The Case of Omni-Channel Consumers. A Qualitative Study regarding Students’ Clothing-Consumption Habits

Abstract

The article presents the result of a focus-group based qualitative study which was conducted among students from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, regarding their preferred places for clothing shopping. The analysis of the focus-group narratives revealed that having trendy outfits is important for students and they are very involved in selecting fashionable outfits even if their budgets are limited. Students prefer to shop their clothes both from online sites and offline settings. The latter correspond not only to malls, but also for second-hand and outlet shops from where students can acquire their outfits at lower prices and can buy more items than from the more expensive mall boutiques. Thus, second hand shops can be associated with consumerism rather than with frugal consumption. Each of the three locations, i.e. online shops, malls and second-hands/outlets serve not only as places for effective shopping, but also as places where students are doing amateur market research, either in the form of webrooming (i.e. browsing the websites) or in the form of showrooming (i.e. looking out in malls or second hands). Such activities of browsing and window shopping allow them to form a coherent opinion on trends and the price of the products, so that the mixture between offline and online shopping environment contributes to the formation of empowered consumers. Such pre-purchase activities are both forms of hedonistic entertainment and information acquisitions regarding the trends, and utilitarian projects in terms of bargain hunting.