Psychology of consumer: study of factors influencing buying behavior of millennials towards fast-fashion brands

India is a growing economy, and fast fashion has boomed over recent years since it has been following trends and targeting the correct audience, i.e., millennials. This research aims to analyze the factors that influence the buying behavior of millennials towards fast fashion brands. This study also focuses on examining the millennials decision influenced buying behavior. Respondents were polled using an electronic survey method. A quantitative method was carried out to explore the responses; the decision to use this approach was primarily influenced by the desire to examine the trend of the millennial generation’s fast fashion and purchasing habits by introducing a societal viewpoint. The sample population consists of millennials who use the above-mentioned brands. The findings show that independent factors chosen for this study have a positive impact on purchase intention. The study provides useful context concerning the purchase intention of fast fashion brands in India and how buying behavior of millennials is affected.


Introduction
Any production house that can maintain the price and keep up with the trend at the same time is con-sidered as an efficient, fast fashion brand, according to Cachon & Swinney. H&M and Zara are efficient brands to keep their consumers up-to-date with the latest trends at an affordable price, as stated by Johansson et al. In recent years, fast fashion brands have started to re-evaluate their approach to their millennial consumers. Millennials are attracted more towards the fast fashion brands because it allows them to stay in the trend within their budget, as observed by Hernández. Millennials choose to buy high-end brand products but cannot afford to move too fast fashion products, as researched by Joy et al.
As they know technology, millennials are considered digital natives, as in an evaluator study by Sharon DeVaney. Individuals categorized as millennials are very active in the marketplace, as Noble, Haytko & Phillips studied. They can compare amongst various brands and choose the best according to their needs, as recorded by Fajariah et al.
Gen Y (millennials) considers self-expression through their dressing sense as an integral part, as studied by V. Jain et al. In addition, Gen Y's purchases depend largely on their peers' reviews of a product. Social media comes into play here. Many influencers are active on Instagram and other platforms to promote fast fashion. They are the ones who promote various brands and thus lead Gen Y to make their purchases based on their decisions, which may also be referred to as the consumer's purchase intention, as recorded by Saad et al. The millennial consumers are more likely to purchase the brand, which celebrities endorse over various social media platforms, which also connects two dots, i.e., cultural and emotional values for a consumer.
Nowadays, the trends change within no time, i.e., the lifespan of a specific trend is between six weeks and three months. According to Sullivan & Heitmeyer, this changing fashion makes it difficult for the retailers to separate individuals from the Gen Y consumers accurately and fulfill the requirements, according to Sullivan & Heitmeyer. In today's era, fashion revolves around presenting yourself well in front of others. Fashion is majorly dependent on the ongoing trend, as stated by Eastman. If a fashion is out of trend, then the millennials will not budge to purchase the products. Hence, this consciousness also affects the purchasing behavior of Millennials.  [1]. This population is economically strong and active and hence considered a population of high consumption, as studied by Djamasbi et al., Parent. This generation is also considered well educated and technically literate, as recorded by Kraljević & Filipović, which will help us figure out the purchase intention in the best possible manner. Since technology boomed during the millennial generation, they have a fair idea about brands and the constructs related to them, according to Julianton. This generation's shopping style is very sophisticated as well, as stated by Wolburg and Pokrywczynski. All these characteristics of millennials make them a suitable target for brands to pitch their products through various means, as observed by Fajariah et al. This generation is said to purchase products that might include their personal and social values, as researched by Hwang & Griffiths. The loyal millennials like to touch, smell, and pick up; hence they must always be treated appropriately by brands, as in an evaluator study by Fromm & Garton [2].

Fast fashion brands
India has seen a considerable boom in the fast fashion industry in recent years; this is because people accept change in their fashion and are evolving to the changing marketplace, as studied by Barnes and Lea-Greenwood. Retailers have strategized to introduce apparel in the fast fashion sector to introduce new products quickly, as recorded by Byun & Sternquist. Customers wanting continuous change and desiring new products has led the fast fashion industry to boom in recent years, according to Gabrielli et al. Fast fashion brands are generally manufactured in developing countries. Hence, they have the advantage of low labor and manufacturing cost, as stated by Saes et al. Millennials, who have a tremendous desire to convey their personalities, frequently purchase expensive stylish clothes to gain individuality and thereby prevent comparison with others in terms of fashion and clothing, as observed by Bhaduri & Stanforth; Shukla, albeit the fact that individual's interest decreases for a brand the brand is more sought after, as researched by Shukla [3].

