• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.1-16
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• 2002

The need for ready-to-wear clothing increases as the problem comes to arise from the fit of custommade clothing due to the characteristics of middle-aged women's somatotype. At this point of time, a study on the realities of production of custom-made clothing in middle-aged women's clothing business firms is of very greatly significance. Therefore, this study was intended to identify the problem and improvements through the survey research of production of custom-made clothing in middle-aged women's clothing business firms and further present the plan for development of custom-made clothing business. The questionnaire was framed based on the contents extracted from the preliminary questionnaire research for the pattern section chief of each business firm. Collected data were statistically processed using the SPSS 10.0 Windows program. As a result, the following findings were obtained: 1. The target age of the middle-aged women's clothing business firms ranged from more than 45 years to less than 50 years of age. Clothing business firms much made inroads into the ready-to-wear clothing market largely in the 1980s and the 1990s. Their active entry into the custom-made clothing market occurred in the 1970s and the 1980s. 2. In terms of the clothing production method of middle-aged women's clothing firms, some private boutique and designer brand clothing firms entered the clothing market with a focus on custom-made clothing in the beginning of its organization and introduced the production method of ready-to-wear clothing in accordance with changes in production methods and consumers' needs and wants. National brand clothing firms manufactured clothing with a focus on ready-to-wear clothing from the beginning of its organization, but at last they manufactured both partial custom-made and whole custom-made as the problem arose from ready-to-wear clothing. Seeing that their clothing production showed the ratio readyto-wear to custom-made clothing of 2.58:1. And it was found that the manufacture of ready-to-wear and custom-made clothing took into consideration the great difference in the pattern, size and design plan. The research of the clothing production process showed that whole custom-made and partial custommade were distinguished according to whether or not the sample was presented. 3. The ready-to-wear pattern of middle-aged women's clothing firms were used with a focus on the 'patternmaker-developed pattern' and company-developed pattern'. Most clothing businesses produced clothing in 4 to 5 basic sizes, which is found to be insufficient to complement the physical characteristics of middle-aged women with many specific somatotypes. In the pattern of custom-made clothing, the 'pattern of ready-to-wear were applied' or the 'customized pattern was developed'. Actual measurements were most used as the size of custom-made, and accordingly it is predicted that the level of satisfaction is higher with the fit of custom-made clothing than that of ready-to-wear. The selling place and the head office showed the similar percent as the place for measuring the size of custom-made clothing. Size measurers were mostly the shop master. And it was found that most clothing business firms had a problem when the measured size was applied to the pattern. Accordingly, it is necessary to provide education on size measurement for shop masters. 4. It was found that in the middle-aged women's clothing firms, the pattern correction of the length of sleeve, jacket and slacks occupied the highest percent. Accordingly, it is necessary to provide for the size system to complement the accurate somatotype characteristics of middle-aged women. 5. In custom-made clothing customer management, most firms engaged in customer somatotype management through size management. They provided customers with commodity information by informing them of the sales and event period and practiced human management for customers by maintaining the get-together and friendly relationship. 6. Middle-aged women's clothing businesses responded that it would be necessary to improve the fit of custom-made clothing and complement their pursuit for individuality as the plan to improve its quality. In consequence, it suggests that middle-aged women's clothing businesses should provide middle-aged women with the clothing of better-suited size and refined design. Middle-aged women's clothing businesses responded that it was the most urgent task to form the custom-made clothing manufacturing team as the plan to expand the custom-made clothing market, which is identified as their emphasis on the systematized production of custom-made clothing.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.57-63
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• 2009

