Prior studies (Huddleston, Ford, & Bickle, 1993; Goldsmith, Moore, & Beaudoin, 1999; Muzinich et al., 2003; Beaudoin, Lachance, & Robitaille, 2003), states that it is very important to investigate the purchase behavior of fashion innovators as they play a major role in influencing the fashion followers.
Moreover, fashion innovators are concerned to be very important market segmentation for the marketers and fashion researches because they are the influences other for the adoption of fashion items to a great extend (Goldsmith, Beaudoin & Moore, 1999).
According to Pasnak & Ayres (1969), fashion innovators differed from non-fashion innovators based on their clothing attitudes. One of the main difference found between the fashion-innovators and non-fashion innovators is the “the degree of involvement”. Fashion innovators are found to be highly involved in their shopping of fashion items (Pasnak & Ayres, 1969). Moreover, according to Tigert, Ring and King (1976), consumers who are highly fashion involved are more likely to be early adopters. Hence this proves that fashion innovativeness and involvement are closely related terms, in the context of …show more content…
However, according to the prior studies (Robertson, Zielinkski & Ward, 1984; Gatignon & Robertson, 1985; Rogers, 1995), innovative behavior is positively related to risk acceptance. This is supported by the study of Raju (1977), which proves that innovativeness is induced by the risk taking element. A study by Rogers (1995) & Vishwanath (2005), also argues the same that fashion innovators are more likely to take risk of purchasing the new product as they are more sociable and are greater exposed to mass media than non-fashion