The importance of the retail environment has been a prominent area of research for over four decades, focusing upon the effects of design. The retail environment, like other aesthetic surroundings affects customers’ behaviour, perceptions and attitudes. Yet, while there is a growing body of research regarding design, there is little research to date specifically on fashion retail shopping environments. Technology has made shopping via multiple channels possible and economically feasible, and the demand for more channel options is being driven by the consumer. The significant growth of online retailing has led to the evolution of traditional retailing, developing from a single channel to multi-channel models. This study has used both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to explain theoretically the online shopping environment cues that contribute towards creating an online fashion shopping environment. As this research is taking into consideration the development of the retail market and the movement of retailers towards multi-channel fashion retailing, design cues which can be replicated, or transferred from a physical shopping environment to an online shopping environment will be discussed. Fashion retailers can use the different channel environments to induce a desired shopping experience for the consumer, facilitate the consumers’ needs and fulfil the retailers’ strategic objectives. This report includes new perspectives on how website design has developed during the past decade as a result of advances in technology and consumer acceptance. This research will identify and develop some important issues related to online environment cues and consumers' perceptions of online design that have not been addressed by previous studies by investigating literature regarding the physical and online shopping environment, design cues that form part of an online fashion environment focusing on the strategic design of an online retail store will be studied.

Overweight people claim to be mistreated by the fashion industry. If they were, it would be in line with branding theory supporting the idea of rejecting fat consumers to improve user imagery for fashion brands. However, fashion companies do not confess to such practices. To shed some light on the subject, I have conducted two studies. The first attempts to illustrate what effect, if any, user imagery has on fashion brands. It is an experiment designed to show how the weight of users affects consumers’ perceptions of mass market fashion brands. The findings show that consumers’ impressions of mass market fashion brands are significantly affected by the weight of its users. The effect of male user imagery is ambiguous. For women’s fashion on the other hand, slender users are to be preferred. In the second study I examine what effects these effects have on assortments. I compare the sizes of mass market clothes to the body sizes of the population. No evidence of discrimination of overweight or obese consumers was found -quite the contrary. The reasons for these unexpected findings may be explained by the requirements a brand must fulfil to make management of the customer base for user imagery purposes viable. The brand must be sensitive to user imagery; a requirement that mass market fashion fulfils. However, it must also be feasible for a company to exclude customers, and while garment sizes can be restricted to achieve this, the high volume sales strategy of mass market fashion apparently cannot.

The brand behind the garment is what gives the product popularity, relevance to the consumer, and overall profitability. As time passes, markets are becoming flooded with more brands that inherently provide the commodities. As a result, fashion marketers must put more time and investment into stipulating ways for which their brand can reach a select target consumer and enhance repeat purchase intentions with their competitive differentiations. As their efforts engage, an experiential perspective emerges in the fashion industry. By comparing fashion brands and their different distribution channels, the objectives of this study are to identify consumers’ perceptions of fashion brand experience dimensions and experience types, and to investigate the effect of brand experience dimensions and types on brand resonance. Upon extending Schmitt and Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello’s experience dimensions and types, in conjunction with Keller’s brand resonance model, 12 out of 20 hypotheses confirm the significant impact of consumers experiences on brand resonance by analyzing the data (n = 374) from a university in the United States. Sensory and affective experiences are primary factors for establishing fashion brand association, while cognitive and relational driven experiences lead to establishing fashion brand loyalty. Sensory, affective, and relational experiences affect both product and store type experiences, while only product experience affects brand resonance. With the depiction of different brand effects, this study concludes that while Forever 21 may focus on relational experiences with the consumer, Gap utilizes positive cognitive experiences to develop a link to brand loyalty and fashion product reliability.

The aim of this master thesis is to define fast fashion and fast fashion retailing, and describe specifics of their business activities with deep focus on the Czech market. The theoretical part reviews literature dealing with international strategy and management and fashion and fast fashion retailing. The empirical part then focuses on real-life business cases. In order to illustrate the behaviour of fast fashion retailers on the Czech market, a case study method is employed. The attention is narrowed on three chosen fast fashion retailers MANGO, Zara and H&M. The separate case studies on MANGO, Zara and H&M focus on retailers' presence in the Czech market. The retailers' position on the market and strategies are then compared with the aim to identify the most successful fast fashion retailer and verify whether the hypothesis that the first mover to the market gains the competitive advantage is true for the chosen fast fashion retailers in the Czech market. Further, the work tries to find possible factors of the retailers' success in the Czech market.