Social influence
Data on social control was analyzed under the impact of the bandwagon (and other similar principles, such as social evidence and herd behavior, which is a social occurrence representing one's tendency to stick to others' activities, in any event, when one's private information recommends in any case. For instance, given the choice of two comparable food joints, individuals will participate in general pick the one with more footfall or sales, as in an evaluator study by Kuan et al. In many cultures, fashion apparel has always been used as a development of social and economic value, as studied by Hansen and McCracken. Millennials always look for a brand that enhances their image, as recorded by Noble, Haytko, and Phillips [4]. People ought to re-interpret the essence of the ideas given by family, social groups, etc., which are important to them. According to Wood & Hayes, the re-interpretations are borne out of positive or negative self-relevant groups. Owners or buyers also have a sense of social rank, wealth. A positive sense of power or ability to buy, as stated by Ihtiyar et al. Modern values tend to differ from context to context; they are encouraged by personal characteristics, organizational knowledge, and social characteristics, as observed by V. Jain et al. Although the role of fashion apparel in Western societies has been well-studied, few studies have been undertaken to explore its position in emerging economies, such as India, as researched by Shukla et al., Zhang, and Kim [5].

Brand promotions
Brand promotion is an important part of strategies in marketing. Since it has been vividly discussed, it is further important for marketers and researchers to know how consumer perception might change due to brand promotions. In addition, a buyer's decision to buy a particular item from a brand generally depends on the brand name, price, product quality, ambiance of the store, promotions, etc [6]. Promotion is a key factor in deciding buying behavior because its objective is to make people aware of the brand. It is the way to gain buyer's attention towards the incentive the brands provide. However, quite a few researchers have had observations that led them to conclude that sometimes price promotions as a constituent of brand promotions might harm the brand. They give rise to stockpiling, brand switching, etc., as in an evaluator study by Nagar. In-store promotions carried a positive impact and were effective for buyers, as studied by Levy & Gendel-Guterman. Brand promotions had sensitivity towards the prices over a longer period. The association with brands increased over time, as promotions became more relevant, as recorded by Mela et al. Any decision to step away from brand marketing will reduce market share as rivals pursue their trade promotions. Over time this leads to the 'prisoner's dilemma' effect, according to Maxwell et al [7].

Emotion and cognition
Emotion can be termed as a potential component that cites the anticipation of the feelings towards a particular behavior, as stated by Godin. The component emotion and cognition here refers to the perception, thoughts, reliance, trust, and judgments associated with a particular brand or product, as observed by Fernandes & Ao. About environment psychology, environmental factors act as an external stimulus to the feelings or emotions associated, as researched by Kawaf & Tagg. Pleasure and arousal are two important characteristics that can affect consumers' sense of buying based on some environmental factors, as recorded by Das & Varshneya. Shopping is often considered a delightful or an enjoyable experience for millennials, i.e., hedonistic people do not consider shopping as a sheer waste of time, according to Gia Vuong & Tan Nguyen. Researches on materialism have found that buyers achieve pleasure by relying on luxury things that make them feel stronger, as stated by Clark et al [8].
According to researchers, the very first reaction of the consumers of a product is important. They have also acknowledged that various factors, such as shopping, advertising, and product consumption, influence consumers. Two points explain that emotion influences the consumers first; being the emotions a buyer deals with in a certain shopping environment [9]. Second is the techniques generally used in marketing to measure emotions, as stated by Karen and Sevgin. The emotional incentive brands give to the consumers had a large impact on consumers' beliefs, as observed by Julie A. Ruth [10].

Fashion consciousness
Some millennial consumers who tend to follow fashion and its trends are often attracted towards the latest development in the fashion industry, which, in turn, allows them to search and get information about the fast fashion industry, which means fashion conscious people will spend more time in shopping and search for new or fresh arrivals, as researched by Gia Vuong & Tan Nguyen. Fashion-conscious buyers prefer to buy from stores that are high quality and have the latest stock, as in an evaluator study by Eastman [11]. Fashion-conscious people seek pleasure in keeping themselves updated with the latest trends, as studied by Walsh, Mitchell, and Henning-Thurau. Socially conscious consumers continue to be very careful with how they look and dress up, as recorded by Quoquab et al [12]. The fast fashion brands have a trend to introduce new stocks and varieties within few weeks of their launch. Hence, generation Y people are more likely to seek different things; however, they are more materialistic and open to new trends, as studied by Colucci and Scarpi [13]. This generation wants to look fashionable and have their own identity, as in an evaluator study by Gia Vuong & Tan Nguyen [14]. On social media, there is much content on new clothing regarding fashion and style patterns that affect the reception of new fashion products. Fashion-conscious buyers are anticipated to discover this type of material, and hence more often than not, inspired to visit fast-fashion retailers, as studied by Michaela & Orna [15].

