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The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at 
www.emeraldinsight.com/1361-2026.htm 
Predicting purchase intention 
for private sale sites 
Briana Martinez and Soyoung Kim 
Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors, University of Georgia, 
Athens, Georgia, USA 
Abstract 
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of several consumer characteristics 
(fashion leadership, impulse buying, bargain shopping), web site attitude, and visit frequency on 
intention to purchase from a private sale site. 
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 164 female respondents who were 
members of at least one private sale site. The sample was selected mainly by using a snowball 
sampling technique which relied on chain referrals to recruit eligible participants. Factor analysis 
results suggested that fashion leadership consisted of two dimensions: fashion opinion leadership and 
fashion innovativeness. Regression analysis was conducted to determine how strongly purchase 
intention for private sale sites was predicted by fashion opinion leadership, fashion innovativeness, 
impulse buying, bargain shopping, web site attitude, and visit frequency. 
Findings – Regression results showed that ease of use was the only dimension of web site 
attitude that significantly predicted purchase intention. Impulse buying and bargain shopping also 
significantly influenced purchase intention. Implications for future research and limitations were 
also discussed. 
Originality/value – As private sale sites continue to grow in popularity, insight into the psychology 
and behaviors of shoppers at these sites has become more important. There has been, however, no 
published research that examines what motivates consumers to purchase from private sale sites. 
Keywords Consumer behaviour, Women, Fashion, Web sites, Internet, Internet marketing, 
Fashion retailing 
Paper type Research paper 
Introduction 
Bargain shopping is an old concept but its meaning has changed over time. There used 
to be a stigma associated with bargain shopping as it referred to buying low-priced 
items or below-average quality products; now, however, the term has evolved to mean 
simply getting the best value for your money. Many consumers today, regardless of age 
or class, engage in bargain shopping whether it be in discount stores, off-price retailers 
or online. The growing popularity of bargain shopping has prompted the luxury 
fashion market, once highly resistant to discounting, due to the potential for tarnishing 
its brand reputation and losing exclusivity, to also join this trend (Atwal andWilliams, 
2009; Danziger, 2005). 
Luxury fashion, comprised of apparel, accessories, handbags, shoes, jewelries, and 
perfume (Amatulli and Guido, 2011), not only assumes excellence in quality, 
distinctiveness, exclusivity, and craftsmanship but may well also become a part of the 
consumer’s identity (Fionda and Moore, 2009). These characteristics normally 
associated with luxury brands make it a challenge for companies to market these 
brands effectively on the internet. Showcasing the often-tactile sense of quality and 
craftsmanship on a computer screen and maintaining a sense of exclusivity even 
while making them available to everybody who has internet access requires a delicate 
balance (Okonkwo, 2009). Recent trends in luxury consumption, however, have changed 
this market and present new opportunities, particularly for fashion companies. As noted 
JFMM 
16,3 
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Received 6 May 2011 
Revised 4 September 2011 
8 January 2012 
Accepted 18 January 2012 
Journal of Fashion Marketing and 
Management 
Vol. 16 No. 3, 2012 
pp. 342-365 
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 
1361-2026 
DOI 10.1108/13612021211246080
by Yeoman (2011) in his recent article on luxury consumption, a significant number 
of consumers across all ages and social grades have now grown less motivated by the 
ordinary and would prefer to own a small number of luxury goods than many cheap 
things. Additionally, more consumers are now willing to take time to search for 
better prices on luxury products, an attitude encouraged by the recession. Observing the 
emergence of this new breed of luxury consumer, and in particular the recent bargain-shopping 
craze, Lim (2009) states that luxury can now be described as “massclusivity.” 
Luxury fashion is now readily available and affordable to far more consumers than it 
ever has been due to the ready accessibility of web sites such as bluefly.com and 
efashionhouse.com. Even Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has recently joined 
this trend by launching a micro-site called myhabit.com (Miller, 2011). 
The old way of finding luxuries for below market value no longer prevails, as 
consumers no longer have to be in the major fashion cities to stake out sample sales. 
Now consumers can find numerous online sample sale sites also known as private 
sale sites. Private sale sites offer short-term sales of a small selection of designer 
fashions. This type of web sites allows fashion brands and retailers to rid themselves 
of excess merchandise without undermining their brand images (Sherman, 2008). Sites 
such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, Ideeli, and HauteLook have embodied the experience of 
traditional sample sales and have effectively moved the experience online. These sites 
have found a way to provide high-end luxury goods at discounted prices while still 
keeping the feeling of exclusivity and offering the rush and adrenaline of traditional 
sample sales (Miller and Wortham, 2009). 
Private sale sites are unique in nature as they have taken the traditional sample sale 
format and have translated it to an online world, a task that has taken the luxury 
industry years to accomplish and in addition have taken bargain shopping to an 
exclusive level with their distinctive operations. Private sale sites are reported to have 
generated $2 billion in sales in 2010 and the market is expected to grow to $8 billion by 
2014 (Kothari, 2011). As private sale sites continue to grow in popularity, insight into 
the psychology and behaviors of shoppers at these sites has become more important. 
Although many recent studies have examined the various factors encouraging 
consumers to shop online for apparel products, no published research has examined 
what has motivated consumers to purchase specifically from private sale sites. 
Previous studies in online apparel shopping have been conducted as follows: regarding 
online apparel shopping in general but without specifying the type of retail web sites 
(e.g. Cho and Workman, 2011; Kwon and Noh, 2010); for web sites the respondents 
frequently used for apparel shopping (e.g. Hahn and Kim, 2009; Park et al., in press); for 
multi-channel retailers’ web sites (e.g. Hahn and Kim, 2009; Jones and Kim, 2010); and 
for mock retail web sites (e.g. Im, 2011; Kim and Damhorst, 2010; Lee et al., 2011). The 
growing popularity of and increasing competition among private sale retailers (Miller, 
2011) prompt research that could fill the void in the academic literature as well as that 
could provide insight into our understanding of shoppers of private sale sites. 
By understanding the motivations and behaviors of these shoppers, private sale sites 
can better define their target consumers and more effectively tailor their offerings to 
meet customer needs. The information may also help the luxury industry to develop 
appropriate production and marketing strategies specifically targeted at this growing 
market. 
The purpose of this study was to determine consumer characteristics that might 
predict the degree of intention to purchase from private sale sites. Many previous 
studies on luxury consumption have focussed on either product characteristics that are 
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important to consumers such as brand image, quality, and fashionability (e.g. Husic 
and Cicic, 2009; Jung and Shen, 2011) or customer motives for the consumption of 
luxury goods such as conspicuousness, snobbery, hedonic motives, materialism, 
conformity, need for uniqueness, and social recognition (e.g. Hudders and Pandelaere, 
2012; Park et al., 2008; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999;Wiedmann et al., 2007). Rather than 
examining which of these motives are important for online shopping of luxury fashion 
brands, this study focussed on uncovering consumer characteristics that might predict 
intention to purchase luxury goods specifically from private sale web sites. The customer 
characteristics identified through the literature review as potentially influencing 
shoppers’ purchase intention toward private sale sites were fashion leadership, impulse 
buying, and bargain shopping. These three variables are motivational and behavioral 
characteristics that are known to explain various fashion and shopping behaviors. 
Additionally, two web site-specific variables, attitude toward private sale sites, and 
frequency of visiting private sale sites were selected based on the literature on online 
shopping as potential predictors of purchase intention toward private sale sites. 
To summarize, the specific objective of this study was to compare fashion leadership, 
impulse buying, bargain shopping, web site attitude, and visit frequency for their 
impacts on purchase intention toward private sale web sites. 
Literature review 
Private sale sites 
Private sale sites originated in 2007 in the USA with the launching of Gilt Groupe. 
Since then numerous private sale sites such as Rue La La, Ideeli, and HauteLook have 
emerged. The sales of major private sale sites have quickly grown to over ten million 
dollars. Private sale sites target aspirational buyers by enticing consumers with highly 
discounted, alluring merchandise variety and an assortment of some of the most well-known 
luxury brands such as Marc Jacobs and Fendi (Gilt Groupe, 2010; HauteLook, 
2010; Ideeli, 2010; Rue La La, 2010). 
Private sale sites are similar to the traditional sample sales in that sites are 
organized utilizing a limited time format. Limited time formats give consumers a small 
opening of time, typically between 24 and 48 hours, during which the merchandise 
offered is up for sale. Consumers get a preview of what is going to be offered, but just 
enough to build anticipation. Private sale sites provide a list of what designers, lines, 
and collections are going to be on the sales floor, and the dates they are offered. 
However that is all the information provided; the actual merchandise offering remains 
a total secret until the designated start time. The products offered by private sale sites 
vary but invariably include a collection of high-end luxury brands. Product offerings at 
these companies are centered primarily in fashion and furnishings. Gilt Groupe, Ideeli, 
and Rue La La, however, have expanded their offerings to include hotel rooms, vacation 
home rentals, and trip packages. 
These web sites offer limited, members-only access. This membership-only access 
allows an air of exclusivity since other shopping sites and search engines cannot 
access the information on these web sites. Some private sale sites such as Gilt Groupe and 
Ideeli offer different levels of membership with premium membership being offered as a 
way of retaining loyal customers and building loyalty with especially high volume or high-value 
shoppers (Karimzadeh, 2010). Premium members receive additional perks such as 
being able to access the sales an hour earlier than others (Gilt Groupe, 2010; Ideeli, 2010). 
Private sale sites collect information about their members’ preferences and 
shopping patterns in order to maintain sales data that allow them to extensively track 
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valuable data, i.e. the number of consumers continuing to look at a specific product 
even after it has sold out. The companies take all of this information into account and 
factor it into buying decisions in order to provide more future value for the consumer. 
These companies are on board with technology which is obvious through their web 
sites alone; however, they have also established a presence in the arena of mobile 
technology as many of them now feature their own iPhone or smartphone applications, 
thereby ensuring that their members never need miss a sale (Gilt Groupe, 2010; 
HauteLook, 2010; Ideeli, 2010; Rue La La, 2010). 
While some industry skeptics may take private sale sites simply as a fad, many 
other retailers are jumping on the luxury exclusive club discount bandwagon. Neiman 
Marcus, for example, took the private sale approach and sent only a selected customer 
base an e-mail informing them of limited-time sales on brands such as Gucci and Dolce 
& Gabbana (Corcoran, 2009). Even eBay got in on the action by opening Fashion Vault, 
their spin on the private sale business (D’Innocenzio, 2010). Naturally there is intense 
rivalry between these companies. They are fighting for shares of the market in addition 
to brand assortment and depth even while vying to keep their customers from 
switching to their competitors (Corcoran, 2009). 
The US’ recession has created downturns in many industries and the luxury 
industry has been no exception. Deflated wealth brought on by the recession and 
economic slowdown has resulted in declining demand for high-end products, and 
consequently in a significant increase in inventory levels of unsold luxury goods (Barr, 
2011; Fiegerman, 2011). In fact, luxury goods retailers performed much worse than 
many other retailers during the recession, only recently bouncing back (Perocchi, 2011). 
Somehow, in the midst of all of this, private sale retailers have found a unique niche, 
resulting in impressive revenue growth (Khalid, 2011; Rao, 2011a). According to a 
recent report published by Inc. Magazine, Ideeli earned the spot as the fastest-growing 
private business in the USA with a three-year sales growth of 40.882 percent and 
revenue of $77.7 million in 2010 (Mau, 2011). Gilt Groupe posted $423 million in 
revenue in 2010, up from $170 million a year ago (Oran, 2011), and recently announced 
a major international expansion with private sales now available to consumers in 90 
countries (Rao, 2011b). While there are some critics who think the success of these 
companies is due to the recession and that these sites will be a fading trend once the 
economy bounces back, these companies are for now succeeding in a fast-paced online 
market. 
Theoretical framework 
The purpose of this study is to determine the individual characteristics that influence 
shoppers’ purchase intention toward private sale sites. The Engel, Kollat, and 
Blackwell (EKB) model of consumer behavior (Engel and Blackwell, 1982) guided our 
selection of variables and was used to develop the theoretical model proposed in this 
study (see Figure 1). This model focusses on the individual aspect of consumer 
decisions and views it as a process instead of a solitary act. As such, it places much 
importance on how the consumer comes to make decisions and divides the process 
into five stages: problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, 
purchase, and post-purchase evaluation. The EKB model also proposes that the 
product evaluation stage that leads to purchase intention is composed of several vital 
components such as beliefs and attitudinal and evaluative criteria. Furthermore, all 
stages in the decision-making process are influenced by external (environmental) 
factors as well as internal (individual) factors such as lifestyles, motives, norms, 
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values, and reference groups. Although the EKB model has been widely applied in 
consumer research, its usefulness in online shopping research has been mentioned in 
only a few studies (e.g. Chen, 2009; Darley et al., 2010; Lin et al., 2010; Teo and Yeong, 
2003). For example, Lin et al. (2010) used the EKB framework to propose a model that 
explains a consumer’s intention to use online information systems for travel products. 
