Research On Customer's State Of Motion In The Simulated Apparel Store

During the 21st century , competition is day by day intensified in China's apparel retailing industry. The interactions between consumers and the retailing environment which has become the main problems of current apparel retailing industry are studied in order to satisfy the consumers' demands. However, compared with the requirement of practical developments, the study on customer's state of motion in retail stores hasn't been done thoroughly at present, and theoretical methods of apparel marketing still reveals the insufficiency. The method of "Description- Forecast- Explanation " is applied in this paper. The customer's state of motion is conducted by simulating retail environment. First, customer's state of motion in the apparel stores is described by adopting natural observation law; Then, influential factors of the customer's state of motion are forecasted by utilizing the second natural observation and the questionnaire survey method; Finally, the factors' influence to the customer's state of motion is explained by the method of experimental research.Four parts are included in this paper' s research work:l) In order to define the meaning of customer's state of motion in apparel stores, the retail environment and the behavior way of customers in apparel stores are inspected and relevant documents are also studied. 2) The influential factors are screened out firstly by using natural observation method on 119 samples. The influential factors of various state of motion and their corresponding factor level are determined by optimizing experimental factors through questionnaires.3) Experimental plans are carried on by adopting orthogonal method and four different laboratories are designed by simulating retail environment. Experiments of fifty persons in the above four laboratories under 18 different experimental conditions are done to analyze the movement rule of customers in apparel stores. 4) The application way of conclusions is studied.The customer's state of motion is composed of four parts: entering condition, passage choice, speed and the dead time. The major influential factors of the customer's state of motion are: "the store 's layout ", "the entrance position", "the passage width ", "the music", "the salesman" and "the motion direction in front of store", and the influential laws of the factors on the above four main state of motion are obtained. Therefore, it is feasible to study customer's state of motion by simulating retail environment, thus provides the method basis for the future thorough research. The conclusion can be used to guide the apparel store layout, the products display and salesman training to help apparel brands to better satisfy customer's demands.