Gülden Turhan, *Ahmet Özbek

Factors Affecting Consumers’ Behavioural Intention Towards Apparel Stores: A Test of the Mediating Role of Brand Satisfaction
Abstract The research studied the factors that affect consumers’ behavioural intention towards apparel stores. Three different aspects of behavioural intention were examined: consumers’ purchase intention (PI), willingness to pay more (WPAY), and brand recommendation (RECM). Specifically the authors propose a model in which consumer satisfaction with the store brand mediates the effects of attitude towards sales personnel and the convenience of the store’s payment conditions or options on PI, WPAY, and RECM. The relationships hypothesized in the model were tested using two apparel store brands familiar to consumers in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. All findings were in favour of the model proposed for both apparel store brands studied, which were either a sample of men or women. Key words: satisfaction, willingness to pay more, purchase intention, recommendation, payment conditions, attitude towards sales personnel.

Marmara University, Faculty of Technical Education, Department of Textile Goztepe/Kadıkoy, 34722, Istanbul, Turkey E-mail: gturhan@marmara.edu.tr *Sinop University, Gerze Vocational High School, Department of Textile Samsun-Sinop Karayolu uzeri Ataturk Mah., 57600, Sinop, Turkey E-mail: ahmetozbek@sinop.edu.tr

GENERAL PROBLEMS OF THE FIBRE AND TEXTILE INDUSTRIES

n Introduction
To date, a vast amount of researchers have studied consumer satisfaction as a crucial driver of consumers’ behavioural outcomes that comes in different forms, i.e. word-of-mouth or recommend to others, repurchase intention, willingness to pay more or price premium/tolerance etc. Increases in their PI, WPAY and RECM could be provided by enhancing the factors making consumers more satisfied with the store. In addition,