An empirical study on IVS tourists : implications for fashion branding

Abstract

Brand extension strategy has been widely adopted by different kinds of retailers for decades and its applications in the fashion industry can be traced back to the early 20th century. Owing to a considerably long history, this topic, especially on the issue of consumers' evaluation on brand extensions, has been studied by numerous researchers. However, there is relatively limited research focusing on comparing the consumer attitudes towards the extensions of different types of fashion retail brands. On the other hand, since the implementation of the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) in 2003 (which simplifies the application procedure for the Chinese mainland residents to visit Hong Kong), the number of IVS tourists has been increasing every year. This unique group of IVS tourists possess a substantial purchasing power and they are the target groups of customers for many different kinds of fashion retailers in Hong Kong. Thus, it is interesting to explore the shopping behaviours of these IVS tourists and their attitudes towards different kinds of fashion brand extensions (FBE). The main objective of this research is to explore the IVS tourists' attitudes towards designer labels (DLs) and mass-market labels (MLs), and the brand extension strategy executed by these fashion retailers in the Hong Kong. As the IVS tourists come from different regions of the Mainland China, we would also explore whether their attitudes towards these kinds of retailers and FBE are different across regions. In addition, a sexual comparison of the IVS tourists is conducted. Another aim is to compare the attitudes between IVS tourists and the local Hong Kong residents towards DLs, MLs, and FBEs. As revealed from the literature review, factors such as product quality perception, brand loyalty, image project, concept consistency and product features likeness are known to be important in affecting the consumers' attitudes towards brand extensions. Therefore, we would investigate whether these factors would significantly affect the IVS tourists' evaluation intention of FBE as well as their attitudes towards FBE. A questionnaire survey using a random sampling approach was conducted. The IVS tourists were the target respondents and 208 successful responses were received. Statistical methods were employed to analyze the collected data. Company interviews with various fashion brands were then carried out to understand their marketing strategies for these IVS tourists and their comments on our findings. The data analysis indicates that the factors of product quality perception, brand loyalty, and image projection would positively and significantly affect the IVS tourists' evaluation intention towards FBE for both DLs and MLs. As for the IVS tourists' attitudes towards FBE's evaluation, the two factors would affect IVS visitors' attitudes significantly. In addition, by comparing with the literature's findings, it is shown that there is a significant difference on the perceptions towards the FBE in DLs and MLs between the IVS tourists and the local Hong Kong residents. Based on these findings, specific managerial recommendations are suggested.