Differences Between South Korean Male and Female Consumers in the Clothing Brand Loyalty Formation Process: Model Testing

Abstract

Although considerable research on brand loyalty has been conducted, few attempts have been made to integrate the results of previous studies. This study focuses on causal relationships among brand loyalty-related variables, such as consumer knowledge, product involvement, perceived risk, information search, and consumer satisfaction, in an effort to integrate results of previous studies. The purpose of this study was to propose a model of clothing brand loyalty formation considering the five brand loyalty-related variables simultaneously, and to examine gender differences in the process of clothing brand loyalty formation. Participants were 505 Korean consumers with college or graduate degrees; all were white-collar workers in their twenties and thirties living in Seoul, Korea. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires, and a proposed model was tested by LISREL. The results indicated that consumer knowledge, product involvement, and perceived risk indirectly influence brand loyalty through the mediating variables of information search and consumer satisfaction. Information search and consumer satisfaction directly influence brand loyalty. The major gender difference was that the most influential variable in information search was perceived risk for men, whereas product involvement was the most influential variable for women.