Research on Network Platform for Women's Clothing Collocation
Recommendation
Hong-Yan Chen, Hong Dai, Jing Sun
Apparel ＆Art Design College, Xi’an Polytechnic University, Xi’an, Shan Xi, 710048,P.R.China
Abstract
Today, fashion has become a hot pursuit for women but many of them do not know which kind of clothes fit them neither do they know how to match their clothes. Thus by providing a platform that can inform women how to dress and wear their own style, it will thoroughly solve their apparel dressing problems. This platform could potential be a large market especially due to the extensive use of internet. Consumers can buy not only their own clothes quickly, but also experience a high-quality shopping process. This paper made a survey of consumer's demand for clothing dressing suggestion and recommendation through on-line apparel purchasing, and analysed the most urgent needs of women consumers. This paper also puts forward a new pattern to buy clothing on-line and introduces a model of it. Through this new pattern, it can provide a reasonable recommendation based on the needs of the customers.
Keywords: Clothing Collocation Recommendation; Women's Clothing; Platform; Shopping On-line; Model
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1. Introduction
With the popularity of e-commerce, buying clothes online has become a trend. It changed not only our way and concept of life but also internet-based consumption is increasingly accepted. Today, with the overall quality of the consumers improved, their understanding and pursuit of apparel products has been a qualitative leap. It implicitly suggests that characteristics of clothing reflect the people's own values and tastes. Consumer's interest varies from the price, style, color and quality of clothing and extends to the deeper additional benefits such as brand, style, personality and service. Consumers now demand valuable product information quickly. They pursue personalized clothing and at the same time, they also need an efficient and pleasant shopping experience with considerate personalized service. The application of fitting website named 41 go, is popular amongst on-line shoppers because it provides them with an enjoyable shopping experience. The new consumption concept objectively requires that we the garment workers adjust to new strategy without delay by using advanced science and technology while at the same time, improve service levels from all sides to satisfy the consumer's individual needs.
Nowadays, people are no longer satisfied with the majority of the people possessing the same pretty make-up techniques and methods; they become more conscious of themselves and their main body of beauty. All of the decorative elements should first address the main features of the body in order to obtain the most coordinated and pleasing effect. The change of the dress-up style and aesthetic sense causes people to re-examine their public image and pay attention to their dressing styles [1]. Despite women's crazy pursuit of fashion which reflects their personality they don’t know how to dress in their own character and style. One platform could offer them service such as clothing collocation recommendation that will solve their dressing problems.
2. Methodology
The methods applied in this research include document analysis, specialist interview and a questionnaire survey.
2.1 Document analysis
2.1.1 Related theory
Classification of female body-shape: Female body can be divided into four categories，they're A-shape, V-shape, X-shape and H-shape [2]. Classification of female color: Female color can be divided into six categories; they're deep color people, light color people, bright color people, cloud color people, warm color people and cool color people [3]. Classification of clothing style: By the analysis and summary of some mature brand style, referring to the relevant design theory of clothing, the women's clothing style is divided into the following eight obvious characteristics styles, they’re classic style, sports style, leisure style, ethnic style, elegant style, neutral style,advance-guard style and facile style [4].
2.1.2 Uninvolved fields
The relevant documents on “clothing collocation recommendation of online shopping” have research on clothing color and clothing size collocation recommendation but there are no extensive research on recommended style or whole clothing collocation recommendation. Individual color and personal qualities are the main factors that affect people’s personal style and are what this paper is aiming to address. Therefore, in this research we need to gather consumer’s personal information.
The beauty in the composition of clothes relies on the attention to the coordination of style, unity and harmony of the main color tones. The set of clothes which a consumer chooses to wear, plays a significant role in portraying the beauty of that person rather than just paying attention to small details and ignoring the composition of the clothes [5]. Self expression has a major influence on the clothing style. Sometimes clothing style can reflect characteristic traits of the person, which is closely related to the wearer's self-awareness, including: personality, emotion and ideal self.
From the existing research, there’s vacancy in clothing collocation recommendation based on network.