In their model, consumers’ motives such as travel preferences and preferred online 
features were proposed to influence their perceptions of online information systems, 
which in turn affected their overall attitudes toward those systems as well as 
ultimately, their purchase intention. Similarly, the current study proposes a model that 
incorporates the influences of consumers’ individual characteristics on purchase 
intention for private sale sites. The influence of individual characteristics on consumer 
attitude and behavior is also highlighted in motivation theory. According to motivation 
theory, human motives, whether cognitive or affective, guide individuals to engage in 
certain behaviors that will help them achieve individual gratification and satisfaction 
(Rohm, 2004). In support of this theory, numerous studies have found that consumers’ 
motivational characteristics, such as shopping motivations and preferences, are major 
determinants of consumer value perception and further influence consumer attitudes 
and behaviors. For example, Lee et al. (2009) found that consumer characteristics such 
as price sensitivity and compulsive buying behavior significantly affected shopping 
value in online auctions, which in turn, influenced preferences toward online auction 
sites. Morschett et al. (2005) found that grocery shoppers with different shopping 
values formed different attitudes toward retail stores. And again, in the context 
of luxury consumption, previous studies have proven that consumers’ motivational 
characteristics such as materialism, vanity, need for social recognition, and need for 
uniqueness influenced purchasing behavior of luxury fashion brands (Hudders and 
Pandelaere, 2012; Park et al., 2008; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999;Wiedmann et al., 2007). 
In the current study, fashion leadership, impulse buying, and bargain shopping were 
chosen as individual characteristics that might explain why some consumers are more 
likely to purchase luxury goods from private sale sites. Researchers have argued that, 
in addition to individual consumer characteristics, online shopping research should 
also consider store-specific characteristics as one of the key dimensions of purchase 
decisions on the internet (Huang, 2003; Lowengart and Tractinsky, 2001; Seock, 2003). 
Store-specific characteristics such as web site attributes influence consumer 
perceptions of the store and are used, in turn, to evaluate the store from which 
consumers want to make their purchase (Lowengart and Tractinsky, 2001). Voorveld 
et al. (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of empirical studies to propose a theoretical 
Consumer characteristics 
Fashion leadership 
Impulse buying 
Bargain shopping 
Site-specific characteristics 
Website attitude 
Visit frequency 
Purchase intention 
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Figure 1. 
Proposed model 
of predictors of 
purchase intention for 
private sale sites
framework for studying consumers’ responses to web sites and argued that web site 
characteristics as well as user characteristics are predictors of both attitudinal and 
behavioral responses to a web site. Voorveld et al. further suggested that the level 
and nature of the users’ exposure to web sites also influence their responses to those 
web sites. In the current study, two web site-specific consumer characteristics 
were chosen as predictors of purchase intention for private sale sites based on the 
relevant literature: web site attitude and visit frequency. Web site attitude represents 
a consumer’s attitudes toward various characteristics of a site whereas frequency 
of visits to a private sale site reflects a consumer’s degree of exposure to and familiarity 
with that site. 
Fashion leadership 
Fashion leadership is one of the main avenues to the eventual acceptance of 
new fashion trends by the masses. Fashion leadership can be broken down into 
two categories: fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership. Fashion 
innovativeness has been defined as the likelihood to purchase a new fashion sooner 
than other consumers (Sproles, 1979) whereas fashion opinion leadership is defined as 
the “ability or tendency to convey information regarding a new fashion in a way that 
influences successive purchasers to accept or reject it” (Workman and Johnson, 1993, 
p. 64). Consumers with high levels of fashion innovativeness are among the first to 
wear a new fashion (Goldsmith and Stith, 1993; Goldsmith et al., 1999; Sproles, 1979) 
whereas consumers with high level of fashion opinion leadership are more apt to 
persuade the masses through communication usually during social groups where they 
can discuss why the fashion is acceptable (Gordon et al., 1985; Sproles, 1979). 
Consumers with high levels of fashion leadership are more involved in fashion, 
enjoy shopping often, are not price conscious, and are not likely to be practical about 
their purchases (Goldsmith and Stith, 1993; Gutman and Mills, 1982). Fashion leaders, 
particularly fashion innovators, are also more likely to shop at specialty stores and 
department stores whereas non-fashion innovators are more price conscious and tend 
to shop at discount stores (Lumpkin and McConkey, 1984). Private sale sites, by their 
very nature, can be comparable to specialty stores as they specialize in designer-brand 
fashions and furnishings; however private sale sites are also similar to off-price stores 
in that the merchandise offered is discounted to a degree. Because of the unique nature 
of these web sites, and also given that there is no empirical research studying fashion 
leadership and shopping at private sale sites, it is of interest to investigate how these 
two dimensions of fashion leadership might be related to intention to purchase from 
private sale sites. Given that fashionability, innovativeness, and uniqueness are some 
of the key product attributes that characterize luxury fashion brands (Amatulli and 
Guido, 2011; Fionda and Moore, 2009; Husic and Cicic, 2009; Tynan et al., 2010) fashion 
leadership, reflecting increased interest in new and trendy fashions, seems likely to 
lead to a stronger intention to buy luxury goods from private sale sites. The positive 
relationship between fashion leadership and purchasing behavior of luxury brands is 
also supported by a study by Lim (2009) who found that fashion leaders with higher 
fashion interest had a higher level of emotional attachment to luxury fashion brands. 
Additionally, Shang et al. (2005) suggested that fashion involvement might influence 
consumers’ intention to shop online. Accordingly, the following hypothesis was proposed: 
H1. Fashion leadership will positively influence purchase intention for private 
sale sites. 
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Impulse buying 
Impulse buying has been defined as an instant, compelling, emotion-driven behavior in 
which the impulse decision precludes consideration of choices or alternative (Bayley 
and Nancarrow, 1998). Similarly, Rook (1987) defined it as the relentless urge to buy an 
item instantly. Park et al. (2006) found that apparel shoppers are more likely to be 
motivated to impulse purchase by their fashion involvement and positive emotion, 
suggesting that impulse buying is strongly related to a shopper’s involvement with the 
product and that it also helps the shopper to achieve emotional gratification. The 
association between impulse buying and emotional factors is widely accepted and 
many researchers agree that impulse buying is motivated by hedonic motivations such 
as feelings of excitement and pleasure (Baumgartner, 2002; Sharma et al., 2010). It is 
also recognized that impulse buying is triggered not only by internal stimuli such 
as hedonic motivations and product involvement but also by external stimuli such 
as shopping environment and marketing communications (e.g. coupons, lottery) 
(Virvilaite et al., 2011). Dawson and Kim (2010) investigated external cues on apparel 
web sites that encouraged impulse buying and found that sales promotions and notice 
of new styles are among the various features of apparel web sites that triggered 
impulse buying. Because private sale sites offer deals and merchandise that change on 
a daily basis, impulse buying may play a significant role in increasing the shopper’s 
intention to purchase from private sale sites: 
H2. Impulse buying will positively influence purchase intention for private 
sale sites. 
Bargain shopping 
Bargain shopping is motivated by the shopper’s belief in the importance of obtaining 
price-related bargains, whether through shopping efforts, bargain vigilance, or using 
coupons (Hill and Harmon, 2009). Moye and Kincade (2003) sought to segment US 
female apparel shoppers based on their shopping orientations and found bargain 
shoppers to be one of four distinct market segments. In their study, bargain shoppers 
liked to shop around for bargains, tended to shop on sale days, and tended to look for 
advertisements that focussed on low pricing, coupon sales, and clearance merchandise. 
This segment significantly differed from other segments in their store patronage 
preferences and attitudes toward their preferred store. Although a majority of bargain 
shoppers chose department stores as their preferred store the researchers argued that 
this shopping segment would not be a viable market for department stores because of 
shoppers’ reluctance to pay full price. Hill and Harmon (2009) found that bargain-hunting 
activities are more common among females than males and that males were 
more concerned about the time and image implications of bargain-related behaviors. 
Previously, bargain shopping was viewed mostly from an economic perspective as 
a way for lower-income consumers to achieve economic benefits (Bardhi and Arnould, 
2005). However, it is now widely acknowledged that bargain shopping occurs across all 
income levels (Kwon et al., 2009) and for reasons beyond economic value (Cox et al., 
2005; Schindler, 1998). In an experiment conducted by Darke and Dahl (2003), the act 
of returning the money that participants saved through bargaining did not reduce 
their satisfaction, proving that values beyond the financial had been achieved through 
the experience. Schindler (1998) noted feelings of pride and satisfaction among 
those consumers who engaged in bargain shopping, and found that consumers 
expressed more positive feelings when they felt responsible for the bargain. For luxury 
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consumers particularly, bargain shopping can be a way to measure how much they 
have won in the game of bargain shopping; for luxury consumers it is not about the 
financial savings but the thrill of the hunt (Danziger, 2005). Lim (2009) coined the term 
luxe-bargain shopping and defined it as “purchasing a luxury brand at a bargain, 
which generates values in association with both the product (luxury brand) and 
process (bargain shopping)” (p. 4). Given that one of the major attractions of private 
sale sites is bargain shopping, it was proposed: 
H3. Bargain shopping will positively influence purchase intention for private 
sale sites. 
Web site attitude 
Because web sites provide the only means for many pure online retailers such as 
private sale sites to communicate with their customers, the quality of their web sites 
serves as a significant environmental cue affecting consumer behaviors (Chang and 
Chen, 2008). Researchers have argued that web site characteristics influence users’ 
online experiences and their evaluations of site performance, ultimately affecting their 
decision making at any given site (Huang, 2003). Consumer evaluations of a site 
performance or attitudes toward a site reflect their reactions toward many different 
site characteristics such as product information, enjoyment level, and ease of use, 
handling of transactions, and design. Accordingly, web site attitude is a multi-dimensional 
concept with the number of dimensions ranging anywhere between five 
and 12 for transaction sites (Loiacono, 2000). The characteristics that are deemed 
important for web site attitude will vary since the information and relationship 
preferred by a consumer can differ by product or service (Burke, 2002; Elliot and 
Fowell, 2000; Lynch et al., 2001). Lynch et al. argue that web site attitude is more 
important for retailers with high-touch goods such as apparel. 
In Chang and Chen’s (2008) study, web site attitude was proposed to influence 
purchase intention through trust as a mediating variable. The researchers found that 
customers’ perceptions of the web site quality for the online retailers they frequently 
browsed positively affected their trust toward those retailers which, in turn, 
significantly increased their purchase intentions. Jones and Kim (2010) examined the 
influence of brand trust, offline patronage, clothing involvement, and perceived web 
site quality on online apparel shopping intention. The researchers focussed on apparel 
multi-channel retailers such as Banana Republic and Urban Outfitters. In their 
study, perceived web site quality was divided into three dimensions, of which two 
factors, usability and information quality and visual appeal and image, were found to 
be significant predictors of online apparel shopping intention. Interactivity and 
innovativeness did not significantly influence online apparel intention. The influence 
of perceived web site quality or web site attitude on purchase intention or satisfaction 
is well supported in other previous studies on online apparel shopping (Alhasoun, 
2010; Kim and Jones, 2009; Kim and Lee, 2006; Kim et al., 2003; Kim and Stoel, 2004; 
Seock, 2003). Seock (2003) examined the impacts of attitude toward a favorite apparel 
web site on purchase intention. In her study web site attitude was measured using 
Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1980) expectancy-value model of attitudes and consisted of five 
dimensions: product information, customer service, privacy and security, navigation, 
and auditory experience/comparison shopping. The results of her study revealed that 
attitude toward a favorite apparel web site was positively related to intention to search 
for information at that site as well as to intention to purchase from the site. Recently, 
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Alhasoun (2010) investigated the relationship between web site attitude and purchase 
intention for three different retail web sites, including one apparel web site, and 
observed that overall web site attitude was a significant predictor of purchase intention 
for all three web sites. In her study, overall web site attitude was determined by 
the shopper’s perceptions of web site attributes such as ease of use, usefulness, 
informativeness, and entertainment. Even though private sale sites have a web site 
layout that differs from typical online apparel sites, previous work on retail web 
sites provides enough evidence to support the relationship between customers’ 
web site attitude and purchase intention. Therefore it was proposed: 
H4. Consumers’ positive attitudes toward private sale sites will significantly 
increase purchase intention for these sites. 
Visit frequency 
The frequency with which shoppers visit stores or shopping centers is an important 
behavioral characteristic of shoppers and has been a key topic in retailing research 
(Roy, 1994). Most of the research, however, has focussed on exploring motivational 
and demographic characteristics of shoppers who frequently visit certain stores and 
shopping centers. For example, Roy examined the characteristics of shoppers who 
made frequent trips to shopping malls and identified the frequent mall shopper as an 
individual in the age group of 40-60 years who had relatively high income, was not 
particularly sensitive to deals, and considered shopping an enjoyable recreational 
experience. Visit frequency has also been treated as one of the indicators of store 
patronage and studied in conjunction with such variables as demographic 
characteristics, store image, store attitude and satisfaction (Gustafsson et al., 2005; 
Korgaonkar et al., 1985; Pan and Zinkhan, 2006). For example, Pan and Zinkhan 
conducted a meta-analysis of empirical findings on the predictors of store patronage as 
measured either by store choice or shopping frequency and observed that the two 
dimensions of store patronage were explained by two different sets of predictors. 
