC invite other family members and friends to try it as this might be more effective than targeting random members of the consuming public.

An investigation of CC of a fashion item (apparel) that identifies predictors to participation.

In the context of crowdsourced new product development (NPD), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal level of community involvement (CI) (e.g. zero, limited, and high) when creating products from the perspectives of both ordinary and advanced users. The authors also investigate the influence of design interest and need for social affiliation on users’ attitudes toward and willingness to use community co-design.

The authors conducted two survey studies using ordinary (Study 1, n=199) and advanced users (Study 2, n=131) to evaluate the co-designed T-shirts reflecting varying levels of CI (i.e. zero, limited, and high). The stimuli for both studies were the same and included ten sets of T-shirt co-designs generated from a CI crowdsourced website, Threadless. Fishbein’s (1963) multi-attribute attitude model was used to compute subjects’ overall attitude score toward the T-shirt co-designs.

Results showed both ordinary and advanced user groups rated the design quality of products reflecting limited CI lower than those of zero CI. Advanced users also rated the design quality and sales potential of products from limited CI lower than those of high CI. Further, advanced users indicated that products resulting from high CI reflected significantly better designs with regard to color, shape/line, size, general theme, and overall design as compared to products from limited CI. Design interest as well as need for social affiliation influenced users’ willingness to use community co-design and their attitudes toward a community co-design experience.

The research made an important differentiation between zero, limited, and high CI during the co-design process as well as between ordinary users and advanced users contributed to the extant literature addressing crowdsourcing in NPD.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of four types of cause-related marketing (CRM) strategies on consumer responses to a fashion brand and to assess the relative effectiveness of each.

An experiment was conducted with young adult consumers (n=344) and undergraduates (n=415). Using a between-subject design, each participant was randomly assigned to one of four CRM scenarios and completed a questionnaire.

Across all CRM conditions, the effect of CRM strategy on consumer responses (e.g. perceived brand distinctiveness/credibility/attractiveness, customer–brand identification, brand attitude, customer loyalty) was significant. The effect of corporate social responsibility image on perceived brand distinctiveness was strongest for cause-related event marketing, followed by cause-related experiential marketing, transaction-based CRM and sponsorship-linked marketing.

By providing information about the relative effectiveness of four types of CRM strategies, this research aids fashion marketers in their selection of the CRM strategy that generates the best performance. Adding an event component to their CRM activity would increase the effect of CRM strategies on consumer responses.

This research contributes to the extant literature on CRM by identifying types of CRM strategies, their relative effectiveness, and key variables (e.g., C–B identification) that explain the impact of CRM strategies on consumer responses.

Little research has been done to understand how individual elements (e.g. advertisements) within a webpage are processed and evaluated when visual complexity is increased. Thus, this study aimed to investigate how consumers allocate attention and evaluate products and advertisements on complex webpages when they are casually browsing.

This study conducted two experiments to test the causal effects of different degrees of visual complexity on consumer responses to products and advertisements. An eye-tracking experiment (n = 90) and a follow-up online experiment (n = 121) were conducted using undergraduate students as participants.

Participants formed a global impression from the overall webpage complexity, which spilled over to evaluation of individual elements on the webpage (e.g. product, advertisement). The inverted U-shaped relationships (vs. linear negative relationships) between webpage visual complexity and attitude toward the webpage, products, and advertisements were observed. The focal product was given a consistent level of attention regardless of the complexity level.

This study provides implications for website organization and design to maximize positive consumer experiences and marketing effectiveness. The findings provide implications for retailers and advertisement buyers.

This study expanded the knowledge by examining the interplay between individual elements of webpages and the whole webpage complexity when consumers browse visually complex webpages. It is a novel finding that the overall webpage complexity effect spills over to locally attended products or advertisements.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of three virtual fashion stores using product display methods dominant by colour, visual texture and style coordination on consumers' retailer interest, retail pleasure, perception of merchandise quality, patronage intention, and purchase behaviour to provide empirically tested, actionable product display methods to visual merchandising researchers and practitioners.

The authors used mixed methods for this exploratory study, combining experimental and focus group methods to gather data. For the experiment, data were collected via a between-subjects design reflecting manipulation of three variables (i.e. colour, style coordination, visual texture). After the experiment, participants completed a self-administered online questionnaire. A segment of the participants also participated in focus group discussions of the virtual stores.

Participants who shopped in the style coordination store spent significantly more money than those who shopped in colour or visual texture stores. Participants who shopped in the colour store experienced significantly more retail pleasure and showed significantly higher patronage intention than those who shopped in the visual texture and style coordination stores; and they showed more retailer interest than subjects in the visual texture store. Retail pleasure and interest were found to mediate the link between methods of product display and patronage intention. Participants' fashion involvement moderated the relationship between fashion product display methods and retail interest.

This research is one of the first to create three virtual stores featuring product display methods dominant by colour, visual texture, and style coordination using 3D technology – a Mockshop software package. The effect of these different display methods on shoppers' reactions and responses was tested, which provided actionable results for visual merchandising practitioners, not only in the physical but also in the virtual store environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of individuals’ self-view (interdependent, independent) in the relationship between moral emotions and moral judgments made concerning the purchase of fashion counterfeits.

