Mirela Mihić

Antecedents and outcomes of fashion innovativeness in retailing

ABSTRACT Challenging market conditions force the fashion industry to find new ways of introducing new products, adjusting and stimulating unplanned purchases within fashion stores. Fashion innovativeness and visual merchandising play a key role in this challenge. This study examines how fashion innovativeness is related to motivational factors for shopping and actual unplanned purchases in fashion retailing. It also investigates the moderating effect of visual merchandising on the relationship between fashion innovativeness and unplanned purchases. The data, obtained through a consumer survey, were analysed using factor analyses and structural equation modelling. The results show that fashion innovativeness is positively affected by sexual attraction, shopping for recreation, recognition enhancement, and aesthetic expression, and positively influences unplanned purchases. The link between fashion innovativeness and unplanned purchases is moderated by visual merchandising. This study also provides recommendations for retailers on increasing unplanned purchases in their stores using the concept of fashion innovativeness.

WORD-OF-MOUTH COMMUNICATION: A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL APPROACH

The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for understanding and researching the traditional word-of-mouth communication (WOM) with respect to both sender and receiver and different factors influencing WOM. The main goal is to indicate that WOM represents an important and complex problem area requiring a multi-dimensional approach and accentuating the comprehension of both WOM sending and receiving information with respect to the influence of different factors, such as consumer’s individual characteristics, interpersonal and situational factors. Prior research analysis reveals the lack of integrality in researching the greater number of relevant factors influencing WOM and studying this problem area from the aspect of all communication process participants (both sender and receiver). There are many unexplained factors influencing WOM providing the possibility of gaining new research insights. Thus, this paper examines the problem aspects of WOM offering the marketing implications, conclusions and the future research directions.

Examining shopping enjoyment: personal factors, word of mouth and moderating effects of demographics

Abstract Shopping enjoyment represents an important research concept within the consumer behaviour and marketing communication field. The purpose of this research is to explore direct influences of personal factors (attitudes toward the advertising, the need for individuality/uniqueness, price sensitivity) on shopping enjoyment, its impact on the word of mouth communication (WOM) and the moderating effects of demographic variables (gender and education) on these relationships. The research was conducted on the representative sample of 1000 Croatian respondents. The variety of statistical techniques, including SEM, was employed for data analysis. The results show that personal factors positively influence shopping enjoyment, which is positively related to WOM communication. Furthermore, the results confirm the moderating effects of gender and education on the relationship between the shopping enjoyment and WOM. These research findings contribute to the scientific knowledge enrichment and offer some practical marketing implications. Namely, the marketing experts can better understand the consumer’s factors impacting shopping enjoyment, which can enable them to adequately assess the necessary appeals and to create an effective and persuasive marketing communication. At the end, the paper addresses the research limitations and offers some future research directions.