Online apparel shopping behaviour of South African professional women : the role of consumers' apparel shopping scripts

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the role that female consumers’ apparel shopping scripts play in the adoption of the Internet for apparel purchasing from a social-cognitive approach. In this study, the focus was on exploring the cognitive structures (shopping scripts) that consumers have and use to make decisions such as adopting the Internet for apparel purchasing. Rogers’ adoption of an innovation model was used as theoretical framework for the study, and a social-cognitive perspective theory (source) was incorporated into this model. A qualitative research strategy was adopted and 24 semi-structured interviews were held with professional women living in a major city in South Africa. As a stimulus technique, the participants were asked to visit various apparel web sites. Data analysis was done according to the data analysis process proposed by Miles and Huberman. The participants explicitly mentioned that they currently value certain steps, actions and procedures such as touching and scrunching textiles as well as trying on the items before deciding to buy them. They indicated that their current purchasing practices played an important role in their considering whether to adopt the Internet or not. This study is one of the few that have used qualitative research methods to explore consumers’ adoption of the Internet for apparel purchasing. The social-cognitive approach used in this study enables retailers and marketers to study consumers’ adoption processes from the consumer’s perspective. A limitation of the study is that only professional women, from a homogeneous culture, residing in the same major city, were used as participants. This, however, does not give a representative view of South African online shopping behaviour or of that of a third world country. Future studies are needed, focusing on a more national as well as multicultural perspective.