Ethnic and cultural influence
Culture impacts personal values and the individual lifestyle, "which in turn is reflected in consumer behavior, as in an evaluator study by de Mooij and Hofstede. " Predominantly, culture is concerned with utilizing two important traits; exchanged and acquired, as researched by Fischer, based on which, "culture can also be defined as the rich complex of meanings, beliefs, practices, symbols, norms, and values prevalent among people in a society, " as observed by Schwartz. Cultural and its related cohorts have a significant impact on the purchasing intention of a person, as stated by Khan et al., Zhang et al., and Gupta. An individual can have several social identities that correlate to the association in a social/peer group (e.g., religion, ethnic group, and nationality) [16]. Such influences vary in strength and distinct social circumstances, thereby affecting how an individual feels, thinks, and behaves based on his family, personal, ethnicity, or national "level of self, " as observed by Tajfel and Turner. Cultural and ethnic influence as a factor of fast fashion in millennials in the Indian subcontinent has not yet been widely researched. This paper is aimed at providing a basic understanding of this construct as a factor.

Purchase intention
"Purchase intention can be defined as a person' s location on a subjective probability dimension involving a relationship between himself and some action, as researched by Fishbein and Ajzen. " However, there are plenty of papers that established that a person' s buying behavior might change depending upon the brand, alternatives, environment of the store, etc., as observed by Jing [17].
The decision to purchase is one of the essential aspects discussed in the marketing domain of business. It holds a correlation with buying behavior the most. A certain number of brand features have a major influence on the customer's purchasing intention. We have, in this paper, tried to focus on some factors and hence study their relational attribute towards millennials buying behavior.
2 Proposed frameworks H0: There is no effect of Social influence, emotion and cognition, ethnic and cultural influence, fashion consciousness, and brand communications on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands H1: There is an effect of social influence on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands H2: There is an effect of emotion and cognition on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands.
H3: There is an effect of ethnic and cultural influence on millennials on fast fashion brands.
H4: There is an effect of fashion consciousness on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands.
H5: There is an effect of Brand communications of millennials on fast fashion brands.
Based on the study, Figure 1 shows the framework. Following are the hypothesis hence proposed: 3 Research methodologies

Research population and sample
The sample population who are active fast fashion users were given a choice to choose from the brands they have actively been buying. The brands were Zara, H&M, Forever 21, GAP, UCB, Urban Outfitters, and Topshop.
The sample population consists of millennials who use the above-mentioned brands. The fact that they are interested in upgrading their wardrobes was kept in mind while asking them for their responses.
The sampling method used here was snowball sampling. The respondents were requested to refer their peers and were informed that the study was only conducted for research purposes. The number of valid responses collected was 259. Email and professional networking sites were used to collect the responses.

Research questionnaire and data collection
Based on existing and standardized scales used in previous research and studies, a formal questionnaire was created based on the constructs. The form was floated amongst the target audience for this research. The scale had three parts: • Demographics (name, age, and gender) • Brand choices • Constructs, dependent variable, as social influence, brand promotions, emotion, cognition, fashion consciousness, and cultural & ethnic influence, are dependent variables, whereas purchase intention is the dependent variable. A five-point Likert scale from range 1 to 5 was developed (1= strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) to use for this research. A pilot study with 25 respondents was initially conducted to check the questionnaire. It hence was revised and rectified based on the feedback. Professors who actively publish papers also reviewed the questionnaire as shown in Table 1.

Reliability and validity
The validity of the questionnaire was scrutinized through Cronbach's alpha test. The cut-off here was kept at 60%. The following Table 2 depicts the reliability based on the test.

Demographics
The total number of people who responded to the questionnaire was 285 millennials, out of which 259 turned out to be fast fashion users; 26 responses were not considered for further review, as they were not fast fashion users. Around 52% of the total population was male respondents and 48% female respondents as shown in Table 3.
Under the specified choices given to the population, H&M had the highest user count of 186. At the same time, the second-highest was UCB, with a count of 176. There were considerable users for Zara, GAP, and Forever 21 as well.

Descriptive statistics
For the research, descriptive analysis in IBM SPSS, including both mean and standard deviation (SD), was carried out. The mean ranged between 9.42 and 17.55 amongst different factors, and the deviation varied from 2.492 to 3.847 as shown in Table 4 Brand communications gave the highest mean of 17.55 with a mean of 3.071. Additionally, purchase intention with a deviation of 3.847 was highest, with a mean of 12.14.

