1 Introduction
In a store, a consumer shares the place with other consumers and these other consumers give positive or negative effects to the consumer’s purchasing experience (Verhoef et al., 2009). For example, a customer who makes a big noise inside of the store makes other customers feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, there is a case about providing a positive effect to a customer according to the attitude of the customer towards the store, the length of time that customers spend in the store and their choices of merchandise, and so on. For instance, customers are easy to make their decisions by understanding the current trend and combination of clothing while they watch trendy fashion of other customers in the store (Lee et al., 2009).
Regardless of this importance, there has been a lack of research about others customers’ reaction instead of physical circumstances in the store or a salesperson. The reason for this is a value about physical circumstances and a salesperson can be managed by a company individually, while perception of customers and interaction are regarded as boundary outside of company’s ability to control. However, there has been a recent increase in possibility and interests about the necessity of management of other customers among scholars and workplaces (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000).
2 Theoretical Background
2.1 Physical Attraction
Physical attraction means acknowledgement of customers about attraction of physical characteristics and physical appearance of other customers in a retail circumstance (Brocato et al., 2012). McGrath and Otnes(1995) proved that consumers understand a role of a person based on other customers’ sex, age, and appearance in the situation of retail, and this leads customers to interact with people who seem like themselves. However, this does not show that the different appearance relates to customers’ emotion, acknowledgement, and behavior in spite of being a basis of whether they share similarities with them or not. Generally, familiarity is a type of emotion that strongly relates to good feeling, so high physical attraction could positively affect to customers’ emotion and attitude of acknowledgment. In fashion industry, fashion merchandise itself becomes a tool to improve physical attraction of people, so this evaluates industry as one that highly connects with physical attraction and it plays an important role in fashion stores. All these facts show a need of approach to understand significance of physical attraction of other customers in fashion stores.
2.2 Suitable Behavior
Suitable behavior means a degree of emotion whether a customer feels another customer behaves appropriately according to a situation in retail (Brocato et al., 2012). The situation of retail is a broad meaning of social activity and there is a social rule as known as standard or custom that controls behaviors of customers in a store. This also makes others customers to decide their behaviors and these behaviors affect to customers’ emotion, attitude and behaviors. Lots of current research about other customers’ behaviors in a situation of retail is focused on exploratory research which assorts customers’ behaviors into several categories (Harris & Reynolds, 2004; Lee et al., 2009). There is few research about the participation of other customers affects to target customers’ feeling, attitude and behavior, however, there is still lack of understanding in terms of adapting the situation of stores.
2.3 Store Attitude and Behavioral Response
Store attitude is a method of evaluating a store favorably or unfavorably, and this relates to an intention to revisit and loyalty to the store, and increases the satisfaction of customers. Regarding the fact that other customers in a store is also another outside factor of product, other customers are important factors to create the attitude of customers about the store. Behavioral respondent in customers’ experience has a relation with a tendency and possibility to act towards an object, and this has been generally measured in a perspective of purchasing intention. Original research has been done with a view of the fact that store selection will be affected by several conditions including atmosphere, image, characteristic of a store. However, what really decides whether a customer will stay longer or not depends on mainly environmental condition, or cognitive reaction according to the condition.
Therefore, based on the target consumers, this research focuses on previous research about another customer’s perception which is one of the environmental conditions that give impact to customer’s reaction.
3 Research Method
3.1 Hypothesis and Research Model
This research put its efforts on proving the impact of customers’ perception to the attitude of stores and behavioral response. Following model <Fig.1> for hypothesis is below;
H1. Higher physical attraction brings more positive attitudes from customers in fashion stores.
H2. If a customer perceives a behavior of another customer is adequate, the customer’s attitude towards a store will be positive.
H3. Another customer’s attitude towards a fashion store will give a positive impact to behavioral response of a customer.
Fig. 1 RESEARCH MODEL
3.2 Data Collection
In order to empirically verify the research hypothesis, this research facilitated an online questionnaire to consumers who recently purchased fashion merchandises in fashion stores. This questionnaire was from October 9th to October, 12th, 2016, and 200 answers for the analysis were collected.
The collected responses were used for the analysis of frequency, exploratory factor and reliability by using SPSS 18.0, and the analysis of confirmatory factor and structural equating model by using AMOS 18.0. The sample of the 200 consumers consists of 42.5% (85 people) of the age between 18 and 30, 57.5% (115 people) of the age between 31 and 60, 16.5% (33 people) of singles, 83.5% (167 people) of married people, 50% (100 people) of males and 50% (100 people) of females.
