The Effect Of Clothing Models In Online Store And Fat-related Negative Body Image On Female College Students’ Shopping Decision

In recent years, With the popularity of the network, online shopping is becoming more and more common, online shopping for clothing is fashionable. In order to promote sales, online apparel stores take a variety of display methods to let consumers have a comprehensive understanding of the clothing. The basic practice is the combination of a picture and text, some stores even use vedio dynamic display. Online apparel store’s presentation pictures mainly include folding, tile, hanging, mannequin, human body model and reality model display and so on. Previous researches show that the clothing display is a important factor that affect the shopping decision for clothing through internet, and reality model display is the best way to promote online shopping decision. But the specific factors of the reality model display influencing the shopping decision has not been fully confirmed. Furthermore, individual’s body image which means subjective cognition and evaluation of his own body, especially negative body image has an effect on shopping decision for clothing. When people choose clothing, in addition to the clothing styles, fabric, color and size, they consider their own physical condition which is very important. They have to consider that if the clothing can conceal or modify their body deficiencies. Therefore, this study attempts to refine the clothing display factors that affect online shopping decisions for clothing, especially the model factors which include weight status based on height and quantity. At the same time, this study tries to figure out the relationship between fat-related negative body image and shopping decision. Female college students is an important online clothing consumption group, so this study only select female college students as the research object. And this study aims to explore the effect of fat-related negative body image and model factors on female college students’ shopping decision. Then we can give those dress stores on TaoBao some feasible suggestions, which are of significance to improve store sales.This study is divided into three interconnected sections:investigation, experiment and interview.Section 1 investigates 100 women’s clothing shop on TaoBao with "dress" for the search term to know the current situation of clothing display. Found that almost all the shops use only one model to display and most of them are too thin and their average BMI is only 16.8. Besides, high level shops tend to use reality model display. And the higher the shop level is, the more comprehensive the display is, and the more try-on information is.Section 2 includes two experiment. Experiment 1 uses the 2×4 mixed design. Using Liu Daqing’s simple version of the Negative Body Image Scale-Fat subscale to measure female college students’ FNBI and according to the score participants are split into two groups, each of 25. All the participants are healthy, vision or corrected visual acuity is normal, no color blindness and the average age is 21.29 years. Experiment 1 explores the effect of model’s weight status based on height on female college students with different degree of fat-related negative body image. Found that model’s weight status based on height has a significant influence on female college students’ shopping decision, fat-related negative body image has no significantly influence on their shopping decision. Experiment 2 uses the 2x3 design between subjects and the same scale in experiment 1 to split participants into two groups, each of 29. All the participants are healthy, vision or corrected visual acuity is normal, no color blindness and the average age is 21.57 years. Experiment 2 explores the effect of model’s quantity on female college students with different degree of fat-related negative body image. Found that model’s quantity has a significant influence on female college students’ shopping decision, fat-related negative body image has no significantly influence on their shopping decision.Section 3 interviews 20 participants in the trials to further probe into the reasons why participants made such shopping decisions. Results show that the reasons could be roughly classified into four categories:thin or details look thin, details of the clothing, symmetric shape and similar to their own size. Most of them referred to "thin" for reason which accounts for 52%, followed by symmetric shape(32%), details of the clothing (12%), similar to their own size(4%).This study obtains the following conclusions:First, almost all the shops on TaoBao use only one model to display and most of them are too thin and their average BMI is only 16.8. Second, regardless of the female college students’ fat-related negative body image is high or low, they tend to choose models whose BMI is about 18.5 display their clothes. Third, regardless of the female college students’ fat-related negative body image is high or low, they tend to choose 2 models display their clothes at the same time. Fourth,88% of the factors that affect female college students’ online shopping decision for clothing is the models figure, and the rest is details of the clothing.This study shows that when shopping online for clothing, models’ BMI and quantity have important effects on female college students’ shopping decision. Accordingly, this study could give some feasible suggestions to female clothing stores on TaoBao:First, use real model to display the products and take other kind of display as complementary. Second, take pictures of the models wearing the product by your own and the pictures should be clear and truthful. Third, the pictures have to show the clothes from the front, side and back and there has to be enlarged detail pictures. Fourth, The models’ BMI should be within a normal range (18 to 22) and close to the end of 18. These models should have symmetry of the figure and the stores should provide the measurements of the their chest, waist, hips, weight and height. Fifth, clothing stores need to provide 2 models to display their clothes at the same time. Sixth, if possible, display some good shape buyers’ pictures and provide their size information.