2.2 Specialist interview
Why interviews? One of the most common solutions to our problems is by consulting other people. An interview involves asking people’s advice and personal opinions [7]. For the requirement expectation of network-based clothing recommendation system, we exchanged some suggestions with two specialists in marketing through an interview. According to their analysis, providing online shoppers clothing collocation recommendation service could potentially be a big market. Nowadays on-line shopping has become more and more popular as people are hooked by fashion and trend especially for women. For the relevant elements of clothing collocation, we had an interview with two fashion design professionals. According to their point of view, they believe that clothing collocation needs to focus on the consumer's size, color and style.
2.3 Questionnaire survey
It is important to investigate consumer’s online purchasing clothing behavior to truly understand their requirements. The article uses survey methods to carry out the correlation analysis. We designed a pilot questionnaire based on expert interviews in connection with consumer’s needs and carried it out in a focused area. During the pilot investigation, many respondents cannot fully understand the essence of the clothing recommendation service system. After the pilot investigation, the questionnaire was revised to form the final questionnaire. The final questionnaire includes four parts: individual basic Information, interest degree and consumption behavior, requirement level, and some cooperation degree questions.
3. Questionnaire data and analysis
There were two ways in which we conducted the questionnaire: face to face and internet surveys. The internet survey relies on the “ask-form” method (a professional questionnaire dissemination platform) to conduct the
questionnaire which helps us to understand consumer’s requirements. During a period of three months, there were 440 people who filled in this questionnaire and there were180 face to face surveys, so in total there were 620
feedback with, 605 of them that were completely filled questionnaires. In the 605 fully filled questionnaires, 43 of them were filled by males. In order to make the analysis more accurate, these 43 copies were considered as invalid questionnaires, so in this survey, the valid questionnaires were 562 copies. Among the 562 questionnaires 412 were gained from the Internet.
3.1 Individual basic information analysis
Table 1 represents the statistical results of the individual information. It shows that 3.4% participants are less than 18 years old, 33.4% participants are between 18-25 years old, 47.9%participants are between 26-35 years old, 14.4% participants are between 36-45 years old and only 0.9% participants are more than 45 years old. From the results obtained, it is clear that most of the market consumption is based on youth and middle aged women. According to the results, people with an income between 2001 and 3000 per month were most interested, with a percentage of 31.1%. This was surprising as we thought that lower income groups would have been more interested in it. Furthermore, the most participated occupational job was service industry with a percentage of 21.8% followed by students and staff which had a total percentage of 17%.
Table 1 Statistics of the individual information
Individual Response of options (%) Information Options Response
<=18 3.4 18-25 33.4 Age 26-35 47.9
36-45 14.4 >=45 0.9
<=1000 23.1 Income 1000-2000 25.7 (month) 2001-3000 31.1
3001-4000 15.3
>4000 4.8
Student 17 Teacher 7.3 Engineering and technology 8.5 professional Management 9.6
Staff 17 Public servant 8.4 Service industry 21.8
Others 10.4
3.2 Interest and consumption behavior analysis
The questionnaire revolved around four main questions in the investigation of consumer’s interest degree and consumption behavior. The first question refers to whether the individual liked to purchase clothes on the internet. Second question refers to whether the consumers are worried about the problem of clothing collocation when buying clothing on the net. Thirdly, the questionnaire refers to whether the existing network clothing collocation recommendation service satisfies their requirement and finally, whether it severely effects their purchasing if the system can provide them the clothing collocation recommendation service. Fig. 1 shows the statistical results of whether they like purchasing clothing on net. Obviously, purchasing clothing on-line is warmly welcomed by most women consumers with an overwhelming percentage of 77% while only 10% of them dislike it. From the
synthesized analysis results shown from Fig. 2, it is clear that young women between the ages of 18 to 35 are more willing to buy clothing online, the number of people is 350 higher than any other age groups. This is mostly
because young women in this age group easily accept new things and, their strong sense of time is also the reason why they choose to purchase clothes on the net. Consumers over 45 years old are less adaptable to new technology hence does not accept new systems as easily. Furthermore, the last generation of old people have lack of computer knowledge, so it is easier for them to accept the traditional kind of store services.
Fig.1. Whether they like purchasing on-line.
Fig.2. Interest in purchasing on-line for different age groups.
