Consumers’ perceived benefits, barriers and opportunities on technology driven fashion marketing

Purpose This study aims to account for the perceived benefits that emerging technologies in the fashion industry offer, barriers which are obstacles that impede the adoption of these technologies and opportunities for the practitioners to decrease the barriers and increase the perceived benefits of emerging technologies as means (i.e. metaverse, artificial intelligence and augmented reality) in the fashion industry by exploring consumers’ values, perceptions, experiences and attitudes toward these technologies in fashion marketing. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a theoretical framework combining means-end chain theory and Schwartz’s value theory to examine how individual values shape consumers’ responses to emerging technologies in fashion. In the research, semistructured interviews were conducted with 29 individuals in Turkiye with diverse demographic and attitudinal backgrounds, and the data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings The findings reveal that consumers perceive emerging technologies in the fashion industry as beneficial for their convenience, efficiency and innovative features, which are consequently associated with their hedonistic, self-directional and stimulative values. In contrast, perceived barriers were mainly linked to intangible apprehensions such as personal, psychological, societal, cultural and privacy-related concerns. These were categorized as barriers triggering consumers’ values such as security, universalism, conformity, benevolence and tradition. Based on these perceived benefits and barriers, opportunities for professionals were also obtained. Consumers tended to express cooperative suggestions, which would increase the level of perceived benefits while decreasing the perceived personal risks. Originality/value This study presents a value-based interpretive framework that explains consumer responses to fashion technologies by linking concrete technological features to underlying personal values. Additionally, the paper’s findings contribute to the industry’s well-coordinated, broadly examined and actionable opportunities, which are crucial for market insights for fashion professionals.