Guilt and its mechanisms are a relevant way to understand consumers' behaviour towards fashion luxury purchases. Fashion is a huge industry, which proposes products based on subjective and personal affects. Clothes have to fit, to make people feel comfortable and good looking and not just to be useful. Designers sell dreams to consumers; they create a need which is not just to be dressed but to be well-dressed, fashionable. But at the same time, the fashion industry creates stereotypes and makes pressure on consumers. Then, the main question is to know if guilt is effective in fashion business, in other words if the unconscious mechanism of guilt triggers off in purchases such as luxury clothes or accessories which are well known to be "futile" or unnecessary. But in realty, this apparent "uselessness" is at the heart of this debate because if we refer to the main definition of guilt, we notice that guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something one believes one should not have done.
[...] Objective After having studied these articles, we felt the need to study the precise impact of external people on the guilt felt by consumers when they buy fashion items The existing knowledge has shown that guilt appeal is used as a marketing strategy in the fashion business and is indeed very effective in making consumer to buy fashion items. The objective of our research proposal is to establish how much the guilt we feel during or after a purchase is triggered by the imagination of what an external person might think of us, and not merely by a sense of guilt we would have without the interference of other people, whether they are virtual or real. [...]
[...] Your answer is no of course you are just looking, but you end up asking the price for the wallet, it is right in your price range. Finally you think more about it and you think that jeans can be wore everyday so that would be the most efficient purchase you would make for the day. Please really think of yourself in this exact situation and answer by or the following questions: Are you happy? Do you think you need to go shopping? [...]
[...] 47=YES 25=NO STATISTICS Number of buyers and non-buyers A1 conditions: - 16 students buy - 22 students do not buy A2 conditions: - 21 students buy - 17 students do not buy Proportion of buyers and non buyers A1 conditions: - 42% of the students buy - 58% of the students do not buy A2 conditions: - 55% of the students buy - 45% of the students do not buy Standard Error σ of the proportion: - In A1 conditions: = 0,42x0,58x38 = 9,25 So the standard error in A1 conditions is σ = 3,04 - In A2 conditions: = 0,55x0,45x38 = 9,4 So the standard error in A2 conditions is σ = 3,07 Interpretations of the results The data we have gleaned strongly suggests that consumers tend to purchase guilt appealing fashion articles for other people, and not for themselves. [...]
[...] Your answer is no of course you are just looking, but you end up asking the price for the wallet, it is right in your price range. Finally your friend helps you decide that jeans can be wore everyday so it would be the most efficient purchase you would make for the day. Please really think of yourself in this exact situation and answer by or the following questions: Are you happy? Do you think you need to go shopping? [...]
[...] Potential future research We could go further in our studies by measuring the impact of sellers in fashion stores. Are sellers to be actually considered as external person, making feel consumers guilty? Is there any trick to free that guilt? In other words, should sellers wait for customers to ask them for an advice or should they directly help customers and try to make them feel confident, so that they should ease the customer's guilt? References KIVETZ, Ran and SIMONSON, Itamar. [...]
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