Influences of product design on consumer behavior : an exploratory study

2018

In recent years the world has been witnessing a tremendous change in the sportswear industry

when it comes to product design. In the sportswear market today, product design is considered

an important strategic tool for creating product differentiation and customer value. It is no

longer enough for a sportswear brand to be either fashionable or functional, it needs to be

both! Superior design draws customer’s attention and makes the products stand out from

others. Thus, organizations should use resources on designers due to how they believe that

good design improves financial performance. A highly competitive market calls for products

that offers designs with both functional, aesthetic and symbolic value that offers contextually

congruent design and fits with the preferences and tastes of the consumer.

However, there exists limited empirical research on product design and design issues.

This thesis aims to provide a better understanding of how and what managers should think of

when producing and promoting sportswear to consumers. The model in this thesis draws from

established frameworks in the product design literature, where the core of the model is based

on the product design scale of Homburg et al. (2015). The model further adds relevant

extension based on findings in existing product design literature of contextually congruent

design and centrality of visual product aesthetics.

The conceptual model is tested based on an online questionnaire (N=225). The results reveal

that consumers mainly form purchase intentions and word of mouth communication of

sportswear based on brand attitude. Moreover, the social context plays a major role in shaping

purchase intentions. Furthermore, only the aesthetic dimension of product design has a

significant influence on brand attitude. In addition, it shows a positive influence on the

functional dimension of product design. Overall, the constructs investigated in this thesis

explain a high degree of the variance in purchase intention (66,4%) and word of mouth

(37,7%). The thesis concludes with theoretical and managerial implications in addition to

suggestions for future research.