Consumer Innovativeness

The focus of this article is to examine consumer innovativeness in the context of the fashion industry, in South Africa. The article additionally provides a theoretical overview of consumer innovation and its relation to opinion leadership, product involvement and the necessity for uniqueness.

This article explains consumer innovativeness as the tendency to buy new and diverse products rather than remaining with preceding choices and consumption patterns. Consumer fashion innovators portray a crucial market segment for future marketers to target, this is because this segment provides the revenue needed to fund the development associated with bringing new, innovative fashion to the market, as well as influencing the adoption of said fashions

Fashion leaders can be described as those who are more fascinated in fashion than other consumers in the market, who are more confident of their own taste, who are the first to purchase new styles and, most importantly, influence other consumers to adopt and buy new fashion items. In terms of behavioural expression of fashion leadership, fashion leaders tend to spend more money on clothes and shop more often than other consumers, read more fashion magazines and tend to buy more clothes on impulse than other fashion consumers. Another relation to customer innovation is product involvement, which is important in understanding consumer attitudes and behaviour. Involved consumers display feelings of interest, pleasure and enthusiasm towards relevant product categories which meet their needs. Clothing involvement refers to the amount of time and effort a consumer spends in the selection of clothing, a high involvement may be due to the fact that there is social importance linked to clothing. The necessity for uniqueness pushes the individual to distinguish themselves through the possession of rare items. The external expression of an individual’s need for uniqueness is the outcome of a social comparison process, dependent on the individual’s self-perceived degree of uniqueness relative to others. The need for uniqueness may be evident in the buying of fashionable clothing. Therefore, individuals with stronger needs for uniqueness are likely to make consumer choices that are viewed as non-traditional, such as buying new fashion clothing from a channel through which the need for uniqueness can be