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Influence of fashion blogs on technology-driven behaviour of millennial

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Influence of fashion blogs on technology-driven

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Faseeha Zafar & Adnan Sarwar

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technology-driven behaviour of millennial, International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FASHION DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION
2021, VOL. 14, NO. 3, 366–374
https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2021.1958927

Influence of fashion blogs on technology-driven behaviour of millennial

Faseeha Zafar and Adnan Sarwar
Department of Economics and Business Management, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Digital technologies have changed millennials’ consumer behaviour from traditional to innovative Received 6 April 2021
perspectives in the context of the Pakistani fashion industry. The study aimed to investigate the Accepted 19 July 2021
influence of fashion blogs on millennial consumer purchasing behaviour. The study adopted the
KEYWORDS
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by considering; perceived usefulness, perceived ease of Perceived usefulness;
use, ikperceived social influence, perceived influencer credibility, and fashion innovativeness as perceived social influence;
research variables. A Survey of 300 responses was collected through convenience sampling. The perceived influencer
study findings indicated that attitude towards fashion blogs, perceived usefulness, perceived credibility; purchase
social influence, and perceived influencer credibility were significant predictors of the purchase intention; fashion blogs
intention of millennials. The study will help marketers and managers to develop appropriate
strategies to improve the purchasing behaviour of fashion consumers.

Introduction
Digital technology has impacted the habits and lifestyles of
customers, eventually leading to a change in consumer
behaviour. Broad uses of the internet, subsequently
increasing the participation of consumers in the digital
environment, have triggered momentous changes in con-
sumption behaviour (İpek, 2020). Pandemic COVID-19
is one in a century pathogen causing severe health issues
(Gates, 2021). As of 30 May 2020, 6 million cases were
reported, in addition to which there were 366 thousand
deaths, and 2.6 million recovered globally (Bakir, 2020;
Worldometer, 2021). Consumers need to change them-
selves through buying behaviour, attitude, opportunity,
and expectations from social media platforms (Addo, Jiam-
ing, Kulbo, & Liangqiang, 2020; McMaster et al., 2020).
Due to the COVID-19 situation, human behaviour chan-
ged in different directions, with certain types of behaviour
appearing irrevocable (Mehta, Saxena, & Purohit, 2020).
Hootsuite (2020) reported that 7% of internet users
increased in 2020 worldwide compared to January 2019
and a 9% increase of social media users in January 2020
as compared to January 2019. The facts and market data
globally related to the internet has more than 2.5 billion
global internet active users, whereas 50% of users are Face-
book users (Statista, 2016). In a report of 2020, there were
1.5 billion digital buyers worldwide, which increased to
1.66 million, and it is estimated that the penetration of digi-
tal consumers to be reached 65% in 2021 (Statista, 2021).
Internet user penetration is projected to hit 60.3 by
2024 in Pakistan, and the largest e-commerce market
segment is fashion, with an estimated volume of
$664,474m (Statista, 2021). Nowadays, young people
are more conscious of the new trends and have become
more consumerist in their buying habits, social activi-
ties, and lives (Hajra, 2018).
Millennials are essential for this study. According to
the UNDP (2018), Pakistan have the highest number of
young people ever in its history, whereas 64% of Pakistani
peoples under the age of 30 and 29% is between the age of
15–29 of the overall population. Pakistan is one of the
worlds’ youngest and second youngest countries in
south Asia after Afghanistan (Kundi, 2018). Many
researchers defined the understanding of young consu-
mers’ behaviour driven by technology and emphasised
the need for additional research to explain the behaviour
of young consumers (Esteban-Santos, Medina, Carey, &
Bellido-Pérez, 2018). Young consumers are referred to
as ‘Digital Natives’ spending their life and daily activities
in the digital environment (Bolton et al., 2013). Marketers
are obliged to be alert that millennial consumers depend
on non-traditional advertising media before making a
purchase decision because they are the first generation
facing digital surroundings (Bolton et al., 2013; Liljander,
Gummerus, & Söderlund, 2015). It was highlighted that
advertisers and marketers could not utilise social media
platforms to get familiar with digital consumer behaviour
preferences for business success. Therefore, insight is
required to examine the millennials’ technology-driven
behaviour regarding digital marketing because 64% of
the population under the age of 30 years.