3.3 The Composition of Study Variables
This research used 3 questions based on the research of Brocato et al. (2012) in order to measure the perception of physical attraction about other customers’ particular perception, and other 3 questions based on the research of Brocato et al. (2012) in order to measure other customers’ reaction suitability. To measure the attitude of a store, 4 questions were used based on the research of Bennet and Rundle-Thiele (2002), and 3 questions of behavioral response from customers’ reaction came from the research of Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006) by editing their research questions to find the most appropriate accordance with our research.
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Test for the Reliability and Validity
As a process to confirm the validity of structure, this research used AMOS 18.0 and conducted the analysis of confirmatory factor based on the whole measured model including all factors. Table 1 shows the result of the confirmatory factor based on the whole measured model.
The result shows that the level of perception of other customers is divided into physical attraction and the suitability of reaction, and customers’ reaction is also properly divided into the attitude and the reaction because scores of the main model suitability are placed in an adequate range (X2(d.f.)=133.218(59), Normed X2=2.258, GFI=.911, CFI=.954, TLI=.940, RMSEA=.080). Each factor shows high credibility since the Cronbach’s value α came out to be .817~.907.
table 1 the result of confirmatory factor analysisConstructItemStandardized factor loadingt-valueCronbach's αAVECR Physical attractionOther customers were dressed appropriately...872***. Other customers looked nice...634*** Other customers have the type of appearance I like..780_a Suitable behaviorOther customers were friendly towards me..8318.766***. I found that other customers behaved well..8768.690*** Other customers' behavior was pleasant..625_a Store attitudeI am favorable to this fashion store..889_ This fashion store is excellent...466*** I have a good overall impression of this fashion store...724*** I like this fashion store...097*** Behavioral responseI want to visit this fashion store again in the near future...175***. I wanted to buy products in this fashion store...124*** I want to recommend this fashion store to other people..859_a
The convergent validity is about correlation of more than two tools of measurement for one factor, and there are two ways to evaluate this; Average Variance Extracted; AVE and Construct Reliability; CR (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Variables in this research met the convergent validity because their AVE is all in the range of .46~.70, and the confirmation of distinction was also valid since CR is in the range of .77~.84.
The discriminant validity is about how one factor is different from other factors, and this research compared AVE of latent variable and coefficient correlation of two variables' square by the procedure suggested by Fornell and Lacker(1981). If the result shows AVE between two variables are bigger than the coefficient correlation of all by comparing AVE and the coefficient correlation of two variables' square, a decision can be made that two factors have the discriminant validity.
table 2 the squared correlation and ave of varibalesVariablePhysical attractionSuitable behaviorStore attitudeBehavioral response Physical Suitable Store Behavioral
This research verified the impacts of customers' store attitudes and behavioral response from two dimensions which are physical attraction and suitable behavior by using full-route model. The model suitability came out to be outstanding at all parts (X2(d.f.)=104.699(64), Normed X2=1.402, GFI=.826, CFI=.895, TLI=.963, RMSEA=.027).
Byconsidering the impacts of dimension in other customers' perception to store attitude, physical attraction(β=.359***) and behavioral suitability(β=.193**) show meaningful effects, so the first and the second hypotheses were proven. The more attractive other customers' appearance in a fashion store, and the more adequate and polite of other customers' behaviors in the situation, store attitude was positive. When it is about the influence of other customers, physical attraction and behavioral suitability showed similar impacts on store attitude.
Moreover, the third hypothesis was proven as well since store attitude gives a similar impact to behavioral response(β=.628**). In other words, other customer factors (physical attraction and behavioral suitability) are influential in creating positive attitude of a store.
5 Conclusion and Suggestion
Scholars and companies in these days have acknowledged the importance of management in the other customers' impacts to target customers, and interests of this field becomes tremendous. Considering this change, this research discussed the impact of how the perception of other customers’ effects to store attitude and behavioral response of customers who purchase fashion merchandise in the situation of a fashion retail.
The result of empirical research can be concluded as following; first, other customers' physical attraction and their behavioral suitability show meaningful effects to store attitude of other customers in a store. The influence of store attitude shows that physical attraction is more critical factor than behavioral suitability. Second, store attitude of consumers in a fashion store gives meaningful impact to behavioral response. This means customers' positive perception of the store leads to positive actions and their reaction.
Yu Hua Cui is Assistant Professor in Yanbian University.
Her current research interests include Fashion Marketing and Consumer Behavior.
Jishun Niu is professor of Information
Management and Information System since 2005.
