Branded apparel online choice and satisfaction

Abstract

Market Overview:- The study concentrates on the consumer behaviour aspects of the online retailing which is an emerging industry of about 12.6 billion USD in 2013(estimated) . E commerce provides customers a variety of products from expensive consumer durables like electronic equipment to homemade food delivered at the customers door step. In this broad scenario we concentrated on the online apparel industry which occupies nearly 30% of the share of the e retailing. Focus of the study:- Taking two themes choice and satisfaction of the consumer behaviour perspective and how they are effected in an online environment is the prime focus of the study. The choice is in terms of the various platforms available for the online purchase of apparel ranging from online retail to market place model and also choice is in terms of the number of brands and products available to the customer. This wide variety of choice is theoretically as well as practically impossible to achieve in offline stores. Process:- With the assistance of various academic journals of consumer research, information systems, marketing, psychology, sociology etc we have formulated the hypothesis which interrelates the choice and satisfaction. These hypothesis are tested particularly in the case of apparel industry by choosing a defined population and the sample from it. The questionnaire is according to the academic journals which helped us to test the hypothesis formed. We have chosen the analysis testing such t-test and regression to quantitatively prove the hypothesis. Implications:- Based on the above process, inferences are drawn from the quantitative analysis. These inferences are further used to come up with some implications such as narrowing down the choices of the consumer so as remove the too much choice effect and reducing the post purchase dissonance through a constant relation with the consumers are relevant to the industry as a whole. The study thus provides some viable recommendations for the ever competitive online platforms which is seen as the need of the hour in many of these companies.