A Study on Consumer Characteristics, and Clothing Buying Behavior by Clothing Involvement of College Female Students in China

The purpose of this study was to identity the relationship of clothing involvement, consumer characteristics, and clothing buying behavior of college female students in China. A questionnaire was developed to measure clothing involvement, materialism, conspicuous consumption, reference group influence, clothing purchasing modes, fashion information sources. The questionnaire was administered to 390 college female students in Dandong of china. The data were analyzed using percentage, frequency, factor analysis, and t-test. The results of the study were as follows: 1. Subjects were divided into low clothing involved and high clothing involved groups according to the level of clothing involvement. 2. Three dimensions of materialism were derived by factor analysis such as Happiness-pursuing, Life-centered, and Sucess-symbolic. And three dimensions of conspicuous consumption and reference group influence were derived by factor analysis such as luxury oriented, Status symbolic, Brand-name oriented, and Comparative, Informational, Normative exactly. Clothing purchasing motives and fashion information sources were factor analysed as Social and Individual mole, and Printed & Electric-wave media, Marketer managed, Personal exactly. 3. There were significant differences between high involved and low involved consumers in consumer characteristics and clothing purchasing behavior. The high involved consumers showed more importance than low involved consumers about materialism especially in Happiness-pursuing about conspicuous consumption in status symbolic and about influence of reference group in comparative. The high involved consumers put more importance than low involved consumer individual motive as clothing purchasing motive, and marketer managed in clothing fashion information. The high invoked consumers showed more importance than low invoked consumers about evaluating attributes of product, and about store patronage criterion.