An Empirical Study on Predicting User Purchase Intention on the Creative Product: A Case of Apparel

Chen Pang1 Xiaofen Ji1, 2

1 College of Fashion, Zhejiang Sci-tech University, China pangchen827@hotmail.com

2 School of Management, Zhejiang University, China xiaofen11@hotmail.com

Abstract

A study of consumer acceptance of the Internet as a channel of purchasing creative products (e.g. apparel) was conducted using a modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Two consumer characteristics (product involvement and product innovativeness) were introduced into the TAM to develop an extended model. Through checking the extended model, we found that the proposed model was valid in explaining and predicting consumer behaviors in the creative product (clothing) e-commerce context. Perceived usefulness and ease of use of online apparel shopping had most significant effect on attitude towards online apparel purchasing, and were the primary determinants of consumers’ behavioral intention. Conclusion and implications were discussed. 1. Introduction

Due to the rapid development of eCommerce during the last decade, many enterprises have been changing the way they sell their creative products (e.g. apparel), veering from the traditional shopping channels to the Internet. Creative industries were defined as those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property. Creative products, including clothing, consist of numerous elements as well as a large amount of information presented on the Websites. Internet users, information receivers, whose personality play an important role in their online behavior [1]. Reference [2] reached similar viewpoints and found that individual Internet use correlates with individual personality characteristics (e.g. consumer involvement and innovativeness). Thus, understanding the characteristics of potential online customers can help businesses accurately target potential markets. And the

cumulative effects of consumer involvement and innovativeness on behavioral intention for creative product (e.g. apparel) in the context of virtual stores were particularly important [3].

Technology acceptance model (TAM), first introduced in 1986 by F. Davis, enjoyed a rich base of academic acceptance (TAM) and has been proved to be valuable tool to explain the consumers’ adoption and use of online shopping, as in [4]. Thus, in addition to TAM’s original perceived ease of use and usefulness constructs, two important factors (consumers’ product involvement and product innovativeness) were proposed to achieve great explanatory power in the online apparel shopping context. 2. Literature review 2.1. Technology acceptance model (TAM)

TAM used the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) as a theoretical basis for specifying the causal linkages between consumers perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use of beliefs and user acceptance and actual usage of the particular technology [5]. Davis defined perceived usefulness (PU) as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance, and defined perceived ease of use (PEOU) as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort. Attitude referred to a kind of perceptual symbol, which includes the evaluation of an ‘attitude object’ (e.g. self, others, incidents, activities, events or viewpoints). And behavioral intentions (BI) referred to the willingness of an individual to perform certain behaviors. 2.2. Personal involvement theory

Involvement deals with various concepts in marketing that are concerned with the level of motivation and interest that one has in a product or purchase decision.

International Symposium on Electronic Commerce and Security

978-0-7695-3258-5/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/ISECS.2008.176

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The concept of personal involvement was proposed in [6], as “individual perceptions of the relevance of an object based on inherent needs, values, and interests”..

Product involvement, generally used as a substitute for personal involvement, referred to the individual motivation regarding an object where that motivational state is activated by the relevance or importance of the object in question [7]. Similarly, the same method was employed by several researchers, as in [8], both using the term ‘‘product involvement’’ to indicate personal involvement. Reference [8] also identified consumer product involvement as one of the determinants of online purchases. 2.3. Consumer innovativeness

Consumer innovativeness was defined as the tendency to buy new products more often and more quickly than other people [9]. And two main types of innovativeness have been abstracted, namely general innovativeness and domain-specific innovativeness. General innovativeness focuses on a cognitive style, which incorporates an individual’s intellectual, perceptual, and attitudinal characteristics [10]. However, a limitation of a general approach to innovativeness is that consumer innovation may be more domain or product specific. The domain-specific innovativeness scale would demonstrate a better ability to explain innovative purchase/use behaviors than the scale which measured the more abstract trait [10]. With regard to creative products, fashion products can be investigated as a domain of interest for the measurement of consumer innovativeness [11]. Fashion had highly important influence on the diffusion of innovation. 3. Extended model and research hypotheses

The development of the research framework and the relevant hypotheses for consumer acceptance of online channel purchasing for creative products has been based mainly on the intrinsic features of the TAM model, plus the introduction of consumers’ product involvement and product innovativeness. The proposed model is illustrated in Figure 1 and the related hypotheses are debated below.