Personal factors such as demographics and store attitude seemed to be the dominant 
predictors of frequency of visit whereas market and product relevant variables were 
more likely to influence store choice. Web managers have argued that a person who 
tends to visit a web site often can be considered to be loyal to the web site and that 
repeat users tend to spend much more than non-repeat users (Bhatnagar and Ghose, 
2004). For members of private sale sites, however, frequency of visiting the sites may 
not be just a simple manifestation of their loyalty to the site but may represent 
a behavioral characteristic more complex in nature. As private sale sites feature daily, 
limited-time sales with short advance notice only on brands, but not on specific 
merchandise to be on sale, this tends to encourage shoppers to visit these sites more 
frequently than other retail sites. Some shoppers may visit private sale sites frequently 
simply because they are checking to see if their favorite brands will be featured or 
because they enjoy browsing constantly changing merchandise. Accordingly, frequent 
visits to private sale sites may not necessarily indicate that a shopper neither holds 
a strong loyalty to those sites nor makes frequent purchases from them. Even so, it is 
expected that frequent visits to private sale sites might increase users’ willingness to 
purchase from the sites due to change in their attitudinal and behavioral responses 
resulting from increased exposure to the sites (Voorveld et al., 2009). Gefen et al. (2003) 
found that familiarity with an online retailer and with its web site reduces uncertainty 
while increasing the user’s purchase intention. Similarly, Flavia´n et al. (2006) observed 
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that familiarity with a web site leads to a strong loyalty. Additionally, Pavlou and 
Fygenson’s (2006) study found that getting product information from a retailer’s web 
site positively influenced purchase intention for that retailer’s site. Accordingly, those 
who visit a private sale site more frequently, even if those visits are motivated mainly 
by information search or entertainment value, may reveal a stronger intention 
to purchase from the site. Accordingly, it was hypothesized: 
H5. Visit frequency will positively influence purchase intention for private 
sale sites. 
Methodology 
Survey description 
The scale for fashion leadership included 12 items measuring fashion opinion 
leadership and fashion innovativeness on a seven-point Likert scale (1, strongly 
disagree; 7, strongly agree). Fashion opinion leadership was measured with six items 
developed by Flynn et al. (1996) (e.g. “I often influence people’s opinion about 
fashionable clothing” and “I often persuade others to buy the fashions that I like”) and 
fashion innovativeness was measured with six items developed by Goldsmith 
and Hofacker (1991) (e.g. “I am the last in my circle of friends to purchase a new outfit 
or fashion” and “I do little shopping for new fashions”). Impulse buying was measured 
with seven items developed by Rook and Fisher (1995) (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly 
agree). Examples of the scale items included “I often buy things without thinking” and 
“If I see something I want, I buy it.” The reliability coefficient was 0.92. Bargain 
shopping was measured using three items adapted from Cox et al. (2005) and one item 
developed by Lim (2009) (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly agree). Example items 
included “I enjoy hunting for a bargain” and “I get a thrill out of finding a real bargain.” 
The reliability coefficient was 0.87. Purchase intention was measured using three items 
adapted from Lim (2009) on a seven-point Likert scale (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly 
agree) (e.g. “I would purchase luxury merchandise at private sale sites in the future” 
and “The probability that I would consider buying luxury merchandise from a private 
sale site is high”). The reliability coefficient was 0.94. 
In measuring web site attitude, Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1980) expectancy-value model 
of attitudes was applied. The model explains that a person’s attitude toward an object 
or an entity is based on the person’s belief about the object’s performance on various 
attributes as well as the importance the person attaches to those attributes. 
Accordingly, web site attitude in this study was measured as a shopper’s beliefs about 
the performance of the web site on different attributes (belief) weighed by the extent to 
which these attributes are important to the shopper (importance). A total of 16 items 
adapted from a study by Kim and Stoel (2004) were used to assess various web site 
attributes such as aesthetics, ease of use, and information quality. Example items 
included “The website adequately meets my information needs,” “The website design 
is innovative,” and “I find the website easy to use.” The belief component of the 
web site attitude scale was measured with a seven-point Likert scale asking 
the respondents to rate their perceptions of web site attributes (1, strongly disagree; 
7, strongly agree). The importance score was measured by asking the respondents 
to indicate the level of importance for each web site attribute (1, not important; 7, very 
important). 
The survey also covered demographic questions including age, income, and 
ethnicity, frequency of visiting private sale sites, and the names of private sale sites 
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that the respondents were familiar with. Survey participants were asked in the 
beginning of the survey to identify all private sale sites of which they were members. 
Then prior to the completion of the section for web site attitude, respondents were 
asked to name the private sale site they were most familiar with and to keep this site in 
mind when answering the questions followed. 
Data collection 
The sample for this research included females aged 18 and older who were members 
of at least one private sale site. The sample was selected mainly by using 
a snowball sampling technique which relied on chain referrals to recruit eligible 
participants. The researchers also posted the survey link on their personal 
facebook pages as well as the facebook pages for several private sale sites such 
as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, and HauteLook. Twitter was also utilized to aid in snowball 
recruiting. The sample for this study targeted female private sale sites’ members; 
having purchased an item from a private sale site however was not a requirement for 
participation. 
A total of 214 respondents who met the criteria for participation in the study agreed 
to take part in the survey. Of these, however, 50 respondents failed to complete the 
questionnaire, resulting in a total of 164 usable surveys for analysis. The demographic 
characteristics of the sample were presented in Table I. Over half of the respondents 
were in the age range of 18-24 (58.2 percent) while 27.4 percent were in the age group of 
25-34. Almost three-quarters of the respondents (74.5 percent) classified themselves as 
Caucasian and 7.6 percent as African American while approximately half (51.8 percent) 
stated that their annual household incomes were less than $70,000. A total of 30 
respondents (18.3 percent) reported an income of less than $10,000 indicating 
a substantial proportion of students included in the sample. 
Results 
Factor analyses 
A principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation showed that the scale 
of fashion leadership consisted of two factors with an eigenvalue of one or greater 
(see Table II). The first factor, composed of five items reflecting fashion opinion 
leadership, explained 44.87 percent of the variance with an eigenvalue of 5.38. The 
second factor included three items representing fashion innovativeness and explained 
13.16 percent of the variance with an eigenvalue of 1.58. The two factors together 
accounted for 58.03 percent of the total variance. Both factors had a high internal 
reliability with Cronbach’s a values of 0.89 and 0.81, respectively. 
Factor analysis was also performed separately for the two components of web site 
attitude: belief and importance statements. Three factors with an eigenvalue of one or 
greater emerged for the belief component whereas a four-factor solution was obtained 
for the importance component. The results were then reviewed to find common factors 
between the two components. Three factors were identified, each containing two items 
and they are: web site innovativeness, information quality, and ease of use. The 
two belief and importance statements loaded on each factor were multiplied to 
produce a web site attitude score. Accordingly, three web site attitude scores (web site 
innovativeness, information quality, and ease of use) were calculated and used in all 
subsequent analyses. Because these factors contained only two items each, correlation 
coefficients were examined as a measure of reliability. The factor items and correlation 
coefficients are presented in Table III. 
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Frequency (%) 
Age 
18-24 85 58.2 
25-34 40 27.4 
35-44 10 6.8 
45-54 7 4.8 
55-64 2 1.4 
65þ 2 1.4 
Gender 
Female 164 100 
Race 
White/Caucasian 108 74.5 
African-American 11 7.6 
Hispanic 9 6.2 
Multi-racial 8 5.5 
Asian/Pacific Islander 9 6.2 
Native American Indian 0 0 
Other 0 0 
Income 
o$10,000 30 20.7 
$10,000-$29,999 21 14.5 
$30,000-$49,999 24 16.6 
$50,000-$69,999 10 609 
$70,000-$89,999 12 8.3 
$90,000-$109,999 9 6.2 
$110,000-$129,999 9 6.2 
$130,000 or more 30 20.7 
Frequency of access to private sale sites 
Daily 58 39.7 
2-3 times a week 30 20.5 
Weekly 25 17.1 
2-3 times a month 8 12.3 
Once a month 15 10.3 
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Table I. 
Demographic profile of 
sample 
Factors 
Factor 
loadings 
Fashion opinion leadership 
I often influence people’s opinion about fashionable clothing 0.89 
People I know pick fashionable apparel based on what I have told them 0.82 
I often persuade others to buy the fashions that I like 0.82 
Other people come to me for advice about choosing fashionable apparel 0.75 
I know more about new fashions before other people 0.65 
Fashion innovativeness 
I am the last in my circle of friends to purchase a new outfit or fashiona 0.87 
I do little shopping for new fashionsa 0.87 
I am the last in my circle of friends to know the names of the latest designers and fashion 
trendsa 0.67 
Note: aReverse-coded items 
Table II. 
Factor analysis results for 
fashion leadership
Correlation coefficients 
Factors Belief Importance 
Website innovativeness 0.77 0.70 
The web site is innovative 
The website design is innovative 
Information 0.68 0.68 
The web site adequately meets my information needs 
The information on the web site is effective 
Ease of use 0.72 0.71 
It would be easy for me to become skillful at using the website 
I find the web site easy to use 
Correlation analyses 
Correlation analyses were conducted to examine bivariate relationships among the 
variables (Table IV). Impulse buying was positively correlated with fashion opinion 
leadership (r¼0.21, po0.01) and purchase intention (r¼0.32, po0.001) but was not 
related with any of the three factors of web site attitude. Bargain shopping was 
positively correlated with web site information (r¼0.21, po0.05) and purchase 
intention (r¼0.32, po0.001). Fashion opinion leadership was strongly correlated 
with fashion innovativeness (r¼0.44, po0.001) whereas the three factors of web 
site attitude were positively correlated with each other (r¼0.44, po0.001 for web 
site innovativeness and information; r¼0.38, po0.001 for web site innovativeness 
and ease of use; r¼0.68, po0.001 for information and ease of use). Purchase intention 
was positively correlated with all three factors of web site attitude (r¼0.27, po0.01 for 
web site innovativeness; r¼0.43, po0.001 for information; r¼0.56, po0.001 for ease 
of use). Frequency of visiting private sale sites was positively correlated with fashion 
opinion leadership (r¼0.27, po0.01), fashion innovativeness (r¼0.26, po0.01), 
bargain shopping (r¼0.19, po0.05), information (r¼0.37, po0.001), ease of use 
(r¼0.25, po0.01), and purchase intention (r¼0.25, po0.01). 
Regression analysis 
Multiple regression analysis using the enter method was conducted to examine 
how strongly purchase intention was predicted by individual characteristics (fashion 
opinion leadership, fashion innovativeness, impulse buying, bargain shopping), 
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Table III. 
Factor analysis results for 
web site attitude 
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 
V1: fashion opinion leadership 1.00 
V2: fashion innovativeness 0.44*** 1.00 
V3: impulse buying 0.21** 0.11 1.00 
V4: bargain shopping 0.06 0.03 0.10 1.00 
V5: web site innovativeness 0.02 0.08 0.09 0.07 1.00 
V6: information 0.02 0.10 0.01 0.21* 0.44*** 1.00 
V7: ease of use 0.08 0.13 0.15 0.14 0.38*** 0.68*** 1.00 
V8: visit frequency 0.27** 0.26** 0.15 0.19* 0.14 0.25* 0.25* 1.00 
V9: purchase intention 0.23** 0.13 0.32*** 0.32*** 0.27** 0.43*** 0.56*** 0.37*** 
Notes: *po0.05, **po0.01, ***po0.001 
Table IV. 
Correlation analyses
frequency of visiting private sale sites, and web site attitude (web site innovativeness, 
information, ease of use). The four individual characteristics were entered into the 
regression model as the first block (Model 1), followed by visit frequency as the second 
block (Model 2) and the three factors of web site attitude as the third block (Model 3). 
The regression model between four individual characteristics and purchase intention 
was significant with F(4, 137)¼10.75, po0.001. As shown in Table IV, the variance 
explained by the model increased from 24 percent to 29 percent with the addition of 
visit frequency (Rdiff 
2 ¼0.05, po0.01) (F(5, 136)¼11.06, po0.001). Further addition 
2 ¼0.20, 
of the three web site-attitude factors also significantly improved the model (Rdiff 
po0.001) (F(8, 133)¼15.90, po0.001). Examination of the tolerance and variance 
inflation factor (VIF) values indicated that tolerance values ranged from 0.86 to 0.98 
and all VIF statistics were below 1.17 for Model 2. For Model 3, tolerance values ranged 
from 0.90 to 0.95 and all VIF statistics were below 1.11. These two indices suggested 
that multi-collinearity was not present in the models as multi-collinearity is generally 
considered present if tolerance is less than 0.20 and if VIF is larger than four (Fox, 
1991). The results showed that purchase intention was significantly predicted by 
bargain shopping (b¼0.23, po0.01) and impulse buying (b¼0.27, po0.001), thereby 
supporting H2 and H3, respectively. Of the three web site-attitude factors, ease of use 
positively influenced purchase intention (b¼0.41, po0.001), lending partial support 
for H4. Neither fashion opinion leadership nor fashion innovativeness was significant 
in predicting purchase intention, therefore rejecting H1. Frequency of visiting private 
sale site was significant at first, resulting in support for H5, but became insignificant 
when the three factors of web site attitude were added to the model (Table V). 
Discussion 
Despite the rapid growth of online private sale businesses no published study has 
examined shopping behaviors at private sale sites. The current study attempts to fill 
the void in the literature on luxury consumption by investigating the extent to which 
several consumer characteristics affected shoppers’ intention to purchase luxury goods 
from private sale sites. The study framework is based on the EKB model and includes 
three consumer characteristics (fashion leadership, impulse buying, bargain shopping) 
and two site-specific variables (web site attitude, visit frequency). From the practical 
Purchase intention 
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 
Independent variables B b B b B b 
Shopping characteristics 
Fashion opinion leadership 0.09 0.11 0.06 0.08 0.08 0.11 
Fashion innovativeness 0.06 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.04 
Impulse buying 0.20 0.31*** 0.18 0.28*** 0.14 0.22** 
Bargain shopping 0.26 0.34*** 0.22 0.29*** 0.19 0.25*** 
Visit frequency 0.16 0.24** 0.09 0.13 
Website attitude 
Web site innovativeness 0.01 0.08 
Information 0.01 0.05 
Ease of use 0.05 0.40*** 
R2 0.24 0.29 0.49 
Notes: **po0.01, ***po0.001 
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Table V. 