When referring to whether they were worried about the clothing collocation problem, more than two-thirds
respondents were concerned about the clothing collocation problem and only 43 people were not, therefore there is a great market opportunity.
The evaluation of existing clothing collocation recommendation service is, shown in Fig. 3. It is clear that a lot of people are not satisfied with the existing collocation recommendation services. Such service is desperately needed.
Fig.3. Whether the existing service is satisfactory.
The most important question to consider is whether they will choose this service when stores/sites provide them clothing collocation recommendation service. When asked them whether it will strongly affects their final
purchasing if such service were provided to them, most of the people would agree that this service will severely affect their final decision and, only a percentage of 0.36 are convinced that it will have little influence on them. In order to develop a better understanding of people’s needs from different income and profession, we made a detailed analysis on this study. Fig. 4 shows people from different profession and their attitude towards this service. As shown in the Fig. 4, teachers and service industry people are the most interested group in this service. They believe that these services would have a large impact on their final decision. The reason for this is because teachers work in a peaceful environment. If a platform provides this service, teachers would not need to bargain with the clerk in the clothing store but instead experience a simple transaction. The reason why service industry people like this new system is because of their limited time. What’s more, the students, engineer and technology people are also
interested in such services. Fig. 5 shows different people’s attitude toward this service based on their income. It can be seen that high income groups of people are more likely to be influenced by this service. This is because they have higher pursuit. Rather than only purchasing, they need to enjoy their shopping and experience new fashion services.
Fig.4. Attitude of people who have different jobs towards the service.
NOTE: A stands for student, B stands for teacher, C stands for engineering and technology, D stands for management, E stands for staff, F stands for public servant, G stands for service industry and H stands for others
Fig.5. Attitude of people of different income-level towards the service.
3.3 Requirement level analysis
In this part of the paper, we carried out an investigation to discover consumer's requirements and whether they
expect to be offered, material, color, the whole, personal style collocation choices. As shown in Figure 6, the whole, color and personal style collocation recommendation are welcomed by most of the women. However, the size and material are less welcomed. This indicates that the platform should pay more attention to the color, whole and style collocation recommendation services.
QUITE NECESSARY not MORE!! Fig.6. Whether they need these collocation suggestions.
3.4 Cooperation degree analysis
Even if this service is very welcomed and important, if the consumers don't cooperate, it will all be in vain. So, in this part of the paper, we made a survey to discover whether consumers are willing to cooperate with the system. It involves two questions to see whether they are willing to upload their personal detailed body shape information and facial skin color information to the net on the premise that their personal privacy are well protected. Fig. 7 shows the data. It is clear that most consumers are willing to upload their body shape information to the net. This is mostly because of the strong sense of privacy protection. There’re also a lot of people willing to participate and cooperate voluntarily.
QUITE WILLING not MORE…!Fig.7. Whether they are willing to upload their information.
4. Results and discussion
4.1 Demand analysis coming from the survey
The on-line clothing purchasing has been accepted by most of the consumers however, related services aren't that perfect. The clothing collocation recommendation service has received full attention by amplitude consumers and relevant professionals.
As the system can provide the consumers clothing entirety, color and personal style collocation recommendation, the service is desperately needed by consumers. In order to successfully achieve this, the system needs to hire a platform of expertise in these areas, so that they can provide professional knowledge for customers to accurately give recommendation suggestions.
Buying clothing online has become an enjoyable process; hence the recommendation process should be just as
pleasurable. The system can locate the consumer’s style and introduce apparel professional knowledge to them. Consequently making them feel that shopping is a valuable experience. In order to more accurately determine their size, style and other information, most of the consumers are willing to upload their own real personal information into the system. According to the improvement degree of the platform services, it is certain that there will be more customers who will be willing to participate in such a network.
4.2Model building for clothing collocation recommendation system
From the results of the questionnaire it is clear that this garment recommendation system is feasible, has large marketing prospects and is worth building upon. In the building and implementation process of the system, the relevant information of users should understand and then conduct a professional recommendation according to the specific object.
