Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

152 Fashion Marketing
showed that the average time people in the US spend shopping has been
declining; the cardinal rule among fashion retailers has been to try to keep
customers in the store as long as possible. In this connection, retailers should
provide the store environment that makes shopping convenient, relaxing and
fun, instead of merely providing racks of clothing for consumers to choose
from in the store (Reda, 1997). Otherwise, consumers can use their limited
time for other leisure activities which are more enjoyable and satisfying if they
find shopping is boring.
Regarding the situation in Hong Kong, it is becoming increasingly difficult
for apparel retailers to differentiate their stores solely on the basis of merchandise,
price, promotion or location. Hong Kong has been well known internationally
as the sourcing centre for most fashion retailers overseas. With
the advance in production skills and quick response techniques, clothing
styles are easily copied once they have proved to be successful in the retail
market. In addition, Hong Kong is just a small city where shops are clustered
together; shoppers can easily buy their clothes at a reasonable price by just
doing comparison shopping of the nearby stores. Since Hong Kong customers
still rank shopping as their favourite pastime, a retailer should provide a retail
environment which can lure these customers to enter. Thus, the unique environment
offered may be influential to the consumer’s store choice decision
(Darden et al., 1983). Furthermore, a store’s environmental design is particularly
important for retailers when the number of competitive outlets increases,
or when product entries are aimed at distinct social classes or lifestyle buyer
groups. In a study of department store image in Hong Kong and Shanghai, it
was revealed that a store’s atmospheric design is one of the elements which
develop a ‘sense of prestigious and high quality’ (Chan and Leung, 1996). This
indicated that store environment affects the store choice of customers in the
upscale market segment.
The purpose of this chapter is to review some of the basic concepts on retail
store environment and how Hong Kong consumers react to the retail store
environment. A research finding on several Hong Kong casualwear chain
stores is included. Results show that social factor in store atmospherics is relatively
important compared with other factors such as ambience and function.
This is not to say that physical facilities and aesthetic elements are not important
in a fashion store environment, rather it indicates that fashion shoppers in
Hong Kong are more sensitive to the presence of personnel in the store.
Background
Some retailers can perform well in the competitive fashion retail industry,
while some are merely struggling for survival. The reason is that the successful
retailers really understand what is the real meaning of ‘value’ in the consumer’s
mind. However, many retailers wrongly assume that value means
price. Value is the total experience, it means the benefits received from purchasing.
Those benefits include pleasant store environment, good sales people