Regression analysis 
results
perspective, this study’s results provide suggestions for more focussed marketing 
strategies in targeting private sale shoppers in the US market. 
In this study the concept of fashion leadership was found to consist of two factors: 
fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness, consistent with findings of 
Kang and Park-Poaps (2010) and Workman and Johnson (1993). As in these previous 
studies, fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness emerged as strongly 
correlated yet distinguishable factors. The finding that purchase intention was 
significantly correlated with fashion opinion leadership but not with fashion 
innovativeness is particularly interesting. The level of intention to purchase from 
private sale sites increased with the level of desire to express opinions about fashion 
and to influence others, but not with the level of desire to seek new fashions and trends. 
This finding may be reflective of the perceived trendiness of merchandise at private 
sale sites. Although private sale sites set themselves from many other bargain fashion 
sites by focussing on the latest fashion merchandise, thus attracting fashion 
opinion leaders, their merchandise may still be not considered innovative enough for 
fashion innovators. Another possible explanation deals with different primary 
shopping motivations for fashion opinion leaders and fashion innovators. According to 
Kang and Park-Poaps, fashion innovativeness is positively associated with hedonic 
shopping motivations such as adventure and excitement and negatively with 
value shopping motivations whereas fashion opinion leadership is positively related 
to utilitarian shopping motivations. Considering this argument, one may conclude that 
fashion opinion leaders are more drawn to private sale sites than fashion innovators 
for practical reasons such as the source of fashion information and the convenient 
place to purchase new fashions at a large discount. These findings imply to private 
sale retailers that fashion leadership is an important element to consider for the 
identification of their target consumer segments. Considering that these sites may 
be considered a good source of fashion information for opinion leaders, private sale 
companies may want to feature a weekly column on their sites describing current 
fashion trends or any other information that could be viewed as extremely valuable by 
these shoppers. On the other hand, if they wish to make their sites more attractive to 
fashion innovators, they should perhaps make efforts to include a selection of highly 
interesting and unusual merchandise and also incorporate some degree of adventure 
and excitement into the shopping experience at their sites. 
When considered along with other important independent variables, however, the 
predictive power of fashion opinion leadership weakened to an insignificant level and 
H1 was therefore rejected. Therefore, it can be concluded that if everything else were 
equal an individual’s likelihood of purchasing from a private sale web site would have no 
association with whether the shopper were a fashion leader or a fashion follower. 
Although fashion leadership was not a significant predictor of purchase intention in the 
current study, it could be interesting to examine how and if fashion leadership is related 
to the use of private sale sites as a source of information. By separately offering different 
brands each day private sale sites may provide a convenient and exciting venue for 
window shopping and therefore some shoppers may frequently visit these sites just to 
browse with little intention to buy. This possibility is supported by the strong correlation 
between two dimensions of fashion leadership and visit frequency. The positive 
correlations suggest that those with high levels of fashion opinion leadership and fashion 
innovativeness visit private sale sites more frequently. Accordingly, a further exploration 
of fashion leadership in association with motivations for visiting private sale sites may 
provide an increased understanding of the shoppers of these web sites. 
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In support of H2 and H3, both impulse buying and bargain shopping were found to 
be significant predictors of purchase intention for private sale sites. Because private 
sale sites operate under a limited time sales format, members who are prone to impulse 
buying may be more stimulated than others to make a spontaneous purchase decision 
in such a shopping environment. Additionally, private sale sites only have a limited 
quantity of each product and, knowing this, impulse buyers may feel a stronger urge to 
buy immediately in order not to lose the chance. On the other hand, individuals driven 
by bargain shopping may find financial value and satisfaction in buying from private 
sale sites due to the extreme discounts offered, thus resulting in a stronger intention to 
purchase from these sites. The significant impact of bargain shopping on purchase 
intention for luxury goods at private sale sites has interesting implications. Prestige or 
premium pricing has traditionally been an important strategy for the marketing of 
luxury fashion brands as consumers use a price cue as a surrogate indicator of prestige 
with a high price indicating high levels of quality and status (Fionda and Moore, 2009; 
Wiedmann et al., 2007). However, the results of this study suggest that private sale sites 
may attract a different set of luxury consumers for whom bargains and deals do 
not necessarily decrease the value of luxury goods but instead can make them more 
attractive. 
When the three factors of web site attitude were considered simultaneously, ease of 
use was the only factor that significantly predicted purchase intention, thus partially 
supporting H4. This finding suggests that individuals who held more favorable 
attitudes toward the usability of the sites were more likely to purchase in the future. 
Despite the significant correlations with purchase intention, web site innovativeness, 
and information quality were not significant in predicting purchase intention when 
considered along with other variables. These results contradict a recent study by Kim 
and Jones (2009) on online apparel shopping which found appearance-related qualities 
and usability to be almost equally important in predicting purchase intention. It should 
be noted, however, that Kim and Jones investigated web sites of multi-channel apparel 
retailers and the different results may be therefore due to the difference in category of 
the targeted retail sites. It should also be pointed out that Kim and Jones studied the 
influence of web site quality in terms of perceptions of web site attributes whereas 
the current study examined the influence of web site attitude as measured by 
perceptions multiplied by the importance given to web site attributes. The findings of 
the current study suggest that when allocating their limited resources, private sale 
sites should focus on improving usability before addressing other aspects of the 
web sites. An interesting topic for future research regards the possible existence of 
a hierarchy clarifying the importance of different aspects of web site quality. As with 
Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs, it is possible that various aspects of web site 
quality are rank-ordered; certain web site attributes (e.g. usability) may be 
prerequisites which need to be satisfied before higher-order attributes (e.g. web site 
innovativeness) can be fully appreciated and hold influence over the user’s ultimate 
behavioral intention. The establishment of such a hierarchy of web site-quality 
dimensions should help companies devise a specific strategy as to how to prioritize 
their resources and efforts yielding web sites that deliver maximum benefit. 
The hypothesis suggesting the relationship between visit frequency and purchase 
intention (H5) was supported. When two dimensions of fashion leadership, impulse 
buying, and bargain shopping were controlled, visit frequency positively predicted 
purchase intention suggesting that those who visit private sale sites frequently showed 
a stronger intention to purchase from the site. This finding demonstrates that the 
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widely argued notion that repeat visitors of a web site are more likely to make 
purchases from the site (Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2004) is also applied to private sale 
sites. The correlations between visit frequency and other variables also provide 
interesting insights into shoppers of private sale sites. The frequency of visiting 
private sale site was positively correlated with bargain shopping but not with impulse 
buying. Visit frequency was also positively correlated with information and ease of use 
but not with web site innovativeness. The results suggest that those who frequently 
visit private sale sites are also likely to be drawn by bargains and that they are also 
likely to have more favorable attitudes toward information quality and usability of the 
web sites. Favorable attitudes toward information quality and usability may reflect the 
shoppers’ familiarity with the web sites based on their frequent visits to the sites. It is 
noteworthy that bargain shoppers are more likely to visit, as well as to purchase from 
private sale sites whereas impulse shoppers are likely to purchase from the sites but 
not more likely to frequently visit the sites. Additionally, bargain shoppers are more 
likely to hold favorable attitudes toward information quality and usability whereas 
impulse shoppers showed no tendency toward favorable web site attitudes. The lack of 
correlation between impulse buying and web site attitude is not surprising because in 
that impulse shopping is an emotion-driven behavior, impulse shoppers may not base 
their purchase decisions on rational evaluations of a web site. These results suggest 
that bargain shoppers and impulse shoppers represent two valuable and distinct 
market segments for private sale retailers to target. It may be easier to target bargain 
shoppers as they are relatively easier to locate online. Companies might wish to place 
advertisements on other bargain sites, both fashion or non-fashion related, targeting 
bargain shoppers by encouraging repeat visits and emphasizing savings to be had. 
In contrast to this, with respect to impulse shoppers companies should focus on how to 
evoke an emotional response to their site offerings. Additionally, despite their 
propensity to buy from private sale sites impulse shoppers do not often visit these 
sites. Therefore, it will be important for retailers to find a way to encourage these 
shoppers to visit their sites more often, possibly yielding further sales. 
As this study was the first step toward better understanding shoppers of private 
sale sites, some of the key issues in luxury research have been left out of the scope. One 
such issue is how shoppers of private sale sites evaluate luxury goods offered at 
discounts and how the format of private sale retailing affects their perceptions of 
the value of the goods. Selling luxury brands on the internet presents a complex 
challenge for retailers (Okonkwo, 2009). Luxury brands represent images in the 
consumer’s mind that suggest a high level of price, quality, aesthetics, rarity, and 
specialty and they are differentiated from each other not merely through the functional 
benefits of the products, but more importantly through the symbolic benefits or 
personalities they communicate (Heine, 2009). Luxury companies have found it difficult 
to effectively translate over the internet the image, identity, and lifestyle associated 
with a luxury brand (Okonkwo, 2009). The difficulty of communicating the symbolic 
benefits of luxury brands is compounded by the inherent challenge of the internet in 
effectively showcasing functional benefits of luxury goods such as high levels of 
craftsmanship and quality of materials (Seringhaus, 2005). An additional challenge 
of the online luxury retailer is that of maintaining perceived exclusivity and rarity 
among consumers, two of the key attributes often defining the value of luxury (Tynan 
et al., 2010) while simultaneously taking advantage of the accessibility offered by the 
internet. Private sale retailers attempt to preserve the notion of exclusivity and rarity of 
luxury brands by making access to their sites exclusive to their members and by 
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making every product available in only limited quantity and for a limited period of 
time. Nonetheless, their memberships are not difficult to obtain and their discount 
pricing makes it difficult to evoke this feeling of exclusivity, as consumers have 
historically used the high price of luxury goods as an indicator of their exclusivity 
(Husic and Cicic, 2009). Authenticity, another key attribute of luxury brands (Yeoman, 
2011), is another challenge faced by online luxury retailers, and in particular discount 
retailers. Online auction sites such as eBay have found that buyers are hesitant to 
purchase luxury goods from their sites because these buyers are unable to determine 
the authenticity of the goods (Qin et al., 2009). Although many private sale sites have 
attempted to address such concerns by offering a 100 percent authenticity guarantee, 
some of them still suffer from the perception that damaged, secondhand, or even fake 
luxury goods are sometimes sold at private sale sites (Sherman, 2010). As such, private 
sale sites present a complex yet unique retail environment for researchers of luxury 
retailing to study and should therefore warrant more extensive studies. 
The current study was conducted with a US sample. As some US private sale sites 
such as Gilt Groupe, Myhabit, and Modnique ship internationally, it would be of great 
interest to see if the same findings would be observed in comparable samples from 
other countries. A few recent studies have noted differences between mature markets 
(e.g. USA, Canada, Italy, France) and emerging markets (e.g. Russia, India, China) for 
luxury purchase intentions (Christodoullides et al., 2009; Jung and Shen, 2011; Shukla 
and Purani, in press), suggesting the importance of the location factor in luxury 
research. Several studies show that consumers in emerging markets are more likely to 
purchase luxury goods to display their wealth whereas western consumers purchase 
luxury goods to communicate their individual styles (Amatulli and Guido, 2011). 
Accordingly, future studies are needed to compare shoppers of private sale sites in 
mature markets with their counterparts in emerging markets. Additionally those 
studies should examine other consumer characteristics such as conspicuous 
consumption in order to better capture cultural or national variations. 
There are several limitations to this study that should be considered in interpreting 
the results. Foremost, the current study did not require respondents to have made a 
purchase from a private sale site and instead only required that they be members of at 
least one private sale site. Although visit frequency was investigated as a measure of 
the amount of experience a respondent had with the web site, this variable does not 
reflect the level of the respondent’s purchase experience from the site. Previous 
purchase experiences measured either by frequency of purchases or by satisfaction 
with previous purchases might have shed additional light upon this subject. Another 
related variable that might play a role in predicting purchase intention for private sale 
sites is frequency of general online shopping. It would be particularly interesting to see 
if frequency of visiting private sale sites would still influence purchase intention when 
online shopping frequency is considered as the controlling variable. Furthermore, 
although in this study product characteristics were not considered as factors 
influencing purchase intention, future studies may want to incorporate this component 
into their theoretical framework to determine how product-related attributes (e.g. brand 
and merchandise selection, uniqueness, fashionability) influence shoppers’ perceived 
value of the web site and ultimately their purchase intention. In addition, there are 
other methodological problems that limit the generalization of the findings, including 
the small size and the unique composition of the sample. The sample for this study 
included a substantial proportion of young female consumers with a low household 
income. Although the respondents indicated that they were members of private sale 
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sites, these sites tend to target shoppers with higher income levels despite the large 
discounts offered and, therefore, it may be difficult to view the sample as representative 
of the target population. Future research employing a different sampling strategy may 
achieve a better sample representative of the target population. Previous research has 
shown that shoppers’ demographic characteristics such as age, income, and family 
composition affect their perceptions of the benefits of online shopping (Dholakia and 
Uusitalo, 2002). Future studies with larger samples are needed not only to corroborate 
significant findings of this study but also to investigate the impacts of demographic 
variables on shopping behaviors at private sale sites. Finally, future research 
employing qualitative methods such as interviews is also recommended to uncover 
other variables that might have an impact on shopping on private sale sites. 