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>In fashion industry, customer demand is constantly changing. One of the main reasons is due to the time of delicate fashion awareness among the consumers, which has come into larger variety and frequent assortment changes. The changing trends in fashion industry allow researchers to get into the postponement strategy as a customized operation in order to focus on quality and flexibility. In today’s fashion market the key for success is to keep an eye on and react to the customer demand. H&M is Europe’s second largest fashion retailer in terms of sales and our work will reflect on H&M supply chain particularly. We try to figure out business strategies such as mass customization and standardization, which H&M is using in their entire supplier chain and in his different processes. Keeping this view in mind, we design our research question, which is about mass customization and standardization and we try to relate these business strategies to the postponement. We try to find out the structure and implementation of these strategies in H&M supply chain with the help of our respondent answers in our proposed questionnaire.</p><p>For this purpose, an electronic interview with the H&M senior merchandiser in Pakistan liaison office was carried out. The questionnaire contains different questions related to postponement strategy, customization, and standardization and other processes which are used in the supply chain of any fashion industry. The questionnaire consists of 22 major questions. Our research is purely qualitative. We include both types of the data; namely secondary and primary. Secondary data was collected from earlier studies of the literature and related theories of postponement, customization, and standardization and certain areas of fashion retailing, whereas primary data was collected through the electronic interview with Mr. Syed Naqeeb who is working in H&M liaison office as a senior merchandiser in Pakistan.</p><p>After receiving the questionnaire, we have tried to highlight our research questions with the help of our proposed Frame of Reference in Chapter 2. The Frame of Reference consists of theories which will help the reader to get the clear picture of fashion retailing and the related theories.</p><p>In the Analysis section, we talk about the activities of H&M and its background followed by its business concept. We define H&M SCM model and draw a figure of H&M complementarities, which we developed by the help of electronic interview. In the Conclusion part, we come to the point that customization and postponement affect fashion retailing by choosing raw material, components, and apparel accessories plus logistic management. The other aspect of our research area is standardization. After the analysis we come to know that Standardization and postponement are also used together in the supply chain of H&M, in raw material, cotton and yarn, dying, packaging and in the care instruction of labels (washing instructions).</p>

Abstract In fashion industry, customer demand is constantly changing. One of the main reasons is due to the time of delicate fashion awareness among the consumers, which has come into larger variety and frequent assortment changes. The changing trends in fashion industry allow researchers to get into the postponement strategy as a customized operation in order to focus on quality and flexibility. In today’s fashion market the key for success is to keep an eye on and react to the customer demand. H&amp;M is Europe’s second largest fashion retailer in terms of sales and our work will reflect on H&amp;M supply chain particularly. We try to figure out business strategies such as mass customization and standardization, which H&amp;M is using in their entire supplier chain and in his different processes. Keeping this view in mind, we design our research question, which is about mass customization and standardization and we try to relate these business strategies to the postponement. We try to find out the structure and implementation of these strategies in H&amp;M supply chain with the help of our respondent answers in our proposed questionnaire. For this purpose, an electronic interview with the H&amp;M senior merchandiser in Pakistan liaison office was carried out. The questionnaire contains different questions related to postponement strategy, customization, and standardization and other processes which are used in the supply chain of any fashion industry. The questionnaire consists of 22 major questions. Our research is purely qualitative. We include both types of the data; namely secondary and primary. Secondary data was collected from earlier studies of the literature and related theories of postponement, customization, and standardization and certain areas of fashion retailing, whereas primary data was collected through the electronic interview with Mr. Syed Naqeeb who is working in H&amp;M liaison office as a senior merchandiser in Pakistan. After receiving the questionnaire, we have tried to highlight our research questions with the help of our proposed Frame of Reference in Chapter 2. The Frame of Reference consists of theories which will help the reader to get the clear picture of fashion retailing and the related theories. In the Analysis section, we talk about the activities of H&amp;M and its background followed by its business concept. We define H&amp;M SCM model and draw a figure of H&amp;M complementarities, which we developed by the help of electronic interview. In the Conclusion part, we come to the point that customization and postponement affect fashion retailing by choosing raw material, components, and apparel accessories plus logistic management. The other aspect of our research area is standardization. After the analysis we come to know that Standardization and postponement are also used together in the supply chain of H&amp;M, in raw material, cotton and yarn, dying, packaging and in the care instruction of labels (washing instructions).

