Underlying Determinants of Clothing Quality: The Consumers' Perspective

Abstract

The means-end chain model provided the framework to assess how consumers evaluate clothing quality by examining the cognitive structure that exists between the evaluative criteria used to judge quality and personal values. The in-depth probing technique of laddering was used to elicit responses from 25 women. Analysis of the resulting protocols indicates that for this group of consumers, the concept of perceived clothing quality includes a number of associated concepts at various levels of abstraction. While a number of attributes were identified by the subjects, only "fabric" was consistently chosen by the women to denote quality. The underlying reasons for their choice become evident at higher levels of abstraction where other concepts of perceptions of quality emerged. In this study, consumers evaluated quality using attributes that they associated with social, psychological, economic, physiological, and aesthetic consequences. Research to assess how consumers evaluate quality should be designed to include factors other than physical attributes.

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