The Intention to Repurchase Apparel Online: A Case of South African Millennial Men

Online shopping, especially apparel shopping, is expected to grow rapidly in South Africa, one of the largest economies on the African continent. A market segment that shows lucrative growth opportunities is the male millennial online apparel shopper, but published research on the online buying behaviour of this group of consumers is scant. To address the academic and practical knowledge gaps on male millennial consumer behaviour in terms of online apparel shopping, this study set out to investigate a number of factors that can influence these consumers to repurchase apparel in an online environment. The study focused on South African millennial male consumers who had previously purchased apparel from a large and well-established South African online fashion retailer and semi-replicated a study conducted by Kim et al. (2012). Data were collected by means of an electronic self-administered non-interactive questionnaire. A total of 349 useable questionnaires were retrieved for statistical analyses. It was found that utilitarian shopping values do not directly influence the intention of millennial South African men to repurchase apparel from the investigated online fashion retailer. On the other hand, the results revealed that hedonic shopping values do influence the online apparel repurchase intention of this consumer cohort. The results of this study provide valuable insights in understanding the apparel repurchase intention of the South African millennial male consumer in the 21st century. The insights can be used by online retailers to develop more effective marketing strategies to capitalise on this lucrative market segment.