Exploring Influential Factors on Customer Satisfaction with Clothing for Overweight and Obese Women: A Focus on Generations Y and Z in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Purpose: At present, global trade in textiles and clothing is expanding across the world. The increase in the percentage of overweight and obese women creates tendency to focus on the demand for plus-size clothes. Prior studies confirmed that there is a low attention paid to women's plus-size clothing in Sri Lanka when compared to other countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and England. The main purpose of this study is to identify the factors affecting clothing satisfaction of overweight and obese women in Generation Y and Z in Sri Lanka. Design: Acknowledging Renoux’s theory of retail satisfaction, the study used three influencing factors; shopping system, buying system, and consuming system. Shopping system considers displaying plus-size mannequins, creating a separate section for plus-size cloth and providing proper and sufficient information. Buying system focuses on new clothing designs, maintaining a reasonable price range, high-quality materials, and adequate the space in the store. Consuming system focuses on body proportion, body image, and the length of time a garment is held after purchase. A self-administered questionnaire is used to gather data from 287 respondents via online survey. This study adopted quantitative analyses. Influencing factors were determined through the multiple regression analysis. Findings: Results revealed that the buying system and shopping system have statistically significant influences on overweight and obese women's clothing satisfaction and buying system recorded the highest influence. However, consuming system has an insignificant influence on overweight and obese women's clothing satisfaction. Research Implications: Under the shopping system, displaying plus-size mannequin and allocating a separate section for plus-size could stimulate clothing satisfaction of overweight and obese women. Offering a reasonable price range and providing an adequate fit-on-room are the significant factors to be considered in buying system.  Future Research Suggestions: Quantitative approach limited the ability to address the problems of overweight and obese women's clothing satisfaction in depth. Shopping mechanism, the ability to do online or offline shopping, store attributes and human attributes should focus on further studies.