What Do Chinese Fashion Consumers Talk about when They Talk about Fashion?: Exploring Diffusion of Innovation in a Networked Information Economy

Fashion and the Networked Information Economy

Fashion is as much concerned with the creative aspects of designing new fashion goods as it is with determining what is in style for a given season. It is in the latter sense that the fashion industry can be said to have entered a new phase in the era of online technology and the Internet.

As this quotation suggests it is new Internet-enabled ‘communities of consumers’ who are currently responsible for a new wave of fashion innovation. Through the routine exchange of information and communications online, consumers are now able to influence fashion tastes, and to an extent influence the direction of fashion trends. This influence can be observed directly as consumers increasingly use the Internet, electronic forums, and social media to give their opinions about new fashion goods, and attempt to influence how other consumers will perceive the same goods. The influence can also be more indirect as companies capture and mine electronic purchasing data or otherwise analyze what consumers are saying about their fashion brands and products on social media sites.

This shift towards greater consumer influence has had an undoubted effect on how businesses design and implement their marketing communications. In a pre-Internet era companies would market to buyers via industry fashion events, e.g. shows, fashion weeks etc.; and would market to consumers via store displays and celebrity events. In addition a range of media including television, film, and magazines would be used to communicate word-of-mouth. In this marketing communications context consumers were predominantly viewed as the passive recipients of one-way communications and standardized fashion content. In a networked era these marketing communications methods continue; at the same time however the consumer also plays a much more active role in influencing the reception of fashion goods in the marketplace e.g. through opinions ratings and reviews. In summary, in a networked information economy, consumers have an opportunity not only to influence the design and manufacture of fashion goods but also to influence the reception of these goods, particularly through weak-tie peer interaction with other consumers. It is these new forms of peer interaction — in this instance between consumers — and their associated network effects which are becoming one of the new factors in determining market success (Foster, 2010).