Psychological and behavioral drivers of online clothing purchase

As online purchasing grows in importance, understanding which consumers use this new distribution channel is an important question for e‐commerce managers and consumer theorists. The purpose of this study was to examine selected demographic and psychological characteristics that lead consumers to buy clothing online. It surveyed 805 consumers who described their online clothing buying as well as how innovative and involved they were for clothing and fashion, how innovative they were with regard to buying on the Internet, and how much they purchased clothing through catalogues. Although all these variables were positively correlated with amount of online clothing purchase, a multiple regression analysis showed that being an adventurous online buyer and a heavy catalog shopper had the most impact on online clothing buying. These findings imply that online apparel buying is motivated more by Internet innovativeness than by clothing innovativeness.