Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

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Hi,

Just to get you started, I heard the following limitations of psychographic research:

1) reliability issues: often unclear what the power is to predict consumer behavior reliably; absence of standard methods to evaluate the stability of the results over time
2) unable to be projected onto an entire population (Gunter, 1992)
3) cost: upwards of $50,000 (Weinstein, 1994)
4) often puts consumers in overlapping segments to the extent that the research does not differentiate among consumers.
5) need to be supplemented with demographics to make the psychographic segmentation actionable (e.g. to redefine the psychographic segments in terms of demographics that can be targeted by marketing campaigns)
6) needs to be supplemented with customer behavioral data, which is often by itself a better predictor of future behavior

i would say one of the main limitations of using psychography for the clothing industry or any industry is that many parts of a profile might have nothing to do with shopping behavior.

For example a person being either introverted or extroverted may have absolutely no impact on their clothing style.