According to the postulates and empirical results of TAM [4], the original PU and PEOU is positively correlated with user attitudes toward an information system (IS) and use intention. Moreover, Davis suggested that PEOU had a positive, indirect effect on PU. Reference [13] showed that perceived usefulness has a positive effect on a user’s attitude towards usage and the intention to use/surf the WWW. As online apparel shopping is an application of the WWW, it can therefore be assumed that the same principle will apply in terms of online shopping. Thus, based on the statements and

empirical findings above, H1, H1 and H3 were formulated:

Hypothesis 1: Perceived usefulness of online apparel shopping positively affects attitude towards online apparel purchasing.

Hypothesis 2: Perceived ease of online apparel shopping positively affects behavioral intention towards online apparel purchasing.

Hypothesis 3: Consumers’ attitudes towards online apparel purchasing positively affects their behavioral intention.

In addition, researchers have found that perceived ease of use has a positive influence on the user’s attitude towards actually using the Internet to send e-mails, and the perceived usefulness of this action [4]. Thus, combining with the original TAM, findings revealed a positive relationship between the ease of use of the online channel functions, and their perceived usefulness as well as the attitude towards doing so. Therefore, we proposed:

Hypothesis 4: Perceived ease of online apparel shopping positively affects perceived usefulness of online shopping.

Hypothesis 5: Perceived ease of online apparel shopping positively affects attitude towards online apparel purchasing.

Reference [7] indicated that individuals with higher product involvement have more positive shopping experiences and greater interest in specific products. Finally, Wang et al. (2006) identified consumer product involvement as one of the determinants of online financial service purchases. Reference [2] also proposed that high levels of product involvement positively influence user attitudes toward online shopping. Therefore, we proposed:

Hypothesis 6: Consumers’ product involvement positively affects their attitudes towards online apparel purchasing.

Fashion product has been believed as one area to be highly important in the diffusion of innovation, and the frequent introduction of new styles makes the fashion market a highly desirable arena for diffusion studies focusing on innovativeness [11]. Therefore, we proposed:

Hypothesis 7: Consumers’ product innovativeness positively affects their attitudes towards online apparel purchasing. 4. Research methodology 4.1. Sample and procedure

In order to target online consumers, a web-based survey was employed in the web communities. 651 returned valid questionnaires were initially screened for usability and reliability from 843 responses. To minimize data entry error, all data were entered twice and checked

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for consistency. Independent-sample T test was used to test demographic difference between Internet apparel purchasers and non-purchasers. Results indicated that Internet apparel purchasers were more likely to be female, young, students and aged from 18 to 24. 4.2. Measurement development

Each of the variables shown in Figure 1 was measured with multiple items derived from prior literature and modified to fit the context of online apparel shopping. The variable of product involvement was measured by 10 items modified by scales as in [12]. Product innovativeness was measured by 3 items modified by scales as in [13]. Variables in original TAM were measured by items modified by scales in [4]. Respondents were asked to indicate agreement with each statement in a measure using a five-point Likert-type scale. 5. Data analysis and results

There were two parts of our analysis. First, validity and reliability of the measurement model were tested by factor analysis and Cronbach’s �. Second, the causal structure of the proposed research model was tested using structured equation modeling (SEM).