4.2.1 Individual diagnosis
(1) Type of figure diagnosis
The clothing contour plays an important role in collocation; there is a good match effect if one can grasp the outline to modify different bodies. Through the results from the survey, it is clear that customers are willing to share their personal information including body type and skin color so long as their privacy is well protected. Therefore, according to the detailed customer information, the system can determine a specific consumer’s body type, and then recommend clothing to customers that share the same body shape. (2) Color diagnosis
Only by fully understanding the art regulations of clothing color collocation, can we offer different styles when matching colors for clothing according to wearer's identity, age, occupation, social class, cultural quality and some other aspects. Through comprehensive diagnosis of consumer's skin color, pupil color and hair color, we can determine accurate color system for different consumers. (3) Style diagnosis
Often the style and fashion of a person remains constant. For a specific person, their personal style has already been reflected in their life. In order to better confirm which style consumers are, the system offers many clothing pictures that is divided into several groups to provide consumers a choice of which pictures they like most. By doing this, the system can diagnose the type of consumer's style. After confirming the style, the platform can point out the right clothes for different users.
4.2.2 Collocation recommendation
The system needs a database including different styles, profiles and different colors clothing if the platform were to give individuals collocation recommendations through the network. On the basis of the individual diagnosis, the system selects the most suitable clothing for the consumer according to the body shape, color and style. The right clothing that best suits the users is the one that fit their body shape, skin color and personal style. It is of no doubt that the consumers have their own wearing style and personal preferences. The customers may only pay attention to the body shape or color therefore to avoid this problem; the system will provide other collocated clothing that is relevant for the consumer to choose from. Furthermore at the same time, the system can offer a variety of different clothing types for different wearing occasions for consumers to choose from. This collocation recommendation system is just like a personal dressing instructor, which can communicate with consumers directly on the network, and put forward the most reasonable proposal according to comprehensive analysis of consumer's body shape, appearance, occupation and other information. It also offers tailor-made services to consumers.
5 Conclusion and prospect
This paper is a requirement analysis based on clothing collocation recommendation platform. It also proposes a building method for the model of this platform. From the results of the survey, there are a lot of consumers who are interested in such a platform. By obtaining and analyzing personal detailed information such as body shape, color
and other information, we can confirm the consumer's dressing style and recommend the most suitable clothing to the users. There is no doubt that there are a lot of people who are willing to join such a platform as it is both convenient and idealistic. So if such a platform coming into practice, it would be a great market.
This paper only proposes the idea of the platform but does not build and achieve this system. Instead we hope that this system can be achieved by relevant experts in the near future because of its great marketing potential. Clothing collocation recommendation platform is greatly demanded by the consumers as it is able to solve the consumer’s dressing issue and allow them to have a pleasurable shopping experience. This pattern is a development direction of the apparel e-commerce in the future.
References
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Appendix
A survey about clothing online recommendation platform
Thank you very much for your supportings and helps of the research about clothing online recommendation platform, please mark red in relevant option according to your own feeling and thought or write the answers. 1.Your age
A. <=18 B. 18-25 C.26-35 D.36-45 E. >=45 2. Your income
A. <=1000 B. 1000-2000 C. 2001-3000 D. 3001-4000 E. >4000 3. Your profession
A. Student B. Teacher C. Engineering and technology D. Management E. Staff F. Public servant G. Service industry H. Others
4. Do you like to buy clothing online?
A. Very like B. Like C. Common D. Dislike E. Severely dislikes
5. Are you worried about the problem of clothing collocation when buying clothing on net? A. Very worried B. More worried C. Worried D. Common E. Unworried 6 Are you satisfied with the existing service?
A. Very satisfied B. More satisfied C. Satisfied D. General E. Unsatisfied
7. Does it have great influence when provide you with clothing collocation recommendation service？ A. Very big B. Big C. General D. Small E. Very small
8. Which of the following clothing collocation recommendation service makes you take great interest? A. Color B. Material C. Whole D. Size E. Style
9. Are you willing to upload your personal detailed body shape information to the net on the premise you’re your
personal privacy are well protected.
A. Very willing B. More willing C. Willing D. General E. Unwilling
10. Are you willing to upload your personal detailed facial skin color information to the net on the premise that your personal privacy is well protected?
A. Very willing B. More willing C. Willing D. General E. Unwilling
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