The changing dynamics of the fashion retailing industry has progressed and become a global multibillion industry, (Solomon &amp; Rabolt, 2007). It has put a lot of pressure on the fast fashion retailers were key strategies in order to maintain a strong position in market, must be established, (Doyle, Moore &amp; Morgan, 2006). As the increasing number of new fashion retailing companies have emerged and established, the fashion segment has become a market leader, (Mehrjoo &amp; Pasek, 2014). Fashion consumers expect and thrive on continuous change were new fashion products always have to be available in store on an everyday basis, (Bruce &amp; Daly, 2006). Most companies aim to ensure the speed to market as a competitive strategy by offering rapidly fashion trends. Fast fashion companies need to deliver their product offer to the customers before their competitors do and the choice of supply chain strategy gets critical, (Porter 1996). Gadde and Håkansson (2009), argue that a company's purchase process is the answer of this matter. The importance of the purchase process has therefore become of great focus. The issue of defining what it is that actually makes the difference when working with the purchase process is complex, with several aspects to take in consideration. The aim of this report is to present the most significant activities within the purchase process that makes a company competitive in the market. As buyers carry the main responsibility over their department groups it became essential to answer the research questions from their perspective. The buyers’ sees a general problematic in how to influence the purchase chain in a larger scale. However, they claim that the most essential factors, that makes a difference for a company to be successful within the fast fashion industry was concluded to be: short-term and long-term solutions within the daily work primary within the team. The buyers’ solutions are presented in the form of clear goals within the process work, and tools for how to reach the set goals. There must be a clarity through the organization which generates an 80/20 mindset were all actors are focusing on what it is that makes the difference. Communication is a key tool one should work with further on, both at an internal and an external level and as it creates the right conditions for the workflow in a more efficient way. This is for everyone to share a clearer understanding of and be able to work effectively towards the rapid changes that are performed over the season. Lastly, the buyers appear to have an ambiguous picture of how the fashion industry will progress. They are proud of how far Sweden has come with its identity in the fashion industry and the prominent clothing brands. But on the other hand, they are concerned for the how much further the fashion industry can be pushed, taking the environmental and sustainable viewpoint in consideration.

Overweight people claim to be mistreated by the fashion industry. If they were, it would be in line with branding theory supporting the idea of rejecting fat consumers to improve user imagery for fashion brands. However, fashion companies do not confess to such practices. To shed some light on the subject, I have conducted two studies. The first attempts to illustrate what effect, if any, user imagery has on fashion brands. It is an experiment designed to show how the weight of users affects consumers’ perceptions of mass market fashion brands. The findings show that consumers’ impressions of mass market fashion brands are significantly affected by the weight of its users. The effect of male user imagery is ambiguous. For women’s fashion on the other hand, slender users are to be preferred. In the second study I examine what effects these effects have on assortments. I compare the sizes of mass market clothes to the body sizes of the population. No evidence of discrimination of overweight or obese consumers was found -quite the contrary. The reasons for these unexpected findings may be explained by the requirements a brand must fulfil to make management of the customer base for user imagery purposes viable. The brand must be sensitive to user imagery; a requirement that mass market fashion fulfils. However, it must also be feasible for a company to exclude customers, and while garment sizes can be restricted to achieve this, the high volume sales strategy of mass market fashion apparently cannot.

Background:           Literature suggests that franchising as an entry mode for internalisation gains more and more popularity. However, existing literature shows many studies concerning franchising do not focus on industries. Hence, very little research is done when it comes to franchising in the low-to-medium cost fashion apparel industry. At the same time, the growing fashion apparel industry is becoming more and more important due to the business opportunity it brings for organisations. In this context, Germany as being the biggest apparel market in Europe is attractive for international organisation to expand to. For entering the German market through the franchising entry mode, the information about underlying market environment and relevant actors play a vital role to reduce risk of encountering uncertain obstacles in the process.   Purpose:                  Entering a new market as a franchisor can be challenging due to different dynamics that can be found in different markets. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore institutional conditions of the current fashion apparel industry in Germany and to find out which institutions in Germany could help an organisation in terms of information on prevailing conditions, to successfully enter the German market.   Method:                   To attain the purpose of the research, a qualitative approach employing a single case with two embedded units of analysis is used. Purposive sampling is used to select research participants based on their expertise about the topic. The empirical data is collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 participants, which resemble 3 different actors, the German consumers, the German Franchise Association and Tijarat AB, a fashion apparel company seeking to expand to Germany. Supplementary data, such as official governmental and associations website, is used to support the empirical findings. Secondary data is acquired using literature, web sources and legal documents. The empirical findings are analysed with the help of the thematic analysis and the institutional theory as well as the Uppsala internalisation model.   Findings:                 The empirical findings present that there are several normative conditions which depict behaviours and what is considered to be acceptable in the German market. Firstly, there is no franchise fee collected by the franchisor in the fashion apparel industry. Furthermore, brand awareness, consistency, reputation and quality as well as price, design and variety play an important role in the consumer shopping behaviour and decisions. It was also found that there is no specific franchise law but rather a combination of existing legislation, such as the German Civil and Commercial Code, Competition law, Consumer law and Unfair trade law that form the jurisdiction for franchising in Germany.