5.1. Instrument validity and reliability

Factor analysis with VARIMAX rotation was used to assess the convergent validity. The threshold of factor loading is 0.5. With KMO value all above 0.7 and a significant value for Bartlett’s test, the data was adequate for factor analysis. Cronbach’s � is employed to test instrument reliability. All item-total correlation coefficients of the final value of the measurement items of each construct surpassed the threshold of 0.3, and all the values of each construct surpassed the threshold of 0.7. The ultimate results of descriptive statistics and reliability analysis were shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Results of validity, reliability analysis and descriptive statistics

Variables M Standard deviation CITC �

Product involvement 3.174 0.917 0.71 0.87

Product innovativeness 3.064 0.923 0.62 0.79

PU 3.295 0.747 0.65 0.81 PEOU 3.308 0.763 0.69 0.83 Attitude 3.315 0.816 0.74 0.84 BI 3.313 0.825 0.70 0.87

5.2. Structural model assessment

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was chosen as the

statistical tool. The computer program used was AMOS 4.0. The goodness-of-fit indices for this model were shown in Table 2 and the test demonstrated reasonable fit between the data and the proposed structure model. All measures satisfied the criteria of good fit. Therefore, results of the analysis indicated a good fit between the structural model and the data.

Table 2 Fit measures for the structural model Fit indicators Criteria Results

2/df <5 2.57

GFI 0.9 0.913

AGFI 0.9 0.907

IFI 0.9 0.927

CFI 0.9 0.926

RMSEA <0.1 0.045 The results showed one of the proposed hypotheses

was weakly supported (H7, p<0.05), while the rest were significant (p<0.01). All measures of structure model satisfied the criteria of good fit. The value of �2/df, GFI, AGFI, IFI, CFI and RMSEA were 2.57, 0.913, 0.907, 0.927, 0.926 and 0.045.

Product involvement

Fashion innovativeness

PU

PUOE

Attitude BI 0.58**

0.24**

0.31**

0.39**

0.34**

0.22**

0.13*

* Significant at 0.05, ** Significant at 0.01;

Figure1. Research model and the results Figure 1 illustrated the results of the structural model

and details of the statistics. Results of the analysis support H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, and weakly support H7. Effects of perceived ease of online shopping on perceived usefulness and attitude, perceived usefulness on both attitude and behavioral intention, as well as the effect of attitude on behavioral intention were sustained. Product involvement had significant effect on attitude towards online apparel shopping. However, the effect of product innovativeness on attitude was just weakly supported by the data.

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6. Conclusion and implications

This study explored two important consumer characteristics (product involvement and product innovativeness) of Internet apparel purchasing with regard to the consumer acceptance behavior to creative product. Our work generated following research conclusions:

Based on TAM, combining product involvement and product innovativeness, we put forward a modified model. Through checking the structure model, we found that the proposed model was valid in explaining and predicting consumer behaviors in the creative product (clothing) e-commerce context.

Perceived usefulness and ease of use of online apparel shopping had most significant effect on attitude towards online apparel purchasing, and were the primary determinants of consumers’ behavioral intention.

The finding is that consumers’ product involvement had a stronger effect than product innovativeness on consumers’ attitude towards online apparel buying. Firstly, consumers who were purchasing apparel over the Internet may not appear to be product innovators. Due to the complex feature of fashion clothing, images may fail to be presented accurately in the Internet context. Consumers still preferred loose fitting clothing available online to the new fashion variety. Moreover, it appears that being a higher product involved consumer may be more predictive of online clothing shopping. It is likely that consumers with high product involvement also have positive attitude to collect related information online. And individuals who frequently search for information online have high acceptance of online shopping.

The empirical findings presented in this study also provide helpful market strategies that e-merchants may enhance the advantage of web shops, simplified shopping process in order to increase consumers’ perceived usefulness and ease. Offering an easy online ordering process and clear procedures of return policy may be important for creative products. Product innovativeness was not a strong influence compared with product involvement. Individuals with high product involvement consider clothing to be a central part of their life and have a very strong commitment to fashion clothing that would be difficult to break. Therefore, accurate and ample information may be particularly important, such as written and image information about fiber content, laundering instruction and feature of creative products. We wish that the conclusion can be helpful for online apparel business to make marketing strategies to their targeted market. References

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