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Further reading 
Chang, M.-L., Lai, M. andWu,W.-Y. (2010), “The influences of shopping motivation on adolescent 
online-shopping perceptions”, African Journal of Business Management, Vol. 4 No. 13, 
pp. 2728-42. 
Dillman, D.A. (2000), Mail and Internet Surveys, Wiley, New York, NY. 
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brands”, available at: www.forrester.com/rb/Research/social_computing_strategies_for_ 
luxury_brands/q/id/47308/t/2 (accessed December 19, 2011). 
Okonkwo, U. (2007), Luxury Fashion Branding: Trends, Tactics, Techniques, Palgrave Macmillan, 
New York City, NY. 
About the authors 
Briana Martinez received a Master’s of Science in Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors from the 
University of Georgia. Her research interests are in the luxury market and online apparel 
shopping. 
Soyoung Kim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and 
Interiors at the University of Georgia and her research interests are in online apparel shopping. 
Soyoung Kim is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: soyoung@uga.edu 
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com 
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints 
Private sale 
sites 
365
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  • 1. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1361-2026.htm Predicting purchase intention for private sale sites Briana Martinez and Soyoung Kim Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of several consumer characteristics (fashion leadership, impulse buying, bargain shopping), web site attitude, and visit frequency on intention to purchase from a private sale site. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 164 female respondents who were members of at least one private sale site. The sample was selected mainly by using a snowball sampling technique which relied on chain referrals to recruit eligible participants. Factor analysis results suggested that fashion leadership consisted of two dimensions: fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness. Regression analysis was conducted to determine how strongly purchase intention for private sale sites was predicted by fashion opinion leadership, fashion innovativeness, impulse buying, bargain shopping, web site attitude, and visit frequency. Findings – Regression results showed that ease of use was the only dimension of web site attitude that significantly predicted purchase intention. Impulse buying and bargain shopping also significantly influenced purchase intention. Implications for future research and limitations were also discussed. Originality/value – As private sale sites continue to grow in popularity, insight into the psychology and behaviors of shoppers at these sites has become more important. There has been, however, no published research that examines what motivates consumers to purchase from private sale sites. Keywords Consumer behaviour, Women, Fashion, Web sites, Internet, Internet marketing, Fashion retailing Paper type Research paper Introduction Bargain shopping is an old concept but its meaning has changed over time. There used to be a stigma associated with bargain shopping as it referred to buying low-priced items or below-average quality products; now, however, the term has evolved to mean simply getting the best value for your money. Many consumers today, regardless of age or class, engage in bargain shopping whether it be in discount stores, off-price retailers or online. The growing popularity of bargain shopping has prompted the luxury fashion market, once highly resistant to discounting, due to the potential for tarnishing its brand reputation and losing exclusivity, to also join this trend (Atwal andWilliams, 2009; Danziger, 2005). Luxury fashion, comprised of apparel, accessories, handbags, shoes, jewelries, and perfume (Amatulli and Guido, 2011), not only assumes excellence in quality, distinctiveness, exclusivity, and craftsmanship but may well also become a part of the consumer’s identity (Fionda and Moore, 2009). These characteristics normally associated with luxury brands make it a challenge for companies to market these brands effectively on the internet. Showcasing the often-tactile sense of quality and craftsmanship on a computer screen and maintaining a sense of exclusivity even while making them available to everybody who has internet access requires a delicate balance (Okonkwo, 2009). Recent trends in luxury consumption, however, have changed this market and present new opportunities, particularly for fashion companies. As noted JFMM 16,3 342 Received 6 May 2011 Revised 4 September 2011 8 January 2012 Accepted 18 January 2012 Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management Vol. 16 No. 3, 2012 pp. 342-365 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1361-2026 DOI 10.1108/13612021211246080
  • 2. by Yeoman (2011) in his recent article on luxury consumption, a significant number of consumers across all ages and social grades have now grown less motivated by the ordinary and would prefer to own a small number of luxury goods than many cheap things. Additionally, more consumers are now willing to take time to search for better prices on luxury products, an attitude encouraged by the recession. Observing the emergence of this new breed of luxury consumer, and in particular the recent bargain-shopping craze, Lim (2009) states that luxury can now be described as “massclusivity.” Luxury fashion is now readily available and affordable to far more consumers than it ever has been due to the ready accessibility of web sites such as bluefly.com and efashionhouse.com. Even Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has recently joined this trend by launching a micro-site called myhabit.com (Miller, 2011). The old way of finding luxuries for below market value no longer prevails, as consumers no longer have to be in the major fashion cities to stake out sample sales. Now consumers can find numerous online sample sale sites also known as private sale sites. Private sale sites offer short-term sales of a small selection of designer fashions. This type of web sites allows fashion brands and retailers to rid themselves of excess merchandise without undermining their brand images (Sherman, 2008). Sites such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, Ideeli, and HauteLook have embodied the experience of traditional sample sales and have effectively moved the experience online. These sites have found a way to provide high-end luxury goods at discounted prices while still keeping the feeling of exclusivity and offering the rush and adrenaline of traditional sample sales (Miller and Wortham, 2009). Private sale sites are unique in nature as they have taken the traditional sample sale format and have translated it to an online world, a task that has taken the luxury industry years to accomplish and in addition have taken bargain shopping to an exclusive level with their distinctive operations. Private sale sites are reported to have generated $2 billion in sales in 2010 and the market is expected to grow to $8 billion by 2014 (Kothari, 2011). As private sale sites continue to grow in popularity, insight into the psychology and behaviors of shoppers at these sites has become more important. Although many recent studies have examined the various factors encouraging consumers to shop online for apparel products, no published research has examined what has motivated consumers to purchase specifically from private sale sites. Previous studies in online apparel shopping have been conducted as follows: regarding online apparel shopping in general but without specifying the type of retail web sites (e.g. Cho and Workman, 2011; Kwon and Noh, 2010); for web sites the respondents frequently used for apparel shopping (e.g. Hahn and Kim, 2009; Park et al., in press); for multi-channel retailers’ web sites (e.g. Hahn and Kim, 2009; Jones and Kim, 2010); and for mock retail web sites (e.g. Im, 2011; Kim and Damhorst, 2010; Lee et al., 2011). The growing popularity of and increasing competition among private sale retailers (Miller, 2011) prompt research that could fill the void in the academic literature as well as that could provide insight into our understanding of shoppers of private sale sites. By understanding the motivations and behaviors of these shoppers, private sale sites can better define their target consumers and more effectively tailor their offerings to meet customer needs. The information may also help the luxury industry to develop appropriate production and marketing strategies specifically targeted at this growing market. The purpose of this study was to determine consumer characteristics that might predict the degree of intention to purchase from private sale sites. Many previous studies on luxury consumption have focussed on either product characteristics that are Private sale sites 343
  • 3. important to consumers such as brand image, quality, and fashionability (e.g. Husic and Cicic, 2009; Jung and Shen, 2011) or customer motives for the consumption of luxury goods such as conspicuousness, snobbery, hedonic motives, materialism, conformity, need for uniqueness, and social recognition (e.g. Hudders and Pandelaere, 2012; Park et al., 2008; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999;Wiedmann et al., 2007). Rather than examining which of these motives are important for online shopping of luxury fashion brands, this study focussed on uncovering consumer characteristics that might predict intention to purchase luxury goods specifically from private sale web sites. The customer characteristics identified through the literature review as potentially influencing shoppers’ purchase intention toward private sale sites were fashion leadership, impulse buying, and bargain shopping. These three variables are motivational and behavioral characteristics that are known to explain various fashion and shopping behaviors. Additionally, two web site-specific variables, attitude toward private sale sites, and frequency of visiting private sale sites were selected based on the literature on online shopping as potential predictors of purchase intention toward private sale sites. To summarize, the specific objective of this study was to compare fashion leadership, impulse buying, bargain shopping, web site attitude, and visit frequency for their impacts on purchase intention toward private sale web sites. Literature review Private sale sites Private sale sites originated in 2007 in the USA with the launching of Gilt Groupe. Since then numerous private sale sites such as Rue La La, Ideeli, and HauteLook have emerged. The sales of major private sale sites have quickly grown to over ten million dollars. Private sale sites target aspirational buyers by enticing consumers with highly discounted, alluring merchandise variety and an assortment of some of the most well-known luxury brands such as Marc Jacobs and Fendi (Gilt Groupe, 2010; HauteLook, 2010; Ideeli, 2010; Rue La La, 2010). Private sale sites are similar to the traditional sample sales in that sites are organized utilizing a limited time format. Limited time formats give consumers a small opening of time, typically between 24 and 48 hours, during which the merchandise offered is up for sale. Consumers get a preview of what is going to be offered, but just enough to build anticipation. Private sale sites provide a list of what designers, lines, and collections are going to be on the sales floor, and the dates they are offered. However that is all the information provided; the actual merchandise offering remains a total secret until the designated start time. The products offered by private sale sites vary but invariably include a collection of high-end luxury brands. Product offerings at these companies are centered primarily in fashion and furnishings. Gilt Groupe, Ideeli, and Rue La La, however, have expanded their offerings to include hotel rooms, vacation home rentals, and trip packages. These web sites offer limited, members-only access. This membership-only access allows an air of exclusivity since other shopping sites and search engines cannot access the information on these web sites. Some private sale sites such as Gilt Groupe and Ideeli offer different levels of membership with premium membership being offered as a way of retaining loyal customers and building loyalty with especially high volume or high-value shoppers (Karimzadeh, 2010). Premium members receive additional perks such as being able to access the sales an hour earlier than others (Gilt Groupe, 2010; Ideeli, 2010). Private sale sites collect information about their members’ preferences and shopping patterns in order to maintain sales data that allow them to extensively track JFMM 16,3 344
  • 4. valuable data, i.e. the number of consumers continuing to look at a specific product even after it has sold out. The companies take all of this information into account and factor it into buying decisions in order to provide more future value for the consumer. These companies are on board with technology which is obvious through their web sites alone; however, they have also established a presence in the arena of mobile technology as many of them now feature their own iPhone or smartphone applications, thereby ensuring that their members never need miss a sale (Gilt Groupe, 2010; HauteLook, 2010; Ideeli, 2010; Rue La La, 2010). While some industry skeptics may take private sale sites simply as a fad, many other retailers are jumping on the luxury exclusive club discount bandwagon. Neiman Marcus, for example, took the private sale approach and sent only a selected customer base an e-mail informing them of limited-time sales on brands such as Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana (Corcoran, 2009). Even eBay got in on the action by opening Fashion Vault, their spin on the private sale business (D’Innocenzio, 2010). Naturally there is intense rivalry between these companies. They are fighting for shares of the market in addition to brand assortment and depth even while vying to keep their customers from switching to their competitors (Corcoran, 2009). The US’ recession has created downturns in many industries and the luxury industry has been no exception. Deflated wealth brought on by the recession and economic slowdown has resulted in declining demand for high-end products, and consequently in a significant increase in inventory levels of unsold luxury goods (Barr, 2011; Fiegerman, 2011). In fact, luxury goods retailers performed much worse than many other retailers during the recession, only recently bouncing back (Perocchi, 2011). Somehow, in the midst of all of this, private sale retailers have found a unique niche, resulting in impressive revenue growth (Khalid, 2011; Rao, 2011a). According to a recent report published by Inc. Magazine, Ideeli earned the spot as the fastest-growing private business in the USA with a three-year sales growth of 40.882 percent and revenue of $77.7 million in 2010 (Mau, 2011). Gilt Groupe posted $423 million in revenue in 2010, up from $170 million a year ago (Oran, 2011), and recently announced a major international expansion with private sales now available to consumers in 90 countries (Rao, 2011b). While there are some critics who think the success of these companies is due to the recession and that these sites will be a fading trend once the economy bounces back, these companies are for now succeeding in a fast-paced online market. Theoretical framework The purpose of this study is to determine the individual characteristics that influence shoppers’ purchase intention toward private sale sites. The Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell (EKB) model of consumer behavior (Engel and Blackwell, 1982) guided our selection of variables and was used to develop the theoretical model proposed in this study (see Figure 1). This model focusses on the individual aspect of consumer decisions and views it as a process instead of a solitary act. As such, it places much importance on how the consumer comes to make decisions and divides the process into five stages: problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation. The EKB model also proposes that the product evaluation stage that leads to purchase intention is composed of several vital components such as beliefs and attitudinal and evaluative criteria. Furthermore, all stages in the decision-making process are influenced by external (environmental) factors as well as internal (individual) factors such as lifestyles, motives, norms, Private sale sites 345
