On J. Crew and clothing retail: Markets & consumers

In addition to cheese, the other major primary research topic for BUS 345 this term is J.Crew and clothing retail.  

If you're in that class (or if you just have a burning desire to learn about our market research resources and want to use this as an excuse/example to explore them), see below for some initial thoughts on resources ...

1. Passport

A quick search for terms such as apparel internet retail canada (not all at once!) should get you to reports such as: 

• Apparel and Footwear Global Industry Overview 
• Apparel and Footwear in Canada
• Apparel and Footwear in the US
• Designer Apparel and Footwear (Ready-To-Wear) in the US
• US Leads Dynamic Growth in Online Apparel and Footwear Sales
• Internet Retailing in Canada

This approach will also give you Market Size, Company Share, Brand Share, Distribution, and other valuable statistical tables covering clothing retail in Canada (and beyond). Be sure to use the options above each table to adjust the time period and other settings to fit your needs.

Also try a search for "J. Crew" (with a space after the period) to get short reports and articles that touch on J. Crew's challenges.

2. Statista can provide a shortcut to relevant statistics buried in articles and reports throughout the web (including some sources that aren't freely available).  

Try searches for terms such as clothing, apparel, or online fashion. Also try major store/brand names.

Be sure to follow the links to original sources under the Release tab to the left of each of the charts. Sometimes the original sources of the data presented by Statista will have additional numbers and context to make your research easier.

Examples of the most detailed reports you will get from Statista: 

• eCommerce Report 2017 – Fashion 
• Consumer Markets: Clothing & Apparel (gateway to relevant reports such as: Apparel market in the US (Statista dossier))

3. J. Crew Group, Inc. (company history) 

This short 2008 report is from our International Directory of Company Histories. It provides some good background on how the company's strategy changed over the years.

4. Vividata Target Snapshot

Vividata provides data on Canadian consumers and the places they shop, brands they buy, etc.  Try searching for major clothing stores as your "targets."

TIP: If you are having trouble finding specific clothing stores in the database, you can find out which ones are covered in Vividata by clicking on...

 Brands (top bar) > sector: Apparel, Shopping, Misc. Products (left menu) > topic: "Men's Clothing: Where Personally Bought/Past 12 Months (National)" (or "Women's Clothing...").

You should then see a list of the clothing stores/brands covered in Vividata (e.g. Eddie Bauer, H&M, etc.). Go to "Add / remove brand / products" (left menu again) to add the ones you want to analyze to your target list, then start clicking on Demographics, etc. along the top bar to explore the data.

5. IBISWorld

IBISWorld reports are on industries, rather than markets, but that perspective can also be very useful. Look, especially, for the following reports: 

• Men's Clothing Stores in Canada - 44811CA
• Women's Clothing Stores in Canada - 44812CA
• Family Clothing Stores in Canada - 44814CA
• Men's Clothing Stores in the US - 44811
• Women's Clothing Stores in the US - 44812
• Online Men's Clothing Sales - OD5095
• Online Designer Clothing Sales - OD5436

6. Be sure to search both PsycInfo and Business Source Complete for research articles about your topic as the two databases cover different, though overlapping, groups of journals.

In PsycInfo, start with this rough search to find articles such as...

• Bhaduri, G. (2017). Influence of consumers’ brand expectations on apparel brands’ US-based sourcing strategy. Journal Of Consumer Marketing, 34(1), 74-83. doi:10.1108/JCM-11-2015-1620 
   
• Millan, E., & Mittal, B. (2017). Consumer preference for status symbolism of clothing: The case of the Czech Republic. Psychology & Marketing, 34(3), 309-322. doi:10.1002/mar.20990

In Business Source Complete, start with this rough search to find such articles as the following.

(Note: I've limited that search to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals by checking that option off on the search screen, You may want to remove that limit so that you can scan your nonacademic (industry and business news) results for any relevant information on J.Crew, apparel retailing trends, etc.]

• Valaei, N., & Nikhashemi, S. R. (2017). Generation Y consumers’ buying behaviour in fashion apparel industry: a moderation analysis. Journal Of Fashion Marketing & Management, 21(4), 523-543. doi:10.1108/JFMM-01-2017-0002
   
• Wijaya, A. P. (2017). Role of Experience in Customer Self-Congruity to Maintaining Loyalty: A Study on Fashion Store. Entrepreneurial Business & Economics Review, 5(3), 189-198. doi:10.15678/EBER.2017.050310
   
• Yang, S., & Lee, Y. J. (2017). Are the factors affecting satisfaction and actual purchase the same? Comparisons between unplanned and planned purchase. Journal Of Fashion Marketing & Management, 21(2), 172-186. doi:10.1108/JFMM-04-2016-0034
   
• Sample of article where the scales (questions) are available: 
  Lewis, A., & Moital, M. (2016). Young professionals’ conspicuous consumption of clothing. Journal Of Fashion Marketing & Management, 20(2), 138-156. doi:10.1108/JFMM-04-2015-0034
   
• Sample of article where college students were surveyed:  
  Bahng, Y., Kincade, D. H., & Yang, J. (. (2013). College students' apparel shopping orientation and brand/product preferences. Journal Of Fashion Marketing & Management, 17(3), 367-384. doi:10.1108/JFMM-07-2012-0036

7. Primary research

Many of the articles above will give you methodology ideas, but you may also want to try these sources: 

• Marketing Scales Handbooks 
  A series of books (and ebooks) that list the scales/questions used in academic market research, all indexed by the topic each question was meant to measure.
   
• PsycTESTS
  There's a good chance that other researchers have already developed and tested questionnaires to measure something close to what you are studying.  Where the Marketing Scales Handbooks allow you to drill down to the level of specific questions on your topic, PsycTESTS is more focused on complete questionnaires.  Need a Fashion Consciousness and Consumption Questionnaire or a Consumer Fashion Habits and Attitudes Survey?  Start with PsycTESTS!
    
  TIP: Don't check off the option to limit to fulltext in PsycTESTS as you will miss some good stuff! Scan the non-fulltext entries for any clues as to what articles the tests covered were published in, then search for those articles. For instance, this test is available in this article. 

I hope that's enough to get you started! If you need more, stop by the library to chat with my colleagues.

Good luck with your research! 

-- MarkB
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Bodnar
Business & Economics Librarian
mbodnar@sfu.ca