A Study on the Pattern of Wholesale and Retail Consumer Behavior in Dongdaemoon Market about the Outsourced Products in Foreign Countries

동대문시장 도.소매소비자의 구매행동 - 해외 아웃소싱 상품을 중심으로 -

This article aims to identify the current status of outsourced production of Dongdaemun brands and to discover the consumers' perception of those outsourced products, their degree of satisfaction, and preference in purchasing those products. Moreover, the strengths and weaknesses of the outsourced products, as perceived by the consmers, have been identified, and specific methods and directions for efficient overseas outsourcing of Dongdaemun brands are suggested. This study also contains experimental works, in which I have prepared questionnaires, and my advisor have collected data. This survey was conducted on corporation managers, who directly operated clothing stores in Dongdaemun Market in December 2007. The collected data have been analyzed using SPSS 12.0 with various techniques such as t-test, paired t-test, frequency analysis and $X^2$-test. The results are summarized as the following: a) Comparison of the current outsourcing status of Dongdaemun brands showed that only eight out of the total 42 investigated companies have actually been outsourcing the production of their clothes. The biggest advantage of outsourcing was the reduced unit production cost, while low quality of products, delayed production, difficulty of control and management were shown as its disadvantages; b) the reason for purchasing clothes in Dongdaemun Market was to buy various clothing products. Comparing these reasons among different groups showed that there was a significant discrepancy in terms of trend design and copy design, in which wholesale consumers had shown a higher degree than retail consumers; c) and the preference for outsourced products of Dongdaemun brands was negative in both wholesale consumers (71.05%) and retail consumers (83.54%), as they both prefer clothes manufactured in Korea. Both groups selected the expensive price as the biggest disadvantage of Korean products, and picked design as the biggest strength of the outsourced clothes. Furthennore, both wholesale consumers (63.16%) and retail consumers (74.68%) selected Italy as the most preferred country for outsourcing clothing production. in which their reason had been their expectation for good product quality. The least preferred country for both wholesale (47.37%) and retail (50.63%) consumers was China, a country which they expected poor product quality.