  • 5. values, and reference groups. Although the EKB model has been widely applied in consumer research, its usefulness in online shopping research has been mentioned in only a few studies (e.g. Chen, 2009; Darley et al., 2010; Lin et al., 2010; Teo and Yeong, 2003). For example, Lin et al. (2010) used the EKB framework to propose a model that explains a consumer’s intention to use online information systems for travel products. In their model, consumers’ motives such as travel preferences and preferred online features were proposed to influence their perceptions of online information systems, which in turn affected their overall attitudes toward those systems as well as ultimately, their purchase intention. Similarly, the current study proposes a model that incorporates the influences of consumers’ individual characteristics on purchase intention for private sale sites. The influence of individual characteristics on consumer attitude and behavior is also highlighted in motivation theory. According to motivation theory, human motives, whether cognitive or affective, guide individuals to engage in certain behaviors that will help them achieve individual gratification and satisfaction (Rohm, 2004). In support of this theory, numerous studies have found that consumers’ motivational characteristics, such as shopping motivations and preferences, are major determinants of consumer value perception and further influence consumer attitudes and behaviors. For example, Lee et al. (2009) found that consumer characteristics such as price sensitivity and compulsive buying behavior significantly affected shopping value in online auctions, which in turn, influenced preferences toward online auction sites. Morschett et al. (2005) found that grocery shoppers with different shopping values formed different attitudes toward retail stores. And again, in the context of luxury consumption, previous studies have proven that consumers’ motivational characteristics such as materialism, vanity, need for social recognition, and need for uniqueness influenced purchasing behavior of luxury fashion brands (Hudders and Pandelaere, 2012; Park et al., 2008; Vigneron and Johnson, 1999;Wiedmann et al., 2007). In the current study, fashion leadership, impulse buying, and bargain shopping were chosen as individual characteristics that might explain why some consumers are more likely to purchase luxury goods from private sale sites. Researchers have argued that, in addition to individual consumer characteristics, online shopping research should also consider store-specific characteristics as one of the key dimensions of purchase decisions on the internet (Huang, 2003; Lowengart and Tractinsky, 2001; Seock, 2003). Store-specific characteristics such as web site attributes influence consumer perceptions of the store and are used, in turn, to evaluate the store from which consumers want to make their purchase (Lowengart and Tractinsky, 2001). Voorveld et al. (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of empirical studies to propose a theoretical Consumer characteristics Fashion leadership Impulse buying Bargain shopping Site-specific characteristics Website attitude Visit frequency Purchase intention JFMM 16,3 346 Figure 1. Proposed model of predictors of purchase intention for private sale sites
  • 6. framework for studying consumers’ responses to web sites and argued that web site characteristics as well as user characteristics are predictors of both attitudinal and behavioral responses to a web site. Voorveld et al. further suggested that the level and nature of the users’ exposure to web sites also influence their responses to those web sites. In the current study, two web site-specific consumer characteristics were chosen as predictors of purchase intention for private sale sites based on the relevant literature: web site attitude and visit frequency. Web site attitude represents a consumer’s attitudes toward various characteristics of a site whereas frequency of visits to a private sale site reflects a consumer’s degree of exposure to and familiarity with that site. Fashion leadership Fashion leadership is one of the main avenues to the eventual acceptance of new fashion trends by the masses. Fashion leadership can be broken down into two categories: fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership. Fashion innovativeness has been defined as the likelihood to purchase a new fashion sooner than other consumers (Sproles, 1979) whereas fashion opinion leadership is defined as the “ability or tendency to convey information regarding a new fashion in a way that influences successive purchasers to accept or reject it” (Workman and Johnson, 1993, p. 64). Consumers with high levels of fashion innovativeness are among the first to wear a new fashion (Goldsmith and Stith, 1993; Goldsmith et al., 1999; Sproles, 1979) whereas consumers with high level of fashion opinion leadership are more apt to persuade the masses through communication usually during social groups where they can discuss why the fashion is acceptable (Gordon et al., 1985; Sproles, 1979). Consumers with high levels of fashion leadership are more involved in fashion, enjoy shopping often, are not price conscious, and are not likely to be practical about their purchases (Goldsmith and Stith, 1993; Gutman and Mills, 1982). Fashion leaders, particularly fashion innovators, are also more likely to shop at specialty stores and department stores whereas non-fashion innovators are more price conscious and tend to shop at discount stores (Lumpkin and McConkey, 1984). Private sale sites, by their very nature, can be comparable to specialty stores as they specialize in designer-brand fashions and furnishings; however private sale sites are also similar to off-price stores in that the merchandise offered is discounted to a degree. Because of the unique nature of these web sites, and also given that there is no empirical research studying fashion leadership and shopping at private sale sites, it is of interest to investigate how these two dimensions of fashion leadership might be related to intention to purchase from private sale sites. Given that fashionability, innovativeness, and uniqueness are some of the key product attributes that characterize luxury fashion brands (Amatulli and Guido, 2011; Fionda and Moore, 2009; Husic and Cicic, 2009; Tynan et al., 2010) fashion leadership, reflecting increased interest in new and trendy fashions, seems likely to lead to a stronger intention to buy luxury goods from private sale sites. The positive relationship between fashion leadership and purchasing behavior of luxury brands is also supported by a study by Lim (2009) who found that fashion leaders with higher fashion interest had a higher level of emotional attachment to luxury fashion brands. Additionally, Shang et al. (2005) suggested that fashion involvement might influence consumers’ intention to shop online. Accordingly, the following hypothesis was proposed: H1. Fashion leadership will positively influence purchase intention for private sale sites. Private sale sites 347
  • 7. Impulse buying Impulse buying has been defined as an instant, compelling, emotion-driven behavior in which the impulse decision precludes consideration of choices or alternative (Bayley and Nancarrow, 1998). Similarly, Rook (1987) defined it as the relentless urge to buy an item instantly. Park et al. (2006) found that apparel shoppers are more likely to be motivated to impulse purchase by their fashion involvement and positive emotion, suggesting that impulse buying is strongly related to a shopper’s involvement with the product and that it also helps the shopper to achieve emotional gratification. The association between impulse buying and emotional factors is widely accepted and many researchers agree that impulse buying is motivated by hedonic motivations such as feelings of excitement and pleasure (Baumgartner, 2002; Sharma et al., 2010). It is also recognized that impulse buying is triggered not only by internal stimuli such as hedonic motivations and product involvement but also by external stimuli such as shopping environment and marketing communications (e.g. coupons, lottery) (Virvilaite et al., 2011). Dawson and Kim (2010) investigated external cues on apparel web sites that encouraged impulse buying and found that sales promotions and notice of new styles are among the various features of apparel web sites that triggered impulse buying. Because private sale sites offer deals and merchandise that change on a daily basis, impulse buying may play a significant role in increasing the shopper’s intention to purchase from private sale sites: H2. Impulse buying will positively influence purchase intention for private sale sites. Bargain shopping Bargain shopping is motivated by the shopper’s belief in the importance of obtaining price-related bargains, whether through shopping efforts, bargain vigilance, or using coupons (Hill and Harmon, 2009). Moye and Kincade (2003) sought to segment US female apparel shoppers based on their shopping orientations and found bargain shoppers to be one of four distinct market segments. In their study, bargain shoppers liked to shop around for bargains, tended to shop on sale days, and tended to look for advertisements that focussed on low pricing, coupon sales, and clearance merchandise. This segment significantly differed from other segments in their store patronage preferences and attitudes toward their preferred store. Although a majority of bargain shoppers chose department stores as their preferred store the researchers argued that this shopping segment would not be a viable market for department stores because of shoppers’ reluctance to pay full price. Hill and Harmon (2009) found that bargain-hunting activities are more common among females than males and that males were more concerned about the time and image implications of bargain-related behaviors. Previously, bargain shopping was viewed mostly from an economic perspective as a way for lower-income consumers to achieve economic benefits (Bardhi and Arnould, 2005). However, it is now widely acknowledged that bargain shopping occurs across all income levels (Kwon et al., 2009) and for reasons beyond economic value (Cox et al., 2005; Schindler, 1998). In an experiment conducted by Darke and Dahl (2003), the act of returning the money that participants saved through bargaining did not reduce their satisfaction, proving that values beyond the financial had been achieved through the experience. Schindler (1998) noted feelings of pride and satisfaction among those consumers who engaged in bargain shopping, and found that consumers expressed more positive feelings when they felt responsible for the bargain. For luxury JFMM 16,3 348
  • 8. consumers particularly, bargain shopping can be a way to measure how much they have won in the game of bargain shopping; for luxury consumers it is not about the financial savings but the thrill of the hunt (Danziger, 2005). Lim (2009) coined the term luxe-bargain shopping and defined it as “purchasing a luxury brand at a bargain, which generates values in association with both the product (luxury brand) and process (bargain shopping)” (p. 4). Given that one of the major attractions of private sale sites is bargain shopping, it was proposed: H3. Bargain shopping will positively influence purchase intention for private sale sites. Web site attitude Because web sites provide the only means for many pure online retailers such as private sale sites to communicate with their customers, the quality of their web sites serves as a significant environmental cue affecting consumer behaviors (Chang and Chen, 2008). Researchers have argued that web site characteristics influence users’ online experiences and their evaluations of site performance, ultimately affecting their decision making at any given site (Huang, 2003). Consumer evaluations of a site performance or attitudes toward a site reflect their reactions toward many different site characteristics such as product information, enjoyment level, and ease of use, handling of transactions, and design. Accordingly, web site attitude is a multi-dimensional concept with the number of dimensions ranging anywhere between five and 12 for transaction sites (Loiacono, 2000). The characteristics that are deemed important for web site attitude will vary since the information and relationship preferred by a consumer can differ by product or service (Burke, 2002; Elliot and Fowell, 2000; Lynch et al., 2001). Lynch et al. argue that web site attitude is more important for retailers with high-touch goods such as apparel. In Chang and Chen’s (2008) study, web site attitude was proposed to influence purchase intention through trust as a mediating variable. The researchers found that customers’ perceptions of the web site quality for the online retailers they frequently browsed positively affected their trust toward those retailers which, in turn, significantly increased their purchase intentions. Jones and Kim (2010) examined the influence of brand trust, offline patronage, clothing involvement, and perceived web site quality on online apparel shopping intention. The researchers focussed on apparel multi-channel retailers such as Banana Republic and Urban Outfitters. In their study, perceived web site quality was divided into three dimensions, of which two factors, usability and information quality and visual appeal and image, were found to be significant predictors of online apparel shopping intention. Interactivity and innovativeness did not significantly influence online apparel intention. The influence of perceived web site quality or web site attitude on purchase intention or satisfaction is well supported in other previous studies on online apparel shopping (Alhasoun, 2010; Kim and Jones, 2009; Kim and Lee, 2006; Kim et al., 2003; Kim and Stoel, 2004; Seock, 2003). Seock (2003) examined the impacts of attitude toward a favorite apparel web site on purchase intention. In her study web site attitude was measured using Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1980) expectancy-value model of attitudes and consisted of five dimensions: product information, customer service, privacy and security, navigation, and auditory experience/comparison shopping. The results of her study revealed that attitude toward a favorite apparel web site was positively related to intention to search for information at that site as well as to intention to purchase from the site. Recently, Private sale sites 349
  • 9. Alhasoun (2010) investigated the relationship between web site attitude and purchase intention for three different retail web sites, including one apparel web site, and observed that overall web site attitude was a significant predictor of purchase intention for all three web sites. In her study, overall web site attitude was determined by the shopper’s perceptions of web site attributes such as ease of use, usefulness, informativeness, and entertainment. Even though private sale sites have a web site layout that differs from typical online apparel sites, previous work on retail web sites provides enough evidence to support the relationship between customers’ web site attitude and purchase intention. Therefore it was proposed: H4. Consumers’ positive attitudes toward private sale sites will significantly increase purchase intention for these sites. Visit frequency The frequency with which shoppers visit stores or shopping centers is an important behavioral characteristic of shoppers and has been a key topic in retailing research (Roy, 1994). Most of the research, however, has focussed on exploring motivational and demographic characteristics of shoppers who frequently visit certain stores and shopping centers. For example, Roy examined the characteristics of shoppers who made frequent trips to shopping malls and identified the frequent mall shopper as an individual in the age group of 40-60 years who had relatively high income, was not particularly sensitive to deals, and considered shopping an enjoyable recreational experience. Visit frequency has also been treated as one of the indicators of store patronage and studied in conjunction with such variables as demographic characteristics, store image, store attitude and satisfaction (Gustafsson et al., 2005; Korgaonkar et al., 1985; Pan and Zinkhan, 2006). For example, Pan and Zinkhan conducted a meta-analysis of empirical findings on the predictors of store patronage as measured either by store choice or shopping frequency and observed that the two dimensions of store patronage were explained by two different sets of predictors. Personal factors such as demographics and store attitude seemed to be the dominant predictors of frequency of visit whereas market and product relevant variables were more likely to influence store choice. Web managers have argued that a person who tends to visit a web site often can be considered to be loyal to the web site and that repeat users tend to spend much more than non-repeat users (Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2004). For members of private sale sites, however, frequency of visiting the sites may not be just a simple manifestation of their loyalty to the site but may represent a behavioral characteristic more complex in nature. As private sale sites feature daily, limited-time sales with short advance notice only on brands, but not on specific merchandise to be on sale, this tends to encourage shoppers to visit these sites more frequently than other retail sites. Some shoppers may visit private sale sites frequently simply because they are checking to see if their favorite brands will be featured or because they enjoy browsing constantly changing merchandise. Accordingly, frequent visits to private sale sites may not necessarily indicate that a shopper neither holds a strong loyalty to those sites nor makes frequent purchases from them. Even so, it is expected that frequent visits to private sale sites might increase users’ willingness to purchase from the sites due to change in their attitudinal and behavioral responses resulting from increased exposure to the sites (Voorveld et al., 2009). Gefen et al. (2003) found that familiarity with an online retailer and with its web site reduces uncertainty while increasing the user’s purchase intention. Similarly, Flavia´n et al. (2006) observed JFMM 16,3 350
