Consumers’ Attitudes towards Apparel Texture in E-Business for Quick Response-based Mass Customization Available to Purchase

Consumers’ buying behavior depends on the look-and-see and touch-and-feel of fabrics in apparel. But online shopping with Quick Response-based mass customization might make consumers hesitate to buy apparels because of unable to touch fabrics. Consumer would make better buying decisions if they had the right information on the attributes of apparel products such as fabric (Lee, 1998). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the consumers' texture sensibility in an online environment. 16 textile swatches (two representative swatches per 1 axis) for 8 axes were selected from previous research (Kim, 1996; Choo, 2000). 202 questionnaires were analyzed to describe the tendency of the responses from Likert method. The results of this research were as follows: Taffeta was recognized as most glossy, The most transparent was Habutae. The most nice, practical, and comfortable was Single jersey. The most dense and smooth was Satin. The most comfortable and elegant was Velvet, and refreshing for Oxford, sandy & warm for Chiffon, natural, sandy, and plain for Homespun, warm for Corduroy, flat for Organza, and warm & strong for Melton. As managerial implication, apparel e-business marketers should provide more fabric information as there are perceived differences in texture sensibility between online and offline.