With an exponential increase in electronic commerce (e-commerce), marketers are attempting to gain a competitive advantage by emphasizing service quality and post interaction service aspects, which leads to customer satisfaction or behavioral consequence. Particularly for apparel, service quality is one of the key determinants in encouraging customer e-loyalty, and hence the success of apparel retailing in the context of electronic commerce. Therefore, this study explores e-service quality (E-SERVQUAL) factors and their unique effects on e-loyalty for apparel online shopping based on Parasuraman et al' s (2005) framework. Specific objectives of this study are to identify underlying dimension of E-SERVQUAL, and analyze a structural model for examining the effect of E-SERVQUAL on e-loyalty for online apparel shopping. For the theoretical framework of service quality in the context of online shopping, literatures on traditional and electronic service quality factors were comparatively reviewed, and two aspects of core and recovery services were identified. This study hypothesized that E-SERVQUAL has an effect on e-loyalty; customer satisfaction has a positive effect on e-service loyalty for apparel online shopping; and customer satisfaction mediates in the effect of E-SERVQUAL on e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on literatures. A total of 252 usable questionnaires were obtained from online consumers who had purchase experience with online shopping for apparel products and reside in standard metropolitan areas, in the United States. Factor analysis (e.g., exploratory, confirmatory) was conducted to assess the validity and reliability and the structural equation model including measurement and structural models was estimated via LISREL 8.8 program. Findings showed that the E-SERVQUAL of shopping websites for apparel consisted of five factors: Compensation, Fulfillment, Efficiency, System Availability, and Responsiveness. This supports Parasuraman (2005)'s E-S-QUAL encompassing two aspects of core service (e.g., fulfillment, efficiency, system availability) and recovery related service (e.g., compensation, responsiveness) in the context of apparel shopping online. In the structural equation model, there are five exogenous latent variables for e-SERVQUAL factors; and two endogenous latent variables (e.g., customer satisfaction, e-loyalty). For the measurement model, the factor loadings for each respective construct were statistically significant and were greater than .60 and internal consistency reliabilities ranged from .85 to .88. In the estimated structural model of the e-SERVEQUAL factors, the system availability was found to have direct and positive effect on e-loyalty, whereas efficiency had a negative effect on e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. However, fulfillment was not a significant predictor for explaining consequences of E-SERVQUAL for apparel online shopping. This finding implies that perceived service quality of system available was likely to increase customer satisfaction for apparel online shopping. However, it was not supported that e-loyalty was determined by service quality, because service quality has an indirect effect on e-loyalty (i.e., repurchase intention) by mediating effect of value or satisfaction in the context of online shopping for apparel. In addition, both compensation and responsiveness were found to have a significant impact on customer satisfaction, which influenced e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. Thus, there was significant indirect effect of compensation and responsiveness on e-loyalty. This suggests that the recovery-specific service factors play an important role in maximizing customer satisfaction levels and then maintaining customer loyalty to the online shopping site for apparel. The findings have both managerial and research implications. Fashion marketers can establish long-term relationship with their customers based on continuously measuring customer perceptions for recovery-related service quality, such as quick responses to problem and returns, and compensation for customers' problem after their purchases. In order to maintain e-loyalty, recovery services play an important role in the first choice websites for consumers to purchase clothing. Given that online consumers may shop anywhere, a marketing strategy for improving competitive advantages is to provide better service quality, maximize satisfaction, and turn to creating customers' e-loyalty for apparel online shopping. From a researcher's perspective, there are some limitations of this research that should be considered when interpreting its findings. For future research, findings provide a basis for the further study of this important topic along both theoretical and empirical dimensions. Based on the findings, more comprehensive models for predicting E-SERVQUAL's consequences can be developed and tested. For global fashion marketing, this study can expand to a cross-cultural approach into e-service quality for apparel by including multinational samples.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.23-38
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• 2006

This study attempts to investigate the spatial characteristics of cultural economies of Bukchon in Seoul, where abundant cultural assets exist. This area has been the administrative-political core locale since 14C, therefore, a lot of traditional- and contemporary-cultural facilities are remains, This area possessed unique place characteristics by coexisting traditional and modern cultures, and thus attracted to culture demanders. Recently many economic activities have increased in this area, and most of them are related with the cultural elements of the region, In particular creative retail shops, which produce goods by flexible-specialized production system, have been agglomerated in this area, The goods are designed, produced, and sold at the shop place. Most of them are uniquely designed hand made products, and produced a few amount. The economic value of these products related with the cultural environment of Bukchon. These creative shops emerged at the front of Samcheongdong street in the beginning, and then have diffused into the inside of Samcheongdong street and Hwagae street. The shops have very unique exteriors related with traditional houses in this area, and located on roadsides where are not many passerby. Most owners of the retail stores are highly educated and studied design, and produce goods by themselves at the shops. The reason that they opened their shops in Bukchon is directly related with the unique cultural environment of this area. They hope that more unique and artistic stores join this area so that developed this area as culture and fashion combined area.