Based on reviewing the literature on moral decision making, moral emotion and self-construal, we test the hypotheses by two experimental studies.

The results of two studies demonstrated that independents were more likely to judge counterfeits as morally wrong when pride rather than shame was associated with counterfeits or was evoked through an anti-counterfeit campaign. Interdependents were more likely to judge counterfeits as morally wrong when shame rather than pride was evoked through an anti-counterfeit campaign.

Results can inform marketing communication campaigns designed to prevent the proliferation of counterfeits in the fashion industry.

The contribution of this research is the expansion of prior work on consumers’ purchase of counterfeit goods by the discovery of the causal direction of individuals’ differences in self-view and its impact on moral judgment.

The paper aims to investigate the opinions of professionals working in various levels of the fashion industry on the future (i.e. the next ten to 20 years) of the industry.

This is a two‐part study, with this part focusing on the future materials of fashion and on fashion design. The second part focuses on the future of fashion production and retailing. Data in the form of essays were collected from 62 professionals. The constant comparative method and open coding were used in analysis of the data.

Technological advancements were predicted as a major force for changes. Participants predicted the continued development of specialized fibers or fabrics for specific functions. Participants also predicted that future apparel styles would emphasize individuality, comfort, casualness, unisex, and ethnicity. Design and product development processes would be heavily dependent on digital technology; as a result, the role of technical design would grow in importance. Companies that can embrace technology without eliminating the art elements of the business – functional with an aesthetic touch – would remain in an advantageous position to sustain business profitability. Collaboration was also identified as an emerging trend.

The findings can help academics in developing research ideas and making curricular decisions.

Limited research exists addressing the views of a wide variety of professionals on the future of the fashion industry. The examination of professionals' opinions may provide insights into the future that are useful for making decisions on career directions, selecting educational experiences, and planning strategies.

entailed assessing directions in subject matter content and the types of research strategy employed. In research using human participants, the purposes were to assess: sampling strategy, statements limiting generalizability, incentive use, and the use of undergraduates (UGs) as participants. Finally, with studies utilizing UG participants, the purpose of this paper was to assess: directions in subject matter content, research strategy, sampling strategy, justification of participants, statements limiting generalizability, and incentive use.

A content analysis of fashion/clothing research articles (n=963) appearing in three scholarly journals between 1996 and 2013.

Consumer behavior was the most frequent research topic and survey methodology dominated the research strategy employed. Majority of samples were nonprobability, slightly over half of the authors provided statements limiting generalizability of their findings, use of incentives was routinely not reported, and a little over a third used UGs as participants. Of researchers using UGs, consumer behavior was the most frequent topic, UGs were justified as participants, and when both UGs and nonstudents were included as participants, comparisons in responses were typically not made.

Articles included were limited to those published in three journals.

Author/reviewer guidelines should suggest providing: an appropriate rationale for UG use; descriptive population statistics; statements limiting generalization; information describing the sampling technique; and information on the use of incentives. Also when authors have UGs and nonstudent adults as participants it would be useful to analyze for significant differences between the two groups.

First investigation of use of UGs as participants in clothing/fashion research.

The purpose of this paper is to test an online apparel co-design experience model and to investigate six determinants (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, enjoyment, level of personalization, social presence, and attitude towards the co-designed product) of online apparel co-design experience and effects on behavioural intention.

Female college students (n=265) were surveyed after an actual online apparel co-design experience in a computer lab and interactions with other users wherever such arenas were provided. structural equation modelling was used for data analysis.

The findings revealed that subjects’ apparel co-design experience was positively affected by enjoyment, attitude towards the co-designed product, perceived ease of use, and social presence. And behavioural intention towards the mass customization sites was positively affected by subjects’ attitude towards the co-design experience, subjective norm, and enjoyment.

The research makes a unique theoretical contribution by conceptualizing MC 2.0 (MC sites that provide arenas for user interaction) and by incorporating and confirming the significance of both “enjoyment” and “social presence” variables as predictors of online apparel co-design experience.

The purpose of this paper are to examine: first, whether the consumer style inventory (CSI) consumer decision-making styles were related to opinion seeking using electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites (SNSs) and attitudes toward online social shopping using SNSs; and second, whether opinion seeking in SNSs and attitudes mediated the links between decision-making styles and intent to social shop online for apparel using SNSs.

The conceptual foundation was based on Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell's model. In total, 304 college students who are SNS users provided usable responses. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed model and research hypotheses.

Among the CSI consumer decision-making styles, novelty/fashion consciousness decision-making style was the most important antecedent of opinion seeking using eWOM. The brand consciousness decision-making style was the most important antecedent of favorable attitudes. Novelty/fashion consciousness, brand consciousness, and price consciousness decision-making styles had indirect effects on intent to social shop online for apparel using SNS, mediated by both opinion seeking and favorable attitudes.

This study contributes to further theoretical understanding of the types of consumers that are drawn to eWOM and their online social shopping behaviors for apparel using SNSs. By identifying individual consumer characteristics, this study can provide retailers with an initial profile of consumers who shop apparel using SNSs. Retailers can use this information to further develop the design of their social shopping sites using SNSs to meet the needs of their customers.