Capturing college students on the web: analysis of clothing web site attributes

Purpose – This study seeks to identify the dimensions of web site attributes that represent online shoppers' perceptions of their favorite clothing web site and to examine the relationship with the evaluation of the relative importance of various clothing web site attributes. Design/methodology/approach – US college students, who had online shopping experience and favorite clothing web sites that they especially like to visit, were surveyed. Hypothesized relationships between the relative importance of general clothing web site attributes and the perceptions of favorite clothing web sites were tested using canonical correlation analysis. Findings – The results revealed three variables, the product information, customer service and navigation factors, were closely related to each other and create a well‐defined dimension in representing the respondents' perceptions of their favorite clothing web sites. These dimensions were fairly well predicted by the following set of independent variables: the product information, navigation, and customer service factors of general clothing web site attributes. Research limitations/implications – Results cannot be generalized to all young adult consumers and to other consumers. Future research should include other population groups. Practical implications – This research offers new insights to apparel e‐tailers in building effective web sites that can attract young adult online shoppers to the company and retain them through the web sites. Originality/value – This study is the first to investigate young adult online consumers' perceptions of their favorite internet web sites in relation to their evaluations of the relative importance of general clothing web sites attributes.