2013 consuming fashion - Essay Example

? consuming fashion Introduction The generation Y population is a group of individuals born in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. This generation precedes the generation X and has distinctive features owing to the fundamental technological developments of the time around the origin of the term. The period around the late 70s and the early 80 witnessed a number of technological innovations key among which were in the sector of communication including the advent of the use of the internet. The technological developments therefore influenced the lifestyles of these people affecting their childhood thus their adulthood later in old age (Espinoza, 2012). The generation Y population is synonymously referred to as the millennium generation owing to the timing of the inception of the term around the millennium. Culture plays a big role in the formulation of a person’s lifestyle and that of the society. Culture refers to a society’s way of life, this includes the manner in which the people in the society dress, eat and worship. A society on the other hand refers to a group of people habiting a single geographical region. The use of the internet and other advanced commination gadgets succeeded in making the world a global village. This implies that every part of the world became readily accessible by overcoming the geographical barriers. By redefining the society, the internet and the associated communication development influenced people’s understanding of cultures thus resulting in most people adopting new trends while abandon unfavorable behavior. Culture is never static and the more people interact with one another the more they adopt new likes and preferences thus changing their entire cultural understanding (Espinoza & Mick, 2010). Demographics & psychographics of the generation Y Based on their overreliance on technology and with the formation of a global village, the generation Y has no geographical barriers and exist all through the world. They are disintegrated into smaller groups with each group having its specific preferences. The members of this generation have no defining factor but are all unique from one another yet they share the media content. Their solitary lifestyles thus influences their consumption of the media content making the develop unique personalities and shopping patterns. Furthermore, the have abundant media content which provides them with a variety to choose from. The main defining characteristic of the generation Y population arises from the interactive nature of the new communication developments. This population is dynamic and very specific with their preferences a feature that influences their purchasing patterns. The internet brings the whole world together thereby expanding the market, this makes the population have an array of choices to make. It thus becomes difficult to have a presumption on the preference of this population especially in relation to their purchasing pattern. Kotler et al, (2010) asserts that this population is commonly referred to as toy children. This implies that in their childhood, members of this generation played a lot with toys a feature that influenced their development. The population consists of highly enlightened population owing to the fact that their parents most of who belonged to the generation X had a bit of enlightenment and therefore sought academic enlightenment for their children (Iacobucci, 2012). The less physically active childhood and the enlightened adulthood contribute to the lifestyle and therefore the purchasing pattern of the generation. peer pressure contributes the personalities that people acquire later in life, this generation experiences little f peer pressure owing to the independent lifestyles of their parents and the subsequent freedom deposited to them by education and exposure. Members of this generation therefore made selection of their friendships depending on their likes and preferences natured from their childhood. Twenge, (2006) explains that members of this generation received a lot of attention from their parents and the society in their childhood a feature that influences their adulthood and their purchasing pattern by extrapolation. Excess attention results in a self-loving personality, such people show great affinity in their personal products, which make them more presentable among both their peers and their parents. This makes the shopping pattern of this population more sporadic and not preplanned. Most of the members in this population attest to spontaneous buying, this pattern does not rely on the personal intuition of the buyer but on the nature of the market and the environment. Another great determinant of the purchasing pattern of this population is their financial dependent to their parents and guardians (Chatterjee & Hevner, 2010). Born in early 80s, most of these people are in their early twenties, which make most of them college or university students at most. These make them have an irregular financial flow mostly depending on the philanthropy of their parents and the financial stability if the parents. This makes them members of the generation have a conflict of interest and a constant duel between the great urge to purchase and the conspicuous lack of financial ability thus purchasing power. However, they gradually come of age and gradually gain financial independence. This consists of the people born in the late 70s and the early 80s. They appreciate the independence and express this in their unrestrained purchasing patterns (Espinoza, 2012). The internet has greatly influenced the social structuring of the population. The development of the social networking sites in the early years of the millennium complimented the secluded lifestyles of the members of this generation by making them access a great pool of friend without incurring related costs such as travelling. Owing to the fact that the population is academically enlightened and technologically conscious, the age assimilated the social networking sites into their lives thus developing integrated lifestyles with adequate exposure of the world. Through these sites the most common of which include Facebook, Twitter and My Space, users maintain long list of friends with whom they hold constant interactions and share ideas. The usage of these sites continues to grow with Facebook one of the leading sites recording more than two billion users internationally (Fournier,1998). The increasing usage of these sites improves the use of internet thereby encouraging and increasing innovation in the usage of the internet. The development of the internet and the associated technologies has further changed the conventional way of doing business thus changing the purchasing patterns of this population. The increasing access of the social networking sites made them the greatest and the most preferred advertisement platforms. Business organizations use the social sites to interact with their target market provision that not even the traditional media guaranteed. In these, the business organizations create profiles and develop fan pages in which they maintain constant interaction with their market. Through these, they conduct effective market research, which is an integral feature of the generation Y population. Unlike any of the other previous generations, generation Y has an effective platform through which they influence the products that reaches their markets. Through these platforms, the generation Y group contributes and criticizes the fashions in the market thus facilitating the efficiency of conducting business. Business organizations make use of these avenues provided by the internet to produce cost effective goods most of whose production precede the determination of a market (Lane, 2005). Besides the ease of marketing and new mechanisms of improving of brand visibility, the internet brings other more conveniences of conducting business a feature that also influences the purchasing patterns of the members of this population. The internet coupled with the modern means of money transfer makes trade more convenient to the shoppers. Electronic shopping is a mechanism in which shoppers do not travel o the shops or the service providers but simply surf the internet and place orders. The service