The Apparel Purchasing Behavior of Adult Female Group Segmented by Their Materialism

The purpose of this study was to investigate the apparel purchasing behavior of adult women consumer groups divided by materialism. The specific objects of this study were ; 1) to examine the degree of materialism, impulsive buying, and conspicuous consumption. 2) to examine the correlation between impulsive buying, materialism, and conspicuous consumption, and to examine the relative influences of impulsive buying, materialism affecting conspicuous consumption. 3) to classify groups according to the level of the propensity for materialism, and to examine the clothing purchasing behavior of the divided groups. Data were administered to 357 adult women living in Sunchol from June to July 1999. For analysis of the data, factor analysis, one-way ANOVE, duncan's multiple range test, frequency and χ²-test were employed. The results of this study were summarized as follows. 1. Materialism and impulsive buying have shown higher than middle score, and conspicuous consumption has shown similar to middle score. 2. The correlation between materialism, impulsive buying, and conspicuous consumption has shown similar to middle score. The higher the materialism and experience of impulsive buying was, the higher was the conspicuous consumption. According to the results of regression analysis examining the relative influence of variables affecting conspicuous consumption. According to the results of regression analysis examining the relative influence of variables affecting conspicuous consumption, the relative importance of the variables were in the order of ; success-symbolic materialism, life-centered materialism, happiness-pursuing materialism, in the order of ; success-symbolic materialism, life-centered materialism, happiness-pursuing materialism, impulsive buying and their explanatory power totalled 35.2%. 3. Evaluating attributes of product, the type of purchasing store, the place of purchasing, the need of high class department store, purchasing price range, and accompanying people when purchasing were the factors influencing the apparel purchasing behavior.