Copyright by Ekaterina Mikhailovna Konovalova 2010 The Report Committee for Ekaterina Mikhailovna Konovalova Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Testing consumer preferences for men's clothing (on the example of Skidmark underwear) APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Gary Wilcox Kapil Jain Testing consumer preferences for men's clothing (on the example of Skidmark underwear) by Ekaterina Mikhailovna Konovalova, B.A., M.A. Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2010 Abstract Testing consumer preferences for men's clothing (on the example of Skidmark underwear) Ekaterina Mikhailovna Konovalova, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: Gary Wilcox This paper examines consumer preferences regarding men’s underwear and aimed to assist the owner of the Skidmark brand with recommendations how to improve existing product and to extend product portfolio. Primary and secondary data was used in this study to overview the industry and to identify market trends and consumers preferences. Two data collection activities are discussed, ten one-on-one interviews and one focus group which revealed consumer’s reactions and feedback regarding Skidmark exciting and proposed products. Recommendations for production, price and promotion are given; limitations of the study discussed. iv Table of Contents List of Exhibits...................................................................................................... vii Introduction ……………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1 Product Overview and Rationale for the Study .....................................2 Chapter 2 Background and Industrial Data.............................................................4 E-Commerce Competitive Review ...............................................................10 Chapter 3 Research Method, Design, and Proposed Analysis..............................17 Chapter 4 Findings................................................................................................19 Implications...................................................................................................28 Chapter 5 Conclusion, Recommendations and Limitations..................................33 Limitations ....................................................................................................34 Appendix A 37 Appendix B 38 Appendix C 41 Appendix D 42 Bibliography 99 Vita 101 v List of Exhibits Exhibit 1: The most popular US brands of male underwear and percentage of men who bought at least one pair within 12 months in 2008 .....................5 Exhibit 2: Percent of Purchase Occurrences of Non Hanes, Fruit and Loom or Jockey underwear among US males, Mintel (Dec. 2008) ..................6 Exhibit 3: Percent of Total Purchase Occurrences in Specialty Stores/ Internet/ Direct Mail or Other............................................................................7 Exhibit 4: Where men's underwear purchased, by gender, September 2008, source Mintel, base: 1,422 adults aged 18+ with internet access who bought men's underwear in the past 12 months ..............................................7 Exhibit 5: Number of men’s underwear items purchased, by age, April 2007-June 2008.....................................................................................................8 Exhibit 6: Number of pairs of men's underwear purchased, by age, September 2008 .............................................................................................................8 Exhibit 7: Reasons to purchase male underwear by gender ................................9 Exhibit 8: Monthly visits in the U.S. for the last twelve months of www.hanes.com ...........................................................................................................10 Exhibit 9: U.S. online demographics, www.hanes.com ....................................11 Exhibit 10: Monthly visits in the U.S. for the last twelve months of www.jockey.com ..............................................................................12 Exhibit 11: U.S. online demographics, www.jockey.com...................................12 Exhibit 12: Monthly visitors in the U.S. for the last 12months of www.fruit.com ...........................................................................................................13 Exhibit 13: U.S. online demographics, www. fruit.com......................................13 Exhibit 14: Monthly visitors in the U.S. for the last twelve months of www.spencersonline.com .................................................................14 Exhibit 15: U.S. online demographics, www. spencersonline.com.....................15 Exhibit 16: Monthly visitors in the U.S. for the last twelve months of www.aussiebum.com ........................................................................16 Exhibit 17: U.S. online demographics, www.aussiebum.com.............................16 Exhibit 18: Skidmark Ego-Booster, long yellow measure tape...........................19 Exhibit 19: Skidmark Ego-Booster, plain ruler design........................................19 Exhibit 20: Current Skidmark boxer briefs..........................................................20 vi Introduction The following paper examines consumer preferences for men's clothing on the example of Skidmark underwear. Chapter one has a background information about the product and rationale to conduct this study. Chapter two contains marketing data about consumer shopping habits, brand preferences, frequency of male underwear purchases and reasons to buy. In addition, this chapter includes an e-commerce competitive review for the major underwear brands in the U.S. such as Hanes, Fruit in the Loom, and Jockey, a popular brand in American gay community Aussiebum, and an overview of the website and online demographics of one of the largest novelty chain of stores, Spencer’s. Chapter three talks about design and methodology of the study. Chapter four reflects the findings from the interviews and focus group supported by the quotes of the participants. Chapter five provides recommendations for production, positioning, price, and promotion strategies for Skidmark underwear. In addition, limitations and implications for the future research are discussed in this chapter. 1 Chapter 1 - Product Overview and Rationale for the Study For many years people have lived with stains in their underwear that even the best detergent is unable to remove. It is especially relevant to the male underwear products since female consumer market has a plethora of hygienic products preventing women’s underwear from stains. According to the laundry habits survey by Coin Laundry Association (2005), 70 percent of respondents who said they were solely responsible for the household laundry chore were women and only eight percent said they shared the job equally. In addition, multiple studies identified that women have better hygiene habits than man including bathing (Cohen-Mansfield and Jensen, 2005), washing hands (Harris Interactive, 2005), and mouth care habits (Almas et al., 2003). Men tend to pay less attention to routine house chores including laundry and inevitably have conflicting perspectives with the opposite sex. As Stephen Fried expressed men’s psychology in his “Husbandry” book, “What I would never tell her, of course, is that while I really don’t remember that I shouldn’t let my socks decorate the floor, I also don’t really care. Sure, I care that matters to her. But to be perfectly frank, I doubt I’m going to really care myself or even understand why it matters to her. When it comes to socks or dishes, Diane knows I prefer a good, messy pileup and, after a week (or month) or so, a really good cleaning. For situations where bacteria and decay aren’t involved, well, what’s wrong with tidying up once a year?” (Fried, 2007, p. 3). Nevertheless, these hygiene habits often result in embarrassment than men experience when their intimate partners discover stains on underwear. Skidmark was designed to solve this delicate problem for men and disguise stains on underwear lining. 2 Currently, there is only one boxer briefs design available on the market with size range from S (Small) to XXL (Double Extra Large) for adult males and S (Small) to L (Large) for boys. Skidmark company plans to expand product portfolio and will need to define consumer preferences of male underwear, as well as to determine what factors affect purchase decisions, what distribution channels preferred by Skidmark target audience, who makes the actual purchase, how often men buy underwear and what are the most important characteristics of the underwear for Skidmark consumers. In addition, Skidmark plans to launch one new design of boxer briefs for adult men. Therefore, the purpose of this report is to test the reaction of Skidmark target audience on proposed designs, collect feedback regarding designs and methods of promotion and recommend the most popular design for production, price, and future promotion methods. 3 Chapter 2 - Background and Industrial Data Men’s underwear is a very stable, $5billion industry (Mintel, 2008). Thus, sales for the men’s underwear category grew from $4.2 billion in 2003 to an estimated $4.9 billion in 2008, yet when inflation is taken into account, category sales declined by 2%. Based on the data from U.S. Census Bureau's Economic Censuses, Annual Retail