SEGMENTATION OF PROFILES OF CHILDREN CLOTHING CONSUMPTION AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH STYLISH AND SPORTS ACTION

Abstract

This article aims at identifying the profile of consumers of action and adventure sports and its association with children’s clothing desire, purchase and use. The documental research and the exploratory study – consisted of in-depth interviews with product managers – have enabled the identification of four main adventure sports: surf, skating, the nature radical sports (rappel and climbing) and the virtual sports (video and computer games). Subsequently, a quantitative study was carried out with 1184 children from ten different neighborhoods of rich and peripheral areas of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas and Santos. For the analysis of the results, three techniques were applied for measuring the consumption segments:  Q factor analysis, hierarchical cluster and K-means cluster, which have identified three distinct groups: the "boys from Rio" (predominantly in the southern area of Rio de Janeiro), the boys from the peripheral areas (thus called for being predominant in peripheral areas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) and those who are pleased by "whatever passion". While the first group identifies mostly with surf and nature, the boys from the peripheral areas identify with surf and skating. The latter group, in its turn, identifies indistinctly with the three sports. The results of this study can help producers and retailers to understand the criteria used by the consumers to select and buy children´s clothes and thus to offer and communicate a better assortment of products, accordingly to the place they are sold. Findings suggest that  market segmentation is an important instrument to promote a better product assortment allocation for children apparel, since, beside age groups,  lifestyle and geo-demographic aspects must be considered.