  • 10. that familiarity with a web site leads to a strong loyalty. Additionally, Pavlou and Fygenson’s (2006) study found that getting product information from a retailer’s web site positively influenced purchase intention for that retailer’s site. Accordingly, those who visit a private sale site more frequently, even if those visits are motivated mainly by information search or entertainment value, may reveal a stronger intention to purchase from the site. Accordingly, it was hypothesized: H5. Visit frequency will positively influence purchase intention for private sale sites. Methodology Survey description The scale for fashion leadership included 12 items measuring fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness on a seven-point Likert scale (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly agree). Fashion opinion leadership was measured with six items developed by Flynn et al. (1996) (e.g. “I often influence people’s opinion about fashionable clothing” and “I often persuade others to buy the fashions that I like”) and fashion innovativeness was measured with six items developed by Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991) (e.g. “I am the last in my circle of friends to purchase a new outfit or fashion” and “I do little shopping for new fashions”). Impulse buying was measured with seven items developed by Rook and Fisher (1995) (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly agree). Examples of the scale items included “I often buy things without thinking” and “If I see something I want, I buy it.” The reliability coefficient was 0.92. Bargain shopping was measured using three items adapted from Cox et al. (2005) and one item developed by Lim (2009) (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly agree). Example items included “I enjoy hunting for a bargain” and “I get a thrill out of finding a real bargain.” The reliability coefficient was 0.87. Purchase intention was measured using three items adapted from Lim (2009) on a seven-point Likert scale (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly agree) (e.g. “I would purchase luxury merchandise at private sale sites in the future” and “The probability that I would consider buying luxury merchandise from a private sale site is high”). The reliability coefficient was 0.94. In measuring web site attitude, Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1980) expectancy-value model of attitudes was applied. The model explains that a person’s attitude toward an object or an entity is based on the person’s belief about the object’s performance on various attributes as well as the importance the person attaches to those attributes. Accordingly, web site attitude in this study was measured as a shopper’s beliefs about the performance of the web site on different attributes (belief) weighed by the extent to which these attributes are important to the shopper (importance). A total of 16 items adapted from a study by Kim and Stoel (2004) were used to assess various web site attributes such as aesthetics, ease of use, and information quality. Example items included “The website adequately meets my information needs,” “The website design is innovative,” and “I find the website easy to use.” The belief component of the web site attitude scale was measured with a seven-point Likert scale asking the respondents to rate their perceptions of web site attributes (1, strongly disagree; 7, strongly agree). The importance score was measured by asking the respondents to indicate the level of importance for each web site attribute (1, not important; 7, very important). The survey also covered demographic questions including age, income, and ethnicity, frequency of visiting private sale sites, and the names of private sale sites Private sale sites 351
  • 11. that the respondents were familiar with. Survey participants were asked in the beginning of the survey to identify all private sale sites of which they were members. Then prior to the completion of the section for web site attitude, respondents were asked to name the private sale site they were most familiar with and to keep this site in mind when answering the questions followed. Data collection The sample for this research included females aged 18 and older who were members of at least one private sale site. The sample was selected mainly by using a snowball sampling technique which relied on chain referrals to recruit eligible participants. The researchers also posted the survey link on their personal facebook pages as well as the facebook pages for several private sale sites such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, and HauteLook. Twitter was also utilized to aid in snowball recruiting. The sample for this study targeted female private sale sites’ members; having purchased an item from a private sale site however was not a requirement for participation. A total of 214 respondents who met the criteria for participation in the study agreed to take part in the survey. Of these, however, 50 respondents failed to complete the questionnaire, resulting in a total of 164 usable surveys for analysis. The demographic characteristics of the sample were presented in Table I. Over half of the respondents were in the age range of 18-24 (58.2 percent) while 27.4 percent were in the age group of 25-34. Almost three-quarters of the respondents (74.5 percent) classified themselves as Caucasian and 7.6 percent as African American while approximately half (51.8 percent) stated that their annual household incomes were less than $70,000. A total of 30 respondents (18.3 percent) reported an income of less than $10,000 indicating a substantial proportion of students included in the sample. Results Factor analyses A principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation showed that the scale of fashion leadership consisted of two factors with an eigenvalue of one or greater (see Table II). The first factor, composed of five items reflecting fashion opinion leadership, explained 44.87 percent of the variance with an eigenvalue of 5.38. The second factor included three items representing fashion innovativeness and explained 13.16 percent of the variance with an eigenvalue of 1.58. The two factors together accounted for 58.03 percent of the total variance. Both factors had a high internal reliability with Cronbach’s a values of 0.89 and 0.81, respectively. Factor analysis was also performed separately for the two components of web site attitude: belief and importance statements. Three factors with an eigenvalue of one or greater emerged for the belief component whereas a four-factor solution was obtained for the importance component. The results were then reviewed to find common factors between the two components. Three factors were identified, each containing two items and they are: web site innovativeness, information quality, and ease of use. The two belief and importance statements loaded on each factor were multiplied to produce a web site attitude score. Accordingly, three web site attitude scores (web site innovativeness, information quality, and ease of use) were calculated and used in all subsequent analyses. Because these factors contained only two items each, correlation coefficients were examined as a measure of reliability. The factor items and correlation coefficients are presented in Table III. JFMM 16,3 352
  • 12. Frequency (%) Age 18-24 85 58.2 25-34 40 27.4 35-44 10 6.8 45-54 7 4.8 55-64 2 1.4 65þ 2 1.4 Gender Female 164 100 Race White/Caucasian 108 74.5 African-American 11 7.6 Hispanic 9 6.2 Multi-racial 8 5.5 Asian/Pacific Islander 9 6.2 Native American Indian 0 0 Other 0 0 Income o$10,000 30 20.7 $10,000-$29,999 21 14.5 $30,000-$49,999 24 16.6 $50,000-$69,999 10 609 $70,000-$89,999 12 8.3 $90,000-$109,999 9 6.2 $110,000-$129,999 9 6.2 $130,000 or more 30 20.7 Frequency of access to private sale sites Daily 58 39.7 2-3 times a week 30 20.5 Weekly 25 17.1 2-3 times a month 8 12.3 Once a month 15 10.3 Private sale sites 353 Table I. Demographic profile of sample Factors Factor loadings Fashion opinion leadership I often influence people’s opinion about fashionable clothing 0.89 People I know pick fashionable apparel based on what I have told them 0.82 I often persuade others to buy the fashions that I like 0.82 Other people come to me for advice about choosing fashionable apparel 0.75 I know more about new fashions before other people 0.65 Fashion innovativeness I am the last in my circle of friends to purchase a new outfit or fashiona 0.87 I do little shopping for new fashionsa 0.87 I am the last in my circle of friends to know the names of the latest designers and fashion trendsa 0.67 Note: aReverse-coded items Table II. Factor analysis results for fashion leadership
  • 13. Correlation coefficients Factors Belief Importance Website innovativeness 0.77 0.70 The web site is innovative The website design is innovative Information 0.68 0.68 The web site adequately meets my information needs The information on the web site is effective Ease of use 0.72 0.71 It would be easy for me to become skillful at using the website I find the web site easy to use Correlation analyses Correlation analyses were conducted to examine bivariate relationships among the variables (Table IV). Impulse buying was positively correlated with fashion opinion leadership (r¼0.21, po0.01) and purchase intention (r¼0.32, po0.001) but was not related with any of the three factors of web site attitude. Bargain shopping was positively correlated with web site information (r¼0.21, po0.05) and purchase intention (r¼0.32, po0.001). Fashion opinion leadership was strongly correlated with fashion innovativeness (r¼0.44, po0.001) whereas the three factors of web site attitude were positively correlated with each other (r¼0.44, po0.001 for web site innovativeness and information; r¼0.38, po0.001 for web site innovativeness and ease of use; r¼0.68, po0.001 for information and ease of use). Purchase intention was positively correlated with all three factors of web site attitude (r¼0.27, po0.01 for web site innovativeness; r¼0.43, po0.001 for information; r¼0.56, po0.001 for ease of use). Frequency of visiting private sale sites was positively correlated with fashion opinion leadership (r¼0.27, po0.01), fashion innovativeness (r¼0.26, po0.01), bargain shopping (r¼0.19, po0.05), information (r¼0.37, po0.001), ease of use (r¼0.25, po0.01), and purchase intention (r¼0.25, po0.01). Regression analysis Multiple regression analysis using the enter method was conducted to examine how strongly purchase intention was predicted by individual characteristics (fashion opinion leadership, fashion innovativeness, impulse buying, bargain shopping), JFMM 16,3 354 Table III. Factor analysis results for web site attitude V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V1: fashion opinion leadership 1.00 V2: fashion innovativeness 0.44*** 1.00 V3: impulse buying 0.21** 0.11 1.00 V4: bargain shopping 0.06 0.03 0.10 1.00 V5: web site innovativeness 0.02 0.08 0.09 0.07 1.00 V6: information 0.02 0.10 0.01 0.21* 0.44*** 1.00 V7: ease of use 0.08 0.13 0.15 0.14 0.38*** 0.68*** 1.00 V8: visit frequency 0.27** 0.26** 0.15 0.19* 0.14 0.25* 0.25* 1.00 V9: purchase intention 0.23** 0.13 0.32*** 0.32*** 0.27** 0.43*** 0.56*** 0.37*** Notes: *po0.05, **po0.01, ***po0.001 Table IV. Correlation analyses
  • 14. frequency of visiting private sale sites, and web site attitude (web site innovativeness, information, ease of use). The four individual characteristics were entered into the regression model as the first block (Model 1), followed by visit frequency as the second block (Model 2) and the three factors of web site attitude as the third block (Model 3). The regression model between four individual characteristics and purchase intention was significant with F(4, 137)¼10.75, po0.001. As shown in Table IV, the variance explained by the model increased from 24 percent to 29 percent with the addition of visit frequency (Rdiff 2 ¼0.05, po0.01) (F(5, 136)¼11.06, po0.001). Further addition 2 ¼0.20, of the three web site-attitude factors also significantly improved the model (Rdiff po0.001) (F(8, 133)¼15.90, po0.001). Examination of the tolerance and variance inflation factor (VIF) values indicated that tolerance values ranged from 0.86 to 0.98 and all VIF statistics were below 1.17 for Model 2. For Model 3, tolerance values ranged from 0.90 to 0.95 and all VIF statistics were below 1.11. These two indices suggested that multi-collinearity was not present in the models as multi-collinearity is generally considered present if tolerance is less than 0.20 and if VIF is larger than four (Fox, 1991). The results showed that purchase intention was significantly predicted by bargain shopping (b¼0.23, po0.01) and impulse buying (b¼0.27, po0.001), thereby supporting H2 and H3, respectively. Of the three web site-attitude factors, ease of use positively influenced purchase intention (b¼0.41, po0.001), lending partial support for H4. Neither fashion opinion leadership nor fashion innovativeness was significant in predicting purchase intention, therefore rejecting H1. Frequency of visiting private sale site was significant at first, resulting in support for H5, but became insignificant when the three factors of web site attitude were added to the model (Table V). Discussion Despite the rapid growth of online private sale businesses no published study has examined shopping behaviors at private sale sites. The current study attempts to fill the void in the literature on luxury consumption by investigating the extent to which several consumer characteristics affected shoppers’ intention to purchase luxury goods from private sale sites. The study framework is based on the EKB model and includes three consumer characteristics (fashion leadership, impulse buying, bargain shopping) and two site-specific variables (web site attitude, visit frequency). From the practical Purchase intention Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Independent variables B b B b B b Shopping characteristics Fashion opinion leadership 0.09 0.11 0.06 0.08 0.08 0.11 Fashion innovativeness 0.06 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.04 Impulse buying 0.20 0.31*** 0.18 0.28*** 0.14 0.22** Bargain shopping 0.26 0.34*** 0.22 0.29*** 0.19 0.25*** Visit frequency 0.16 0.24** 0.09 0.13 Website attitude Web site innovativeness 0.01 0.08 Information 0.01 0.05 Ease of use 0.05 0.40*** R2 0.24 0.29 0.49 Notes: **po0.01, ***po0.001 Private sale sites 355 Table V. Regression analysis results
  • 15. perspective, this study’s results provide suggestions for more focussed marketing strategies in targeting private sale shoppers in the US market. In this study the concept of fashion leadership was found to consist of two factors: fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness, consistent with findings of Kang and Park-Poaps (2010) and Workman and Johnson (1993). As in these previous studies, fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness emerged as strongly correlated yet distinguishable factors. The finding that purchase intention was significantly correlated with fashion opinion leadership but not with fashion innovativeness is particularly interesting. The level of intention to purchase from private sale sites increased with the level of desire to express opinions about fashion and to influence others, but not with the level of desire to seek new fashions and trends. This finding may be reflective of the perceived trendiness of merchandise at private sale sites. Although private sale sites set themselves from many other bargain fashion sites by focussing on the latest fashion merchandise, thus attracting fashion opinion leaders, their merchandise may still be not considered innovative enough for fashion innovators. Another possible explanation deals with different primary shopping motivations for fashion opinion leaders and fashion innovators. According to Kang and Park-Poaps, fashion innovativeness is positively associated with hedonic shopping motivations such as adventure and excitement and negatively with value shopping motivations whereas fashion opinion leadership is positively related to utilitarian shopping motivations. Considering this argument, one may conclude that fashion opinion leaders are more drawn to private sale sites than fashion innovators for practical reasons such as the source of fashion information and the convenient place to purchase new fashions at a large discount. These findings imply to private sale retailers that fashion leadership is an important element to consider for the identification of their target consumer segments. Considering that these sites may be considered a good source of fashion information for opinion leaders, private sale companies may want to feature a weekly column on their sites describing current fashion trends or any other information that could be viewed as extremely valuable by these shoppers. On the other hand, if they wish to make their sites more attractive to fashion innovators, they should perhaps make efforts to include a selection of highly interesting and unusual merchandise and also incorporate some degree of adventure and excitement into the shopping experience at their sites. When considered along with other important independent variables, however, the predictive power of fashion opinion leadership weakened to an insignificant level and H1 was therefore rejected. Therefore, it can be concluded that if everything else were equal an individual’s likelihood of purchasing from a private sale web site would have no association with whether the shopper were a fashion leader or a fashion follower. Although fashion leadership was not a significant predictor of purchase intention in the current study, it could be interesting to examine how and if fashion leadership is related to the use of private sale sites as a source of information. By separately offering different brands each day private sale sites may provide a convenient and exciting venue for window shopping and therefore some shoppers may frequently visit these sites just to browse with little intention to buy. This possibility is supported by the strong correlation between two dimensions of fashion leadership and visit frequency. The positive correlations suggest that those with high levels of fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness visit private sale sites more frequently. Accordingly, a further exploration of fashion leadership in association with motivations for visiting private sale sites may provide an increased understanding of the shoppers of these web sites. JFMM 16,3 356