or product dispenser receives the money and issues a bill of sale after which the product is shipped to the buyer. The improved convenience of shopping and the wide alternatives for the shoppers through the internet implies that the generation Y has unlimited pool of product and service providers to choose from and the effective platform of evaluating and comparing their qualities and their pricing. The great improvement in the shopping convenience makes planning for the shopping process easier since the shoppers have all the market elements at his or her disposal and easily consults with other people who may aid the shopping decisions. Such people include their spouses, friend s and fairly (Bogomolova, 2011). The internet through the social networking sites gives the members of these generation convenient ways of consulting others thus making an effective shopping decision. Besides the numerous conveniences, the internet presents a number of other inconveniences, which also influence the shopping patterns of the generation Y. The increasing rates of cybercrimes, which include money laundering scares most shoppers from engaging in the virtual markets. The internet provides high level anonymity that most unscrupulous business people exploit to rob their customers of money through the dispensation of substantive products thus duping their possible markets. This has resulted in more people within the generation casting doubt in the new mechanisms of shopping and the effects of the technological advancement in the facilitation of the lifestyle enjoyed by the generation Y population. Key motivations and buying behavior The generation Y population is highly disintegrated with each of the smaller groups having its unique buying behavior. The independent lifestyles develop personalities with higher levels of individualism and lesser effects from peers. However, this population is infirmed and stays in constant contact with both the new and the traditional media, televisions, newspapers and magazines are still of significant relevance despite the development of the internet. These media contribute greatly towards the buying patterns of the generation Y. media content such as programing and the news articles in newspapers and magazine are effective influencing the shopping patterns of the members of this generation especially in the purchase of clothing. Preference to a particular media program arises from the particular features of the program, which may include the costume of the actors. The publicity of the media content is further improved by the fact that all television stations show preference to international media content such as films and music video. The consumers of such media content form an attachment with their preferred actors and strive to dress and look like them. The diversity of the media content resonates in the disintegration of the generation. There are different films and music genres in the entertainment market, today movies from particular locations in the world communicate different ideas while different music genres promote specific attires (Alexander, 2010). The members of the generation Y therefore identify with these different subgroups and emulate the attires and the lifestyles of their preferred actors and musicians. The media content in the modern society keep changing a affeature that resulst in the dynamism in the generation Y. the population has unpredictable trend, one that depends on the trends set by the celebrities. The population is highly creative which results in the innovation of different media content every so often. The music industry attests to this with different music genres gaining relevance periodically. In the early 2000, the American hip hop had a great fan base and a great population of the generation Y population strived to look like the American hip hop artist. The culture spread throughout the world introducing a wave of baggy attires and heavy jewelry among the youth. However, in an attempt to revise the reggae music largely enjoyed by the generation X, the generation Y introduced a unique genre referred to raga, associated with simple colorful attires that are purely unofficial (Willey, 2012). This genre of music spread the Caribbean culture to a larger percentage of the world population within the generation Y population. As innovation continues within the population, the generation coined a term: “old school” to refer to everything embraced by previous generations especially the generation X. however, as innovation continues, old school songs gain more preference within the population. Such songs as soul and blues still have relevance within the population thus explaining the relevance of suits and other formal ware. Of all the media contents, music has had great influence in the spread of culture, which consequently affects the shopping pattern of the members of the generation Y. in addition to music; adverts also play a role in increasing awareness of the fashion sense (Thomas & Michael, 2001). The use of celebrities to endorse products and feature in adverts further relevance earns relevance to the modern day adverts. However, owing to the informed nature of the generation, it stays wary of the possible lies and the negative effects of adverts, which therefore implies that adverts only serve to strengthen the beliefs a person previously had but does not influence new preference especially among this population. Future trends and opportunities The Y generation continues to rely on the media and the internet to form their purchasing decisions in the consumption of fashion and in the purchasing process. This implies that the social networking site continue to form an integral part in the development of the social life. The members of this generation use these platforms in socializing and the trending feature of this possibility is the possible of physical contact since the generation continues to show preference for secluded and solitary lifestyles yet they maintain longer lists of friends on Facebook and Twitter. This ironical feature provides great opportunities to businesspersons in the design of products for the consumption of this target market. The social networking sites provide an effective marketing platform for businesspersons. It provides a cheaper yet more effective form of advertisement. The personal contact that the sites provides avail a cheaper method of conducting market research and collect relevant information in the production and sales process, business people thus a limitless opportunity to tap into and revolutionize the mechanism of doing business (Aaker & Aaker, 2010). The internet makes it possible for the two parties to conduct business transaction without a physical contact, this stretches the business possibilities in the new era thus making business a prospective venture and a great source of employment for this generation especially as they come of age. Challenges of the marketing aspects of the generation Y Generation Y relies on technology to conduct business transactions. They further show great dependence on the media content to define their culture. This makes them highly unpredictable which complicates the marketing process. They are highly dynamic a feature that makes predicting the market unlikely. In such a situation, the market becomes a disservice to itself. They are continuously coming of age and most of them invest in businesses, thus incurring losses from the unpredictable nature of the market (Tabbush, 2011). Additionally, just like explained earlier technology present a number of its own challenges the internet has a number of security breaches and is open to the hackers who gain forceful entry into other people’s businesses thus stealing from tem. This makes the internet very unsafe and more of the generation Y members continue to lose money through fraudsters and other cyber criminals. Bibliography Aaker, D. A., & Aaker, D. A., 2010, Marketing research. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Alexander, B., 2010, International Financial Reporting and Analysis (5th edition). Oxford: Oxford university press. Bogomolova, S., 2011, Service quality perceptions of solely loyal customers. International Journal of Market Research, 53(6) 793-810. 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