CONTACT Adnan Sarwar adnansarwar@live.com

© The Textile Institute and Informa UK Ltd 2021
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FASHION DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION
The Technology Acceptance Model is the theoretical
underpinning of this study that explains user acceptance
of technology. To better understand how fashion blogs
shape the attitude of millennials, three key drivers’ per-
ceived social influence, perceived influencer credibility,
and fashion innovativeness are added from the consu-
mers’ perspective; these aspects have enormous rel-
evance regarding social media blogs. However, very
little work has been done (Arora & Agarwal, 2019; Ber-
ger, 2018; Eastman, Smalley, & Warren, 2019; Stewart,
Oliver, Cravens, & Oishi, 2017).
Therefore, this study analysed the influential social
media blogs, particularly fashion blogs, that develop
persuading attitudes of generation Y for purchase inten-
tion. This research aimed to examine the factors of the
extended TAM model that contributes to millennials’
purchase intention and empirically investigate the effec-
tiveness of fashion blogs’ for the significant attitude of
young digital consumers. This research presented var-
ious combinations of perspectives on how the buying
behaviour increased by the attitude in digital marketing
context through fashion blogs. The current study sheds
light on blogging outcomes for the bloggers and the
individuals buying decisions on Instagram, Facebook.
See Figures 1 and 2.
Literature review
Blogs are the best avenues where individuals can
exchange unique user-generated content. The majority
of social media users are 18–29 years, mainly millen-
nials born between 1981–1994 (Bolton et al., 2013;
Figure 1. Theoretical Framework –TAM.
367
Jones & Kang, 2020). The global fashion industry is
incorporating new trends that need to re-evaluate the
existing platforms efficiently for consumers. Markets
are becoming volatile, persuading fashion brands to
work effectively to grow the fashion industry (Anić,
Mihić, & Kursan Milaković, 2018; Khan, 2020). With
a population of 220 million, the Pakistan fashion
industry could gain a share in the foreign fashion mar-
ket worth billions of dollars and benefit and contribute
to the national economy to expand future capacity
(Anonymous, 2019). Fashion retailers primarily utilise
visual merchandising as a strategy to boost positive
emotions where the product and brand are effectively
conveyed to maximise spontaneous sales (Gazzola,
Pavione, Pezzetti, & Grechi, 2020; Sundström, Hjelm-
Lidholm, & Radon, 2019)
Purchase intention of millennials
This purchase intention is an essential predictor for
assessing consumer behaviour. It can determine a con-
sumer’s probability of buying a product as the more
significant the intention to purchase, the greater the
readiness of a customer to buy a service or product
(Husnain & Toor, 2017). Understanding millennial
consumer dimensions is still in its early stage in the
context of Pakistan, and researchers are actively inves-
tigating and examining it (Awan, Ismail, Majeed, &
Ghazal, 2015; Husnain, Rehman, Syed, & Akhtar,
2019; Islam, Wei, Sheikh, Hameed, & Azam, 2017;
Niazi, Siddiqui, Alishah, & Hunjra, 2012; Palalic,
Ramadani, Gilani, Gërguri-Rashiti, & Dana, 2020).
368 F. ZAFAR AND A. SARWAR
Figure 2. PLS Structural Model with Factor Loading Values.