Her course teaching was Electronic Commerce, Management Information System, and Information Retrieval.
1 Introduction
In a store, a consumer shares the place with other consumers and these other consumers give positive or negative effects to the consumer’s purchasing experience (Verhoef et al., 2009). For example, a customer who makes a big noise inside of the store makes other customers feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, there is a case about providing a positive effect to a customer according to the attitude of the customer towards the store, the length of time that customers spend in the store and their choices of merchandise, and so on. For instance, customers are easy to make their decisions by understanding the current trend and combination of clothing while they watch trendy fashion of other customers in the store (Lee et al., 2009).
Regardless of this importance, there has been a lack of research about others customers’ reaction instead of physical circumstances in the store or a salesperson. The reason for this is a value about physical circumstances and a salesperson can be managed by a company individually, while perception of customers and interaction are regarded as boundary outside of company’s ability to control. However, there has been a recent increase in possibility and interests about the necessity of management of other customers among scholars and workplaces (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000).
2 Theoretical Background
2.1 Physical Attraction
Physical attraction means acknowledgement of customers about attraction of physical characteristics and physical appearance of other customers in a retail circumstance (Brocato et al., 2012). McGrath and Otnes(1995) proved that consumers understand a role of a person based on other customers’ sex, age, and appearance in the situation of retail, and this leads customers to interact with people who seem like themselves. However, this does not show that the different appearance relates to customers’ emotion, acknowledgement, and behavior in spite of being a basis of whether they share similarities with them or not. Generally, familiarity is a type of emotion that strongly relates to good feeling, so high physical attraction could positively affect to customers’ emotion and attitude of acknowledgment. In fashion industry, fashion merchandise itself becomes a tool to improve physical attraction of people, so this evaluates industry as one that highly connects with physical attraction and it plays an important role in fashion stores. All these facts show a need of approach to understand significance of physical attraction of other customers in fashion stores.
2.2 Suitable Behavior
Suitable behavior means a degree of emotion whether a customer feels another customer behaves appropriately according to a situation in retail (Brocato et al., 2012). The situation of retail is a broad meaning of social activity and there is a social rule as known as standard or custom that controls behaviors of customers in a store. This also makes others customers to decide their behaviors and these behaviors affect to customers’ emotion, attitude and behaviors. Lots of current research about other customers’ behaviors in a situation of retail is focused on exploratory research which assorts customers’ behaviors into several categories (Harris & Reynolds, 2004; Lee et al., 2009). There is few research about the participation of other customers affects to target customers’ feeling, attitude and behavior, however, there is still lack of understanding in terms of adapting the situation of stores.
2.3 Store Attitude and Behavioral Response
Store attitude is a method of evaluating a store favorably or unfavorably, and this relates to an intention to revisit and loyalty to the store, and increases the satisfaction of customers. Regarding the fact that other customers in a store is also another outside factor of product, other customers are important factors to create the attitude of customers about the store. Behavioral respondent in customers’ experience has a relation with a tendency and possibility to act towards an object, and this has been generally measured in a perspective of purchasing intention. Original research has been done with a view of the fact that store selection will be affected by several conditions including atmosphere, image, characteristic of a store. However, what really decides whether a customer will stay longer or not depends on mainly environmental condition, or cognitive reaction according to the condition.
Therefore, based on the target consumers, this research focuses on previous research about another customer’s perception which is one of the environmental conditions that give impact to customer’s reaction.
3 Research Method
3.1 Hypothesis and Research Model
This research put its efforts on proving the impact of customers’ perception to the attitude of stores and behavioral response. Following model <Fig.1> for hypothesis is below;
H1. Higher physical attraction brings more positive attitudes from customers in fashion stores.
H2. If a customer perceives a behavior of another customer is adequate, the customer’s attitude towards a store will be positive.
H3. Another customer’s attitude towards a fashion store will give a positive impact to behavioral response of a customer.
Fig. 1 RESEARCH MODEL
3.2 Data Collection
In order to empirically verify the research hypothesis, this research facilitated an online questionnaire to consumers who recently purchased fashion merchandises in fashion stores. This questionnaire was from October 9thto October, 12th, 2016, and 200 answers for the analysis were collected.
The collected responses were used for the analysis of frequency, exploratory factor and reliability by using SPSS 18.0, and the analysis of confirmatory factor and structural equating model by using AMOS 18.0. The sample of the 200 consumers consists of 42.5% (85 people) of the age between 18 and 30, 57.5% (115 people) of the age between 31 and 60, 16.5% (33 people) of singles, 83.5% (167 people) of married people, 50% (100 people) of males and 50% (100 people) of females.
