New Marketing Strategies for Fast Fashion Brands in South Korea: An Exploration of Consumer's Purchasing Experiences

Global fast fashion brands have been popular and most of them have entered the Korean market. With their success, Korean apparel companies launched domestic fast fashion brands; however, recently they have become fiercely competitive, and consumers are demanding better design and quality and cheaper prices than before. The purpose of this study is to explore consumer purchasing behavior of the global as well as domestic fast fashion brands sold in Korea and to suggest marketing strategies for the brands sold in Korea. The study includes interviewing 61 Korean consumers to ask about their purchasing behavior and experiences. This study found four themes from these in-depth interviews: 1) demand of product glocalization which considers both globalization and localization for better style, quality, and assortment plan, 2) satisfaction with the reasonable price range of fast fashion brands but dissatisfaction with price discrimination among countries, 3) importance of easy, comfortable, and convenient accessibility to fast fashion brands, and 4) preference for good brand reputation related to corporate social responsibility(CSR) and nationality. From these four themes, this study developed the four elements of the marketing mix: product, price, accessibility, and reputation to adapt to a new marketing environment that emphasizes the development of information technology, consumer-centric marketing, and corporate ethics. The findings of this research could contribute useful information to both global and domestic fashion companies as well as consumers.