Particularly for the fashion and clothing sectors
(Abbasi, Goh, & Ariffin, 2019; Adnan, Yousaf, Babar,
& Malik, 2020; Rehman, Bin Md Yusoff, Bin Mohamed
Zabri, & Binti Ismail, 2017; Zafar, Qiu, Li, Wang, &
Shahzad, 2019) to evaluate behaviour for social media
intention. A recent study conducted in Pakistan
regarding social media marketing revealed that internet
users in Pakistan are growing day by day; every third
person uses the internet, specifically fashion brands
(Harms, Bijmolt, & Hoekstra, 2019; Islam et al.,
2018). Fashion blogs influenced young consumers’ pre-
ferences, desires, and attitudes in their purchasing
decision (Vuong & Nguyen, 2018).
Perceived usefulness
Perceived usefulness (PU) is a fundamental component of
the technology acceptance model, and it was introduced
by Davis (1989) as ‘the degree to which a person believes
that using a specific method will improve work efficiency.’
Perceived usefulness plays a vital part in shaping a posi-
tive impact on the attitude of purchase intention (Astuti
& Putri, 2018; McLean, Osei-Frimpong, Al-Nabhani, &
Marriott, 2020). The blog aims to help the reader by
influencing them that it is useful and positively associated
with the purchasing attitude of consumers (Cheng &
Fang, 2015; Kasilingam, 2020). Therefore, the greater
the usefulness consumers perceived from fashion blogs,
the more likely they will maintain a favourable attitude
that impacts purchase intention.
Perceived ease of use
Perceived ease of use is a prediction about the extent of
action required to utilise a specific mechanism by impli-
cation ‘ease’ which is liberty from an indication of how
people get rid of their difficulty (Cho & Sagynov, 2015).
PEOU has shown a positive relationship with the attitude
towards blogs as a learning tool (Fagan, Neill, & Wool-
dridge, 2008; Ma, Gam, & Banning, 2017). It was a vital
component that influences people’s attitude to continue
using technology (Baek, 2013; Moslehpour, Pham,
Wong, & Bilgiçli, 2018). Perceived ease of use is an ante-
cedent and consequent predictor of social media blogging
and influencer marketing, particularly for fashion-con-
scious customers of brands (Foroudi, Nazarian, & Aziz,
2020). Digital consumers perceive blogs as less effortless
in seeking information for fashion that can affect attitude.
Perceived influencer credibility
Influencer credibility perceived by consumers is one of
the most influential aspects (Munnukka, Uusitalo, &
Toivonen, 2016; Reinikainen, Munnukka, Maity, &
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FASHION DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION
Luoma-aho, 2020). Reinikainen et al. (2020) illustrated,
‘in the influencer marketing, perceived influencer credi-
bility is an important and predicting factor.’ Perceived
influencer credibility posits a persuasive impact on
social media consumers’ attitudes and purchasing
behaviour (Esteban-Santos et al., 2018; Silva, Farias,
Grigg, & Barbosa, 2020). Young consumers seek to
attain new and fresh fashion that ultimately attributes
blogging as most influential and credible (Henninger,
Tong, & Vazquez, 2018; Schouten, Janssen, & Verspa-
get, 2020; Sethi, Kaur, & Wadera, 2018; Shan, Chen, &
Lin, 2020). Since consumers are more likely to embrace
product statements conveyed by bloggers with whom
they can associate and expects influencer credibility to
positively influence attitude (Balaban & Mustățea,
2019; Bevan-Dye, 2020; Nash, 2019).
Perceived social influence
Perceived social influence is an integral factor for
change and improvement in consumers’ attitudes con-
sidering online social media channels and contextualises
according to the community (Dabbous, Aoun Barakat,
& Merhej Sayegh, 2020). Also, Perceived Social influ-
ence affects the psychology of millennials’ attitudes
and buying (Hall, Towers, & Shaw, 2017; Vahdat, Aliza-
deh, Quach, & Hamelin, 2021; Wang, Wong, & Naraya-
nan, 2020). Therefore, it is predicted that individual
attitudes towards blogs may be influenced by the
impression that many others use them, especially in
their social groups (Bravo & Lee, 2020; Sherman,
Greenfield, Hernandez, & Dapretto, 2018; Su, Watchra-
vesringkan, Zhou, & Gil, 2019).