  • 16. In support of H2 and H3, both impulse buying and bargain shopping were found to be significant predictors of purchase intention for private sale sites. Because private sale sites operate under a limited time sales format, members who are prone to impulse buying may be more stimulated than others to make a spontaneous purchase decision in such a shopping environment. Additionally, private sale sites only have a limited quantity of each product and, knowing this, impulse buyers may feel a stronger urge to buy immediately in order not to lose the chance. On the other hand, individuals driven by bargain shopping may find financial value and satisfaction in buying from private sale sites due to the extreme discounts offered, thus resulting in a stronger intention to purchase from these sites. The significant impact of bargain shopping on purchase intention for luxury goods at private sale sites has interesting implications. Prestige or premium pricing has traditionally been an important strategy for the marketing of luxury fashion brands as consumers use a price cue as a surrogate indicator of prestige with a high price indicating high levels of quality and status (Fionda and Moore, 2009; Wiedmann et al., 2007). However, the results of this study suggest that private sale sites may attract a different set of luxury consumers for whom bargains and deals do not necessarily decrease the value of luxury goods but instead can make them more attractive. When the three factors of web site attitude were considered simultaneously, ease of use was the only factor that significantly predicted purchase intention, thus partially supporting H4. This finding suggests that individuals who held more favorable attitudes toward the usability of the sites were more likely to purchase in the future. Despite the significant correlations with purchase intention, web site innovativeness, and information quality were not significant in predicting purchase intention when considered along with other variables. These results contradict a recent study by Kim and Jones (2009) on online apparel shopping which found appearance-related qualities and usability to be almost equally important in predicting purchase intention. It should be noted, however, that Kim and Jones investigated web sites of multi-channel apparel retailers and the different results may be therefore due to the difference in category of the targeted retail sites. It should also be pointed out that Kim and Jones studied the influence of web site quality in terms of perceptions of web site attributes whereas the current study examined the influence of web site attitude as measured by perceptions multiplied by the importance given to web site attributes. The findings of the current study suggest that when allocating their limited resources, private sale sites should focus on improving usability before addressing other aspects of the web sites. An interesting topic for future research regards the possible existence of a hierarchy clarifying the importance of different aspects of web site quality. As with Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs, it is possible that various aspects of web site quality are rank-ordered; certain web site attributes (e.g. usability) may be prerequisites which need to be satisfied before higher-order attributes (e.g. web site innovativeness) can be fully appreciated and hold influence over the user’s ultimate behavioral intention. The establishment of such a hierarchy of web site-quality dimensions should help companies devise a specific strategy as to how to prioritize their resources and efforts yielding web sites that deliver maximum benefit. The hypothesis suggesting the relationship between visit frequency and purchase intention (H5) was supported. When two dimensions of fashion leadership, impulse buying, and bargain shopping were controlled, visit frequency positively predicted purchase intention suggesting that those who visit private sale sites frequently showed a stronger intention to purchase from the site. This finding demonstrates that the Private sale sites 357
  • 17. widely argued notion that repeat visitors of a web site are more likely to make purchases from the site (Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2004) is also applied to private sale sites. The correlations between visit frequency and other variables also provide interesting insights into shoppers of private sale sites. The frequency of visiting private sale site was positively correlated with bargain shopping but not with impulse buying. Visit frequency was also positively correlated with information and ease of use but not with web site innovativeness. The results suggest that those who frequently visit private sale sites are also likely to be drawn by bargains and that they are also likely to have more favorable attitudes toward information quality and usability of the web sites. Favorable attitudes toward information quality and usability may reflect the shoppers’ familiarity with the web sites based on their frequent visits to the sites. It is noteworthy that bargain shoppers are more likely to visit, as well as to purchase from private sale sites whereas impulse shoppers are likely to purchase from the sites but not more likely to frequently visit the sites. Additionally, bargain shoppers are more likely to hold favorable attitudes toward information quality and usability whereas impulse shoppers showed no tendency toward favorable web site attitudes. The lack of correlation between impulse buying and web site attitude is not surprising because in that impulse shopping is an emotion-driven behavior, impulse shoppers may not base their purchase decisions on rational evaluations of a web site. These results suggest that bargain shoppers and impulse shoppers represent two valuable and distinct market segments for private sale retailers to target. It may be easier to target bargain shoppers as they are relatively easier to locate online. Companies might wish to place advertisements on other bargain sites, both fashion or non-fashion related, targeting bargain shoppers by encouraging repeat visits and emphasizing savings to be had. In contrast to this, with respect to impulse shoppers companies should focus on how to evoke an emotional response to their site offerings. Additionally, despite their propensity to buy from private sale sites impulse shoppers do not often visit these sites. Therefore, it will be important for retailers to find a way to encourage these shoppers to visit their sites more often, possibly yielding further sales. As this study was the first step toward better understanding shoppers of private sale sites, some of the key issues in luxury research have been left out of the scope. One such issue is how shoppers of private sale sites evaluate luxury goods offered at discounts and how the format of private sale retailing affects their perceptions of the value of the goods. Selling luxury brands on the internet presents a complex challenge for retailers (Okonkwo, 2009). Luxury brands represent images in the consumer’s mind that suggest a high level of price, quality, aesthetics, rarity, and specialty and they are differentiated from each other not merely through the functional benefits of the products, but more importantly through the symbolic benefits or personalities they communicate (Heine, 2009). Luxury companies have found it difficult to effectively translate over the internet the image, identity, and lifestyle associated with a luxury brand (Okonkwo, 2009). The difficulty of communicating the symbolic benefits of luxury brands is compounded by the inherent challenge of the internet in effectively showcasing functional benefits of luxury goods such as high levels of craftsmanship and quality of materials (Seringhaus, 2005). An additional challenge of the online luxury retailer is that of maintaining perceived exclusivity and rarity among consumers, two of the key attributes often defining the value of luxury (Tynan et al., 2010) while simultaneously taking advantage of the accessibility offered by the internet. Private sale retailers attempt to preserve the notion of exclusivity and rarity of luxury brands by making access to their sites exclusive to their members and by JFMM 16,3 358
  • 18. making every product available in only limited quantity and for a limited period of time. Nonetheless, their memberships are not difficult to obtain and their discount pricing makes it difficult to evoke this feeling of exclusivity, as consumers have historically used the high price of luxury goods as an indicator of their exclusivity (Husic and Cicic, 2009). Authenticity, another key attribute of luxury brands (Yeoman, 2011), is another challenge faced by online luxury retailers, and in particular discount retailers. Online auction sites such as eBay have found that buyers are hesitant to purchase luxury goods from their sites because these buyers are unable to determine the authenticity of the goods (Qin et al., 2009). Although many private sale sites have attempted to address such concerns by offering a 100 percent authenticity guarantee, some of them still suffer from the perception that damaged, secondhand, or even fake luxury goods are sometimes sold at private sale sites (Sherman, 2010). As such, private sale sites present a complex yet unique retail environment for researchers of luxury retailing to study and should therefore warrant more extensive studies. The current study was conducted with a US sample. As some US private sale sites such as Gilt Groupe, Myhabit, and Modnique ship internationally, it would be of great interest to see if the same findings would be observed in comparable samples from other countries. A few recent studies have noted differences between mature markets (e.g. USA, Canada, Italy, France) and emerging markets (e.g. Russia, India, China) for luxury purchase intentions (Christodoullides et al., 2009; Jung and Shen, 2011; Shukla and Purani, in press), suggesting the importance of the location factor in luxury research. Several studies show that consumers in emerging markets are more likely to purchase luxury goods to display their wealth whereas western consumers purchase luxury goods to communicate their individual styles (Amatulli and Guido, 2011). Accordingly, future studies are needed to compare shoppers of private sale sites in mature markets with their counterparts in emerging markets. Additionally those studies should examine other consumer characteristics such as conspicuous consumption in order to better capture cultural or national variations. There are several limitations to this study that should be considered in interpreting the results. Foremost, the current study did not require respondents to have made a purchase from a private sale site and instead only required that they be members of at least one private sale site. Although visit frequency was investigated as a measure of the amount of experience a respondent had with the web site, this variable does not reflect the level of the respondent’s purchase experience from the site. Previous purchase experiences measured either by frequency of purchases or by satisfaction with previous purchases might have shed additional light upon this subject. Another related variable that might play a role in predicting purchase intention for private sale sites is frequency of general online shopping. It would be particularly interesting to see if frequency of visiting private sale sites would still influence purchase intention when online shopping frequency is considered as the controlling variable. Furthermore, although in this study product characteristics were not considered as factors influencing purchase intention, future studies may want to incorporate this component into their theoretical framework to determine how product-related attributes (e.g. brand and merchandise selection, uniqueness, fashionability) influence shoppers’ perceived value of the web site and ultimately their purchase intention. In addition, there are other methodological problems that limit the generalization of the findings, including the small size and the unique composition of the sample. The sample for this study included a substantial proportion of young female consumers with a low household income. Although the respondents indicated that they were members of private sale Private sale sites 359
  • 19. sites, these sites tend to target shoppers with higher income levels despite the large discounts offered and, therefore, it may be difficult to view the sample as representative of the target population. Future research employing a different sampling strategy may achieve a better sample representative of the target population. Previous research has shown that shoppers’ demographic characteristics such as age, income, and family composition affect their perceptions of the benefits of online shopping (Dholakia and Uusitalo, 2002). Future studies with larger samples are needed not only to corroborate significant findings of this study but also to investigate the impacts of demographic variables on shopping behaviors at private sale sites. Finally, future research employing qualitative methods such as interviews is also recommended to uncover other variables that might have an impact on shopping on private sale sites. References Alhasoun, N. (2010), “The impact of website design on online consumer purchasing intention”, unpublished master’s thesis, University of Sheffield, Sheffield. Amatulli, C. and Guido, G. (2011), “Determinants of purchasing intention for fashion luxury goods in the Italian market”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 123-36. Atwal, G. and Williams, A. (2009), “Luxury brand marketing-the experience is everything!”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 16 Nos 5/6, pp. 338-46. Bardhi, F. and Arnould, E.J. (2005), “Thrift shopping: combining utilitarian thrift and hedonic treat benefits”, Journal of Consumer Behavior, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 223-33. Barr, A. (2011), “Online flash sales less flash as inventory shrinks”, available at: www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/17/tech-us-flashsales-idUKTRE79G41X20111017 (accessed December 12, 2011). Baumgartner, H. (2002), “Toward a personology of the consumer”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 286-92. Bayley, G. and Nancarrow, C. (1998), “Impulse purchasing: a qualitative exploration of the phenomenon”, QualitativeMarket Research: An International Journal, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 99-114. Bhatnagar, A. and Ghose, S. (2004), “An analysis of frequency and duration of search on the internet”, Journal of Business, Vol. 77 No. 2, pp. 311-30. Burke, R. (2002), “Technology and the customer interface: what customers want in the physical and virtual store”, Journal of the Acadmeny of Marketing Science, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 411-32. Chang, H.H. and Chen, S.W. (2008), “The impact of online store environment cues on purchase intention”, Online Information Review, Vol. 32 No. 6, pp. 818-41. Chen, C.-A. (2009), “Information-oriented online shopping behavior in electronic commerce environment”, Journal of Software, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 307-14. Cho, S. and Workman, J. (2011), “Effects on multi-channel choice and touch/non-touch preference in clothing shopping”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 363-82. Christodoullides, G., Michaelidou, N. and Li, C.H. (2009), “Measuring perceived brand luxury: an evaluation of the BLI scale”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 16 Nos 5/6, pp. 395-405. Corcoran, C.T. (2009), “Rushing into the club: private sale web sites new boom in e-tailing”, WWD: Women’s Wear Daily, Vol. 198 No. 30, p. 6. Cox, A.D., Cox, D. and Anderson, R.D. (2005), “Reassessing the pleasures of store shopping”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 58 No. 3, pp. 250-9. Danziger, P.N. (2005), Let Them Eat Cake Marketing Luxury to the Masses-as well as the Classes, Dearborn Trade Publishing, Chicago, IL. JFMM 16,3 360
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