نقش تصویر ذهنی از برند محصول و تصویر فروشگاه آنلاین بر ریسک های ادراک شده و نیات خرید آنلاین پوشاک

Purchase intentions for apparel products often require physical examination prior to purchase. Hence, greater risk is associated with shopping online for apparel products, making it important to examine factors that reduce various risks influencing online purchase intentions. This study examines and compares the impact of two of the most important risk reducers for online apparel shopping – product brand image and online store image – on specific types of perceived risks and online purchase intentions for apparel. The results show that product brand image influences consumers' online purchase intentions both directly and indirectly by reducing various risk perceptions. Online store image impacts purchase intentions indirectly by decreasing risk perceptions. The results of this study provide fresh insight into understanding the impact of product brand image and online store image on each type of perceived risk associated with online shopping.

The inability to physically examine apparel products when shopping online increases the risk perceptions associated with online shopping as consumers cannot touch, feel, or try on products before purchase. It is clear that consumers often use product brand name (Dawar and Parker, 1994 and Greatorex and Mitchell, 1994) and store name (Bolton and Drew, 1991 and Teas and Agarwal, 2000) as a surrogate for product quality to reduce their risks and simplify their purchase decision, especially when shopping online where many product attributes cannot be examined directly. However, it is not equally clear how or to what extent brand name and store name impact consumers' online purchase decisions for fashion apparel. Product brand image impacts consumers' perceptions of product attributes (Chattopadhyay and Basu, 1990 and Kwon and Lennon, 2009); that is, the evaluation of a product's attributes can be influenced by the consumer's impression of the brand's image (Beckwith et al., 1978). As a result, a strong and favorable brand image can positively bias consumers' impression of product attributes. Online store image may have a similar effect, also biasing consumers' perceptions of product attributes. Hence, consumers' image of the online store selling the product may influence their product evaluations when they cannot examine the product directly. Given the potential for both product brand image and online store image to influence perceptions of fashion apparel products, enhancing product brand image and online store image may be critical to increasing purchase intentions among online apparel consumers. This study examines the impact of product brand image and online store image on (a) consumers' perceptions of specific types of risks and (b) their online purchase intentions for fashion apparel products. Specifically, this study examines (1) the direct impact of product brand image and online store image on purchase intentions; (2) the influence of product brand image and online store image on perceptions of three types of risk (financial, product, time) associated with online purchase of apparel products; and (3) the influence of these three types of perceived risk on consumers' online purchase intentions for apparel products. A conceptual model, built on the theory of perceived risk, illustrates the potential impact of product brand image and online store image on each of these perceived risks and subsequent purchase intentions for apparel products. Since it has been shown that consumers perceive greater risk in the online shopping environment, particularly for fashion apparel products where physical product evaluation is important, the risk-reducing roles of product brand and online store image on purchase intentions may be significant. This study contributes to our understanding of the theory of perceived risk in online shopping as it broadens knowledge about the risk-reducing roles of product brand image and store image for fashion apparel products. It also provides fresh insights that may help practitioners design better strategies to reduce these risks.

The primary objective of the present study was to examine the direct and indirect influences of product brand image and store image on consumers' online purchase intentions for fashion apparel products. The results of this study indicate the specific routes through which both brand and store image impact different types of perceived risks in the apparel category and subsequent purchase intentions—an important dimension of intention formation that has not been previously examined. The results also enable researchers to measure the relative contribution of product brand image and online store image in online purchase intentions for apparel. Specifically, the results show that product brand image does influence consumers' online purchase intentions for fashion apparel products both directly and indirectly by reducing various risk perceptions. These findings extend and reinforce previous findings that favorability of product brand image has a positive impact on consumers' purchase intentions in both the physical store environment (e.g., del Rio et al., 2001 and Dodds et al., 1991) and the online environment (e.g., Lee and Tan, 2003) by illustrating both the direct effect of product brand image and the indirect effect of product brand image on purchase intentions that is mediated by perceived risks. Product brand image is a critical cue in purchase intention formation when shopping online for apparel products, suggesting that brand name serves as a surrogate for a variety of apparel attributes such as color, texture, and fit that cannot be examined directly when shopping online. Thus, product brand image is important as an indicator of product quality in the apparel context, serving as a risk reliever (e.g., Derbaix, 1983 and Roselius, 1971) in a category where consumers experience greater product risk and leading to increased purchase intentions. Although previous research shows store image to have a positive impact on consumers' purchase intentions in both physical stores (e.g., Grewal et al., 1998) and online stores (e.g. Liang and Lai, 2002, Chen et al., 2010 and Verhagen and van Dolen, 2009), this study fails to find a significant direct relationship between online store image and purchase intentions. Instead, findings in this study show that online store image indirectly impacts purchase intentions through reduced product and financial/time risks. By including the mediating role of perceived risks, our findings provide a more comprehensive look at the relationship between online store image and purchase intention for apparel products, thereby providing additional insight into purchase decision formation and the role of perceived risk in this process. Viewed together, these results suggest that in the fashion apparel category, product brand image has a greater and more direct impact on purchase intentions for apparel products than online store image. Our findings also suggest that the impact of online store image on online purchase intention may be smaller than that of physical store image on purchase intention for traditional stores. This is not surprising given that the public nature of shopping at a physical store can add significance of physical store image for shoppers' expression of values and status (e.g., shopping a well-known and prestigious store may suggest the shopper's social status) through atmosphere and physical environment of the store. On the other hand, the private nature of online shopping, which usually occurs in a shopper's home or other private spaces, makes the value- or status-expression function of online store image less meaningful, creating fewer concerns about the symbolic value of online store image. However, it is important to mention that this study examined only a limited number of apparel brands. It may be that the impact of online store image on purchase intention is weaker among the brands examined than among other apparel brands. The present study also extends the extant literature regarding the relationship between product brand and online store images and specific types of perceived risks associated with online shopping. Specifically, we find support for the proposition that both favorable online store image and product brand image negatively influence product risk as well as financial/time risk. These results are consistent with prior research findings in physical store (e.g. Roselius, 1971) and online store environments (e.g. Chenga et al., 2008 and Liljander et al., 2009) and extend the previous findings by showing that this relationship exists for two specific types of perceived risks associated with online apparel shopping. Our finding that perceived financial/time risk is significantly related to purchase intentions for only one of the three products may lead to speculation that perceived financial/time risk does not substantially hinder consumers from shopping online; it certainly seems consistent with the findings of Swaminathan et al. (1999) that financial risk has no significant influence on consumers' online shopping behavior and lends support to Chen et al.'s (2010) finding that online security is not a significant factor shaping college students' online purchase intentions. However, failure to demonstrate a significant impact of financial/time risk on online purchase intentions for two of the three products may be due in part to the sample used in this study, as college students are confident online shoppers that are typically supported by high-speed Internet connections that minimize time risk. The current finding that product risk significantly influences purchase intentions across apparel products demonstrates that product risk is likely to be a substantial barrier to purchase intentions for various apparel products in online shopping environments. Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that online stores can mitigate these product risks in the apparel category through the use of strong brand name merchandise, which have the potential to signal the quality of the product and it's attributes and increase purchase intention and sales.