Fashion innovativeness
Park and Yoo (2018) tested the benefits of mass cus-
tomised products and considered belief, attitude, and
loyalty as significant aspects of fashion innovativeness.
Fashion innovators depend on social media sources
for their need of fashion consumption and possess
high innovation and positive attitude for the purchas-
ing intention (Rahman & Kharb, 2018). A study on
young female millennials found that attitude toward
fashion adoption is significantly affected by fashion
innovativeness (Kobia & Liu, 2016). Consumers are
highly indulging in fashion innovativeness presents
consumer attitude is ultimately influential towards
purchase intention. Hence based on the given litera-
ture, it has been concluded that fashion innovativeness
is one of the predictors of fashion consumers’
attitudes.
369
Attitude towards fashion blogs
Fishbein and Ajzen (1977) illustrated the ‘degree of
belief of an individual with negative or positive behav-
ior.’ The study of attitude is vital in social media market-
ing and advertising online towards purchase intention,
particularly for young consumers’ usage of fashion
blogs (Casaló, Flavián, & Ibáñez-Sánchez, 2020;
Cheung, Vazquez, & Conway, 2019; Choi & Lee, 2019;
Evans & Bang, 2019; Kobia & Liu, 2017; Sokolova &
Kefi, 2020; Trivedi & Sama, 2020). In contrast to the
behaviour seen before, the attitude of generation ‘Y’
towards fashion blogs leading to purchase intention
has not been previously investigated in the literature.
Thus, this study hypothesises:
Research hypotheses
Blogs and social media gained exponential popularity
quickly and transformed the concept of the fashion
industry for millennials consumers. Considering this
paradigm change, consumer-centered media became
increasingly crucial. Based on the reviewed literature,
the following hypotheses were proposed:
H1: Perceived usefulness positively affects attitude
towards fashion blogs.
H2: Perceived ease of use positively affects attitude
towards fashion blogs
H4: Perceived social influence positively affects attitude
towards fashion blogs.
H5: Fashion innovativeness positively affects attitude
towards fashion blogs.
H6: Consumers’ attitude towards fashion blogs posi-
tively affects millennial purchase intention.
Methodology
The quantitative data was collected from millennial
social media users, particularly fashion blog users
using an online structured questionnaire. The validated
scales were adopted and then adapted to measure var-
ious constructs. A convenience sampling of the non-
probability technique was used to gather data from mil-
lennials. Responses from the respondents were
measured with 5 points Likert Scale, where ‘5’ is
‘Strongly Agree’ to ‘1’ is ‘Strongly Disagree.’ Perceived
usefulness and perceived ease of use were measured by
adapting four items from Davis (1989). For perceived
influencer credibility, five items of McCroskey and
Teven (1999) were used. Perceived social influence
was measured by five items of Hsu and Lu (2004).
370 F. ZAFAR AND A. SARWAR

Three items were adapted from Goldsmith and Table 1. Demographic Information of the respondents.
Hofacker (1991) to measure fashion innovativeness. Frequency %age
Seven items were adopted from Wu (1999) to measure Gender
Male 107 35.7
the attitude towards fashion blogs and to measure pur- Female 193 64.3
chase intention; two items were adopted from See-To Total 300 100
Age
and Ho (2014). The questionnaire was sent to almost 15–22 78 26
400 followers of fashion bloggers and received 300 sur- 23–30 222 74
vey responses. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences 31–38 0 0
39 or above 0 0
(SPSS) and SmartPLS 3.0 were used to analyse the data. Total 300 100
Education
High School 26 8.7
Results Bachelor or below 110 36.7
Masters 147 49
PhD 17 5.7
From 300 collected responses, 64.3% were female (n = Total 300 100
193) and 35.7% were male (n = 107). Most of the Social Media Usage per day
2h 53 17.7
respondents were about 23–30 years of age, 147 respon- 3–4 h 117 39
dents were masters, 110 respondents had a graduate 5–6 h 81 27
degree, and 26 respondents were in high school. 117 More than 7 h 49 16.3
Total 300 100
respondents spent 3–4 h on social media daily, 81 Purchasing of Fashion Product
respondents spent 5–6 h, 53 respondents spent 2 h, Yes 211 70.3
No 89 29.7
and only 49 respondents spent more than 7 h. Of all Total 300 100
the respondents, 211 had purchased fashion products
online, and 89 respondents did not buy any fashion pro-
ducts. See Table 1.
