Keeping in touch with millennials: How millennial consumers handle the inability to touch clothes when shopping online

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to research how millennial consumers currently use and perceive available means of overcoming the inability to touch clothing products when shopping online as well as how they view relevant future innovations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds on a set of 10 observations and in-depth interviews from millennial consumers in Sweden and adopts an exploratory approach aimed at understanding the relationship between preference for touch and possible means of overcoming the inability to touch clothing products when shopping online. Findings and discussions – The findings highlight how visual and textual information, peer influence, cross-channel shopping behaviors, brands, and return policies emerge as an integral part of compensating for the inability to touch clothing products when shopping online. Originality/value – Very few qualitative studies in e-commerce have focused on touch- preference and touch-compensation when consumers shop online, especially concerning Swedish millennial consumers. The present study fills this gap with an overview of how such consumers overcome the inability to touch when shopping clothing products online.