Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence consumers' adoption of performance infants' wear made of functional textiles. Based on Innovation Diffusion Model, product attributes, consumer traits, and communication characteristics were considered. A survey was carried out with a convenience sample of 241 housewives who have infants under 4 year-old, living in the Seoul metropolitan area. To analyze the data, SPSS 10.0 was used employing ANOVA, Duncan's post-hoc comparison, $X^2$, and f-test. The participants were classified into 4 groups based on their levels of adoption of performance infants' wear: No-Cognition, Negative Attitude, Positive Attitude, and Purchasing groups. There were significant differences among the four groups in terms of their perception of product attributes, communication characteristics, and personal traits. In terms of product attributes, the Positive Attitude group and Purchasing group showed higher perception of relative advantage, compatibility, trialability and observability than other groups. These groups were also high in terms of their tendency of actively seeking for additional product information, and particularly relied on the information from experts on TV or the Internet, personal experience posted on the Internet, or their own experience. Those who were in professional, well-educated and high income brackets were more likely to be Purchasing group than Positive Attitude group, which means once the positive attitude was formed they are likely to purchase the product.