Table 2. Construct Reliability, Validity, and Cronbach Alpha.
Cronbach’s Composite Average Variance
PLS-SEM analysis Variables Alpha Reliability Extracted (AVE)
Perceived 0.844 0.844 0.579
The study used a partial least square (PLS) approach Usefulness
with Smart PLS 3 to perform measurement validation Perceived Ease of 0.829 0.830 0.551
Use
and structural modelling. Collectively Cronbach’s Perceived Social 0.864 0.854 0.553
alpha, Composite Reliability, and Average Variance Influence
Perceived Influencer 0.841 0.842 0.520
Extracted (AVE) values show how much data is reliable Credibility
and suitable for predictions. These all presented the Fashion 0.813 0.826 0.617
Innovativeness
convergent validity of the model. All the loadings on Attitude 0.876 0.875 0.501
their measured structure were much greater than the Millennial Purchase 0.858 0.859 0.752
Intention
cross loads on other constructs because Cronbach’s
alpha value was greater than 0.7, Composite Reliability
value was greater than 0.7 of all variables, and AVE
value was greater than 0.5 and almost good in all vari-
Hypotheses testing
ables. AVE value 0.5 or higher illustrates that construct
explains 50% or more variance of the items that build The perceived usefulness is positively related to millen-
construct. See results in Table 2. nial attitude toward fashion blogs (β=0.256, t = 2.675,
p<0.008), so H1 accepted. The result expressed that
PLS path model assessment
Table 3. B-Value, T-Values, P-Values of the constructs.
After the assessment of the measurement model by Original Sample T Statistics (|O/ P
ensuring convergent validity and discriminant validity Variables (O) STDEV|) Values Hypothesis
through running the PLS algorithm, the second step ATT — 0.647 10.999 0.000 Accepted
was an estimation of the structural model, therefore a >MPI
PIC –>ATT 0.294 3.520 0.000 Accepted
bootstrapping 1000 subsample carried out to evaluate PSI — 0.288 3.953 0.000 Accepted
the impact and significance of the hypothesis relation- >ATT
PU —>ATT 0.256 2.675 0.008 Accepted
ship among the construct, to obtain each path coeffi- FI —> ATT 0.084 1.249 0.212 Rejected
cient’s standard error, t-statistics, and P-value. See PEOU- −0.001 0.010 0.992 Rejected
>ATT
Table 3.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FASHION DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION
perceived ease of use was negatively related to millennial
attitude (β= −0.001, t = 0.010, p<0.99), so H2 was
rejected. Results indicated that perceived social influ-
ence positively affects millennial attitude (β = 0.288, t
= 3.953, p<0.001) on social media towards fashion
blogs; thus, H3 accepted. Besides, findings revealed
that perceived influencer credibility is positively related
to fashion blogs’ attitude (β = 0.294, t = 3.520, p<0.001),
so H4 was accepted. Fashion innovativeness has no sig-
nificant effect on millennial attitude (β = 0.084, t =
1.249, p<0.212); therefore, H5 was rejected. Lastly, atti-
tude towards fashion blogs positively impacts millennial
purchase intention (β = 0.647, t = 10.999, p<0.001), H6
was accepted.
Discussion
The study aimed to examine the impact of fashion blogs
on millennial attitude and purchase intention towards
perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived
social influence, perceived influencer credibility, and
fashion innovativeness. The research examines how
fashion blogs are significant for the technology-driven
purchasing behaviour of millennials and how the atti-
tude towards blogs dominates the buying behaviour of
young consumers.
