The Searching of Fashion Design Elements to Reduce Product Risks For Online Fashion Business in Thailand

Abstract

               Fashion online shopping seems to be an upcoming trend of buying behavior among Thai consumers, especially the young one, at the moment. However, it does not attract some consumers. One of the significant reasons is that such consumers are perceived risk by clothing they have never seen for real or try on, leading them not to buy via online channel. The lack of seeing or testing real products causes to product risk. In the area of fashion, product risks refer to psychological risk and functional risk .These can affect the consumers’ decision not to buy. Therefore, the searching for a fashion design guideline of how to minimize product risks would help consumers to take a buying decision properly with the positive attitude towards online fashion brands. The study framework focused on the product risk reduction by using proper fashion design elements. Data analysis of the target audience, which were Gen Y women and their personalities including fashion style preferences, took into account with the theory of product congruence, VAL’s segment, fashion design elements and so on. The study applied both qualitative and quantitative to approach the answers which helped to reduce functional and psychological risks.The validity of questionnaires were examined by IOC scores of 0.925, 0.897, 0.873 and 0.872. While the reliability were examined by Cronbach's Alpha equal 0.823 and 0.831.The findings showed three groups of fashion elements that reduced only functional risk, reduced only psychological risk and reduced both functional and psychological which led to product risk reduction at the end.