Perceived Value and Approach Behaviors toward AI Fashion Design: Focusing on the Willingness to Pay a Price Premium and Word-of-Mouth

This study sought to explore the perceived value of AI-designed clothing and its impact on consumer attitudes toward products and approach behaviors, such as the willingness to pay (WTP) a price premium and word-of-mouth (WOM) intention. Specifically, it examined consumers' perceived values (i.e., quality·functional value, emotional value, and behavioral price value) for AI-designed clothing. Additionally, it investigated the moderating role of gender differences. Data were collected through an online survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants viewed a video demonstrating an AI system creating various clothing designs before responding to a series of questions. A total of 314 respondents completed the survey. The collected data were analyzed using the AMOS 26.0 software for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The SEM results indicated that quality·functional and emotional values positively influenced product attitudes, which enhanced WTP a price premium and WOM intention. However, the behavioral price value had no significant effect on product attitudes. Furthermore, the PROCESS Macro was used to assess the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between perceived value and product attitudes. While the interaction between quality·functional value and gender did not significantly influence product attitudes, the effects of emotional and behavioral price values on product attitudes were gender-dependent. For both male and female consumers, the quality·functional value of AI-designed clothing led to enhanced WTP a price premium and WOM intentions. However, emotional and behavioral price values appeared to be more crucial for increasing the approach behaviors of male rather than female consumers.