This research covered a gap as previous studies have
investigated the consumers’ intention in developed
countries, although numerous studies have also focused
on buying patterns in Pakistan. However, no study has
investigated the impact of fashion blogs on millennials
as a marketing strategy for fashion brands. Thus, this
research is the first step towards a more profound
understanding of young consumers’ purchasing
decisions as an interdisciplinary area.
The study extended the application of the technology
of the acceptance model. Moreover, the suggested fra-
mework investigated fashion blogs’ position in the suc-
cess of influencer marketing for fashion consumers. The
current study’s findings expand prior literature by add-
ing the value in influencer marketing under the
umbrella of digital marketing for the brands and for
the researchers who want to use blogs for digital consu-
mers. The major findings of this study indicated that the
role of perceived usefulness for digital consumers posi-
tively affects attitude and purchase intention towards
fashion blogs. This finding is consistent with the claims
of recent studies (Astuti & Putri, 2018), where the
researchers examined social media trust and perceived
usefulness to examined the purchase intention of inter-
net users. Another study was carried out to observe the
association between perceived usefulness and purchas-
ing intention among internet users in Mexico City;
371
results showed a significant positive association between
perceived usefulness and purchase intention in emer-
ging markets (Ventre & Kolbe, 2020).
A second significant finding of the study relates to
source credibility, i.e. perceived influencer credibility
of the millennial. Our result shows that the young con-
sumers’ credibility from fashion blogs positively
influenced purchase intention in line with Colton
(2018). He examined credibility as an antecedent of atti-
tude and its influence on purchase intention. The fol-
lowers tend to trail bloggers with whom they
connected. Also, research is related to the finding con-
ducted to discover how bloggers’ credibility and Paraso-
cial interaction impacted consumers’ purchase intention
(Sokolova & Kefi, 2020).
The research finding presented new support to the
concept of social influence association to purchasing
behaviour. The results showed social influence per-
ceived by the millennial from fashion blogs boost pur-
chase intention, which explains the consumers’
positive attitude and is supported by Copeland and
Zhao (2020), which poses social influence as an essential
determining factor of purchase intention.
This study also examined the role of attitude that
plays an essential element in the persuasion process of
purchase intention. The results agree with earlier litera-
ture on consumer attitudes (Evans & Bang, 2019; Kim &
Kim, 2017; Lu, Chang, & Chang, 2014; McLean et al.,
2020) and highlight the importance of investigating or
controlling individual attitudes while examining the
digital marketing practices.
Conclusion, limitation, and future research
The study concluded one of the first-ever literary works
focused on the purchase intention of young consumers
with attitude towards the social media fashion blogs.
The second important outcome of this research was
that it proposed an extended TAM model, which will
assist future researchers in exploring which factors can
influence attitudes of young consumers and contribute
their research about mitigating the negative perception
of consumers fashion blogs. This investigation revealed
that it could assist the managers and markets of brands
and the fashion industry that how they can improve the
image of the brand and engagement of digital customers
by their positive attitude and can run a successful and
profitable market strategy of businesses in the fashion
industry. The study also showed that perceived ease of
use and fashion innovativeness does not significantly
impact millennial attitude towards fashion blogs. Pre-
sent research calls upon scholars to explore the interplay
372 F. ZAFAR AND A. SARWAR
between generation Y consumers and blog marketing in
shaping attitude and purchase intention.
The study has some limitations. Firstly, through
qualitative research on consumer behaviour, the
findings and results of the evaluation would have been
more coherent. Third, for consistent conclusions and
results, data gathered through contextual features of
customers would have been more coherent. Lastly, the
study acknowledges understanding the framework
behind successful fashion blogs as an influencer market-
ing tool. The research realised that other essential vari-
ables might impact the mechanism that has not been
included in the study, e.g. parasocial interaction, per-
ceived risk.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
ORCID
Faseeha Zafar http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2188-8630
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