i) Fashion Chasers
This group was the smallest segment, comprising 8% of our total respondents. This segment mainly consisted of older females, above the age of 26. They are fashion trend followers and value fashion over exclusivity. Also, they prefer well-known brands and price is of lower priority to them. These shoppers are reliant on mass media (advertisements, print and social media platforms) to influence their buying decision.
ii) Opinion Seekers
This group constitutes 27% of our total respondents. This segment compose of young people, aged between 18-25. They rely heavily on mass media and people around them to influence their buying decision. However, people’s opinions are of a higher importance to them over mass media, in particular, they seek advice from their family, friends and even, sales personnel when purchasing an item.
iii) Rational Shoppers
This group amounts to 33% of our respondents, forming the largest segment. This cluster is made up of older people, aged 26 and above and there is an equal number of male and female shoppers under this category. Quality is the top attribute valued by these shoppers; they consider quality more important than the price and value of an item. These shoppers are willing to pay high prices for quality items from well-known brands. These shoppers are also knowledgeable about brands and tend to go for a combination of well-established mainstream and alternative brands.
iv) Value Buyer
This group forms 30% of our respondents and comes from two diverse age groups, namely age 18-25 and ages 36 and above. Both age groups are price conscious, placing price and value over brand names or clothing style. They compare prices between shops before making a purchase. For the younger age group, they tend to group and benchmark Zara against H&M and Forever 21. As such, they might feel that Zara is expensive or over-priced. An explanation for this finding is that the younger group are mainly made up of students with lower purchasing power while that of the older age group prefers functionality over branding.
v) Affluent Service Seeker
A fascinating finding from our survey is that there is a group of affluent customers with high shopping expenditure and spending power. They spend above $300 on shopping monthly, are less price conscious and consider Zara as value-for-money. They treasure customer service and had rated Zara’s customer service as poor.
Survey
Our Respondents
50%
50%
Throughout our research, we found that it was difficult to come up with a consistent and seamless image of Zara as each respondent harbored his or her individual feelings and judgments of the brand. Their personalities and lifestyles also have an impact on their perceptions. Thus, it emerged that there are distinct customer segments within our survey respondents and we sought to identify them.
As such, we had to come up with defining characteristics, in terms of demographics and psychographics. In our quantitative research, we collected participants' age and gender (demographics), and asked questions which helped us determine their shopping styles and average shopping expenditure (psychographics). References were made to Sproles Consumer Style Inventory.
Our Results
Upon analysis and modeling, we found that there were 5 distinct customer segments. They are namely - Fashion Chasing Females, Young Opinion Seeker, Mature Rational Shopper, Value Buyer and Affluent Service Seeker. The demographic and psychographic characteristics of each cluster were compared to derive a profile of each segment’s behavioral characteristics.