Exploring the effects of scarcity, impulse buying, and product returning behavior in the fast fashion environment among female fashion conscious consumers.

摘要

By nature, fashion is unpredictable. While other fashion retailers are struggle with lost profits from overstock and inflexibility of supply chains to follow quick trend changes, fast fashion retailers have turned these obstacles to their advantages over non-fast fashion retailers. The success of flexible supply chain management strategies results in a quicker response to new trends of fashion and a solution for strategic consumer behavior. Instead of delaying their purchase to take advantage of sale prices, consumers feel compelled to immediate purchase apparel products from fast fashion retailers because the availability of current designs are limited. Not only are the products available for a short amount of time due to frequent introduction of new designs, but also are scarce because of small batches of production and replenishment. Limited product availability has become a unique characteristic of the fast fashion retail environment. While several studies have thoroughly examined the success of the fast fashion environments, these previous studies have focused on the benefits of fast fashion from the retailers' perspective. There are few known studies that have examined consumer behavior in the fast fashion environment.;Therefore, the purpose of the current research was to investigate the relationships that may exist among fashion consciousness, attitude, perception of product scarcity, impulse buying behavior, post-purchase emotional response, and product return behavior within the context of the fast fashion environment. Data were collected from a convenience sample of female undergraduate students. The final sample consisted of 175 female college students. Of these, approximately 56% were Caucasians and approximately 73% of participants were 18-21 years old. A series of regression analyses was employed to test all hypotheses. Results revealed that fashion consciousness had a positive influence on their attitude toward fast fashion retailers. We also found that fashion conscious values had a positive relationship with perceptions of scarcity within the fast fashion environment. In addition, we found that attitude toward fast fashion retailers and perceptions of scarcity were related to impulse buying behavior in the fast fashion environment. A significant relationship between impulse buying behavior and some negative post-purchase emotional responses was found. Lastly, results revealed that product return behavior in the fast fashion environment was positively influenced by some negative post-purchase emotional responses. Implications are provided. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.