This weeks focus has been to research consumer habits when it comes to footwear. My research is mostly based of a research paper written by Alena Pospisilova who wrote the paper as a part of her study program BA (Hons) European Business at University of Huddersfield. The article explored gender and generational differences in consumer habits in the UK. It is important to have in mind that the paper was written in 2012/13 and Pospisilova writes about other articles from 2003. Both the article and the sources used in the article are a bit outdated, but the paper is still useful to gain a better understanding of the habits of different consumers and some aspects might be similar today.
THE PERCEPTION OF FOOTWEAR
The perception of footwear has gone through considerable changes. The footwear’s original purpose is to protect the feet. In the past, footwear has amounted different roles in peoples lives, while footwear is now representing fashion style, power and richness. It is a way to show social status. People are influenced by the people they surround: friends, family, co-workers or classmates. The shoes people buy can reflect the peoples inner feelings and how they want to express themselves to others.
GEOGRAPHICAL MARKETS
The footwear market can be split into different geographical markets. The different fashion trends in different cultures leads to different needs. However, due to mass media the differences are not that big and the world could also be seen as one big market (Pospisilova, 2013). Some might think that there will be different needs for people living where there are rough winters compared to where there are no snow, but it is not always like that. The shoes that UGG originally produced were for surfers. However, today, you can find these shoes globally, used not only by surfers on the beach but also by people in Nordic regions during the coldest winter days.
GENDER
To understand the differences in consumer behaviour, women’s and men’s purchasing habits must be distinguished. Women’s shopping tendencies often mirror their relations to others, while men typically emphasize personality and functional benefits (Pospisilova, 2013). A woman pays in general more attention to her appearance, investing more extensively in apparel and footwear compared to men.
GENERATIONS
Another important factor to take into consideration when it comes to consumer habits are the different generations. The teenagers are the most powerful people that strongly control the world market. Teenagers‘ minds and preferences are changing all the time, and it is therefore difficult to understand their wants and needs (Pospisilova, 2013). People belonging to generation X make rational decisions and purchase goods, which are practical rather than good looking. When it comes to the mature consumers, the most important factors for them is recommendations from friends and family, as well as sales and special offers.
HABITS
It is difficult to find any noticable tendencies in habits because there are a lot of differences in different studies. Some studies show that there is a strong predominance of female shoe shoppers, while others show that men shop equally often as women do. Mintel (2012) examined motivators for shoe shopping. The most commonly mentioned motivator was to replace a worn out shoe or find something comfortable, but many people also reported that they bought shoes to reward themselves. Other commonly mentioned reasons was reduced price and change of season.
RESULTS FROM SURVEY
Pospisilova made a survey with questions about consumer habits. There were 81 responses, and the result from the survey mainly disproves the information from other researchers, but this may be caused by a quite low response rate.
Key findings from survey
- Most people shoe shop from practical reasons
- More than half of the men own less than five pairs of shoes
- Women own in average more than 10 pairs. Keep in mind that this is not representative, because there were some extreme cases, showing women with more than 50 pairs
- Most women shoe shop every three months
- 51% of the men shoe shop every six months
It is difficult to draw any conclusion due to several factors, such as old and conflicting research findings and research from another geographical area und culture. I will in the upcoming week try to gather more relevant information about the topic and create a survey to gain a better understanding of todays‘ consumer habits.
🩴 🥿 👠👡 👢 👞 👟 🥾 🩴 🥿 👠👡 👢 👞 👟 🥾 🩴 🥿 👠👡 👢 👞 👟 🥾 🩴 🥿 👠👡 👢 👞
REFERENCES
- Mintel (2012) Footwear Retailing – UK. Minteloxygen reports platform. [online] Available at: http://academic.mintel.com. (Accessed 9th December 2023)
- Pospisilova (2013) Analysis of consumer behaviour in the UK footwear market. Research paper. Available at: https://digilib.k.utb.cz/bitstream/handle/10563/25659/posp%C3%AD%C5%A1ilov%C3%A1_2013_bp.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 (Accessed 9th December 2023)