Factor analyses
The KMO sampling adequacy test and Bartlett's Sphericity test were used to determine the suitability of the factor model. KMO is a metric that shows the proportion of variance in the variables due to the underlying factors. The high value of these statistics indicates the appropriateness of factor analysis. Table 5 indicates statistics for KMO estimated as 0.808, which in turn indicates adequate sampling, and no remedial action is required as such.  Bartlett's test of sphericity tells us whether the population and correlation matrix is an identity matrix. This table shows that the chi-square statistics is 1758.301 with a degree of freedom 231. The significance level is at 0.00; both the KMO and Bartlett's tests indicate the appropriateness of the factor analysis model.

Hypothesis testing
For statistical analysis of the hypotheses established for the research, multiple regressions were used to analyze the impact of social influence, emotion and cognition, ethnic and cultural influence, fashion consciousness, and brand communications on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands. Tables 6 and Table 7 represent the multiple regression analysis results of social influence on purchase intention; the findings indicated substantial and positive social influence on purchase intention for fast fashion brands. It is evident from the results that the social influence variable elucidates 42.3 percent of the variation in purchase intention, and beta is 0.650, at a significance level of 0.000. Hence, these output back H1.
H1: There is an effect of social influence on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands H2: There is an effect of emotion and cognition on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands. Tables 8 and Table 9 represent the multiple regression analysis results of emotion and cognition on purchase intention; the findings indicated substantial and positive effects of emotion and cognition on purchase intention for fast fashion brands. It is evident from the results that the emotion and cognition variable elucidates 31.8 percent of the variation in purchase intention, and beta is 0.564, at a significance level of 0.000. Hence, these output back H2. H3: There is an effect of ethnic and cultural influence on millennials on fast fashion brands. Tables 10 and Table 11 represent the multiple regression analysis results of ethnic and cultural influence on purchase intention; the findings indicated substantial and positive effects of ethnic and cultural influence on purchase intention for fast fashion brands. It is evident from the results that the ethnic and cultural variable elucidates 36.7 percent of the variation in purchase intention, and beta is 0.258, at a significance level of 0.000. Hence, these output back H3.
H4: There is an effect of fashion consciousness on the purchase intention of millennials on fast fashion brands. Tables 12 and Table 13 represent the multiple regression analysis results of fashion consciousness on purchase intention; the findings indicated substantial and positive effects of fashion consciousness on pur-chase intention for fast fashion brands. It is evident from the results that the brand communications variable elucidates 24.5 percent of the variation in purchase intention, and beta is 0.495, at a significance level of 0.000. Hence, these findings support H5.
H5: There is an effect of brand communications of millennials on fast fashion brands. Tables 14 and Table 15 represent the multiple regression analysis results of brand communications on purchase intention; the findings indicated substantial and positive effects of brand consciousness on purchase intention for fast fashion brands. It is evident from the results that the brand communications variable elucidates 24.7 percent of the variation in purchase intention, and beta is 0.497, at a significance level of 0.000. Hence, these findings support H5. Table 16, Table 17 and Table 18 represents the relationship between SI, EC, ECI, FC, BC, and Purchase   Table  16 comes out to be 0.518, which indicates that 51% variation in the dependent variable, i.e., purchase intention, is caused by the independent constructs. It is also evident from the table that SI, EC, FC, and BC have less than 0.05 impacts purchase intention significantly more than ECI, which has a significant level of more than 0.05. The standardized Beta of SI and EC indicate that they have the strongest effect on purchase intention. When the Variance Inflation Factor's (VIF) value is more than 10 or when the tolerance value is below 0.2 or both the conditions hold, this indicates that there is multi-Collinearity in the model. However, in this case, as in Table 18, VIF values are close to 2, and tolerance values are also in the acceptance range. Thus, there exists no multi-Collinearity.

Multiple regressions
We accept the alternative hypotheses and fail to accept the null hypothesis.

Managerial implications
As the millennials in India are a huge market segment, it is important to study their buying patterns and behavior, which will help the companies reach out to the correct audience and hence develop the right strategies of marketing. Academic researchers can take out variable inputs from the constructs taken in this research to study the purchase intention concerning millennials. Since this market and its product for Indian millennials are relatively new, studying them must be distinct and not like the usual fashion market.

Conclusion and scope for future research
The results from the research conducted above show us that many factors are integral to a consum-er's (here millennials) buying behavior and purchase intention. Further study on how particularly each factor's dependency can be taken into consideration in detail in future. The importance of store ambiance, value for money, time, and shopping motives can be studied concerning Indian millennials.
With the technology burgeoning, it is also important that online buying behavior and hence the buying behavior is studied. Sustainable fashion is a booming clothing market with the potential to grow, consumption and production trends will make the fast fashion sector more sustainable.
As fast fashion retailing has a lifecycle of its own, like every other retail form, various phases of the lifecycle must be checked and measured in a cross-market. We require further research to know the purchase intention with similar principles, such as anti-consumption, ecological use, convenience at will, and slow fashion.