Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

 

Home sewers' and fabric store managers' expectations of fabric store sales personnel's product knowledge, education, and experience Public Deposited

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  • Previous research suggests that fabric store customers are not satisfied with the service provided in fabric stores. According to the EBM consumer behavior model (Engle, Blackwell, Miniard, 1986) and Oliver's consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction model (1981), fabric store customers' dissatisfaction may be a result of their unfulfilled service expectations. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the expectations Oregon home sewers and managers of Oregon fabric stores have of fabric store sales personnel's product knowledge, education related to sewing and textiles, and sewing and sales experience. Two facets of the term "expectation" were investigated: 1) what was considered probable or certain and 2) what was considered reasonable, due or necessary (Webster, 1977, p. 402). The two samples used in the present study were home sewers and fabric store managers. Home sewer subjects were systematically drawn from a list of recipients of "Oregon Extension Homemakers Council News" in Oregon (n=502). The fabric store manager sample was all fabric stores listed in the yellow pages under the heading of "fabric shops" in Oregon telephone directories (n=195). Self administered questionnaires for the two samples were developed, pretested, and implemented following a modification of the Total Design Method (Dillman, 1978). Questions in the home sewer questionnaire asked respondents about the service they received on their last visit to a fabric store; their estimations of the average fabric store sales personnel's product knowledge, sewing and sales experience, and sewing and textile related education; their desired product knowledge and sewing and sales experience for fabric sales personnel; the sources of education related to sewing and textile they considered important for sales personnel; and their demographic characteristics. A total of 379 questionnaires were returned for a response rate of 79 percent. Of the questionnaires received, 258 were completed by home sewers and included in the analysis. The questions in the fabric store managers questionnaire corresponded to the questions in the home sewers questionnaire, as well as including questions regarding the demographic characteristics of the store. Eighty-two questionnaires were completed and returned by the fabric store managers, resulting in a response rate of 66 percent. The data gathered using these questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive statistics. A consumer expectation matrix was developed and used to estimate percentages of home sewers who had desires greater than, less than, or equal to the characteristics home sewers considered probable for fabric store sales personnel. It was found that home sewers in the present sample believed that fabric store sales personnel did not have the characteristics they desired. When comparing the characteristics home sewers considered probable and desirable of fabric store sales personnel to managers' estimations of fabric store sales personnel's characteristics, it was shown that sales personnel, according to their managers, have higher levels of sewing and sales experience and product knowledge than home sewers expect. Fabric sales personnel's sewing and sales experience and product knowledge also fulfilled management expectations. The consumer and management desires that sales personnel could not meet were sources of education related to sewing and textiles utilized.
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Déclaration de droits
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  • File scanned at 300 ppi (Monochrome) using Capture Perfect 3.0.82 on a Canon DR-9080C in PDF format. CVista PdfCompressor 4.0 was used for pdf compression and textual OCR.
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