3.3 The Composition of Study Variables
This research used 3 questions based on the research of Brocato et al. (2012) in order to measure the perception of physical attraction about other customers’ particular perception, and other 3 questions based on the research of Brocato et al. (2012) in order to measure other customers’ reaction suitability. To measure the attitude of a store, 4 questions were used based on the research of Bennet and Rundle-Thiele (2002), and 3 questions of behavioral response from customers’ reaction came from the research of Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006) by editing their research questions to find the most appropriate accordance with our research.
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Test for the Reliability and Validity
As a process to confirm the validity of structure, this research used AMOS 18.0 and conducted the analysis of confirmatory factor based on the whole measured model including all factors. Table 1 shows the result of the confirmatory factor based on the whole measured model.
The result shows that the level of perception of other customers is divided into physical attraction and the suitability of reaction, and customers’ reaction is also properly divided into the attitude and the reaction because scores of the main model suitability are placed in an adequate range (X2(d.f.)=133.218(59), NormedX2=2.258, GFI=.911, CFI=.954, TLI=.940, RMSEA=.080). Each factor shows high credibility since the Cronbach’s value α came out to be .817~.907.
table 1 the result of confirmatory factor analysisConstructItemStandardized factor loadingt-valueCronbach's αAVECR Physical attractionOther customers were dressed appropriately...872***. Other customers looked nice...634*** Other customers have the type of appearance I like..780_a Suitable behaviorOther customers were friendly towards me..8318.766***. I found that other customers behaved well..8768.690*** Other customers' behavior was pleasant..625_a Store attitudeI am favorable to this fashion store..889_ This fashion store is excellent...466*** I have a good overall impression of this fashion store...724*** I like this fashion store...097*** Behavioral responseI want to visit this fashion store again in the near future...175***. I wanted to buy products in this fashion store...124*** I want to recommend this fashion store to other people..859_a
The convergent validity is about correlation of more than two tools of measurement for one factor, and there are two ways to evaluate this; Average Variance Extracted; AVE and Construct Reliability; CR (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Variables in this research met the convergent validity because their AVE is all in the range of .46~.70, and the confirmation of distinction was also valid since CR is in the range of .77~.84.
The discriminant validity is about how one factor is different from other factors, and this research compared AVE of latent variable and coefficient correlation of two variables' square by the procedure suggested by Fornell and Lacker(1981). If the result shows AVE between two variables are bigger than the coefficient correlation of all by comparing AVE and the coefficient correlation of two variables' square, a decision can be made that two factors have the discriminant validity.
table 2 the squared correlation and ave of varibalesVariablePhysical attractionSuitable behaviorStore attitudeBehavioral response Physical Suitable Store Behavioral
This research verified the impacts of customers' store attitudes and behavioral response from two dimensions which are physical attraction and suitable behavior by using full-route model. The model suitability came out to be outstanding at all parts (X2(d.f.)=104.699(64), NormedX2=1.402, GFI=.826, CFI=.895, TLI=.963, RMSEA=.027).
Byconsidering the impacts of dimension in other customers' perception to store attitude, physical attraction(β=.359***) and behavioral suitability(β=.193**) show meaningful effects, so the first and the second hypotheses were proven. The more attractive other customers' appearance in a fashion store, and the more adequate and polite of other customers' behaviors in the situation, store attitude was positive. When it is about the influence of other customers, physical attraction and behavioral suitability showed similar impacts on store attitude.
Moreover, the third hypothesis was proven as well since store attitude gives a similar impact to behavioral response(β=.628**). In other words, other customer factors (physical attraction and behavioral suitability) are influential in creating positive attitude of a store.
5 Conclusion and Suggestion
Scholars and companies in these days have acknowledged the importance of management in the other customers' impacts to target customers, and interests of this field becomes tremendous. Considering this change, this research discussed the impact of how the perception of other customers’ effects to store attitude and behavioral response of customers who purchase fashion merchandise in the situation of a fashion retail.
The result of empirical research can be concluded as following; first, other customers' physical attraction and their behavioral suitability show meaningful effects to store attitude of other customers in a store. The influence of store attitude shows that physical attraction is more critical factor than behavioral suitability. Second, store attitude of consumers in a fashion store gives meaningful impact to behavioral response. This means customers' positive perception of the store leads to positive actions and their reaction.
Yu Hua Cui is Assistant Professor in Yanbian University.
Her current research interests include Fashion Marketing and Consumer Behavior.
Jishun Niu is professor of Information
Management and Information System since 2005.
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