Consumer choice for purchasing imported apparel goods and its effect on perceived saving in Debre Markos district, Amhara Ethiopia: A logistic regression analysis

Abstract Most consumers in developing countries are looking-out to purchasing apparel goods because of economic globalization. Consumers in developing countries usually associate high product prices with high quality; as a result, they need to purchase quality products at the going price. However, preferring to buy foreign-made goods hampers consumers’ saving pattern and downscales locally made apparel industries. Therefore, this study investigated the determinants of consumer preference for purchasing imported apparel goods and their effect on perceived savings in Debre Markos District, Ethiopia. The study was based on consumer survey data collected from 366 randomly chosen apparel shoppers in the district, and a binary logistic regression model was employed. The study indicated that about 77% of respondents are inclined to buy foreign-made apparel. The logistic regression model results also show that advertising, fashion style, peer group, social status, and preference, income, occupation, and education level have all positively contributed to the rise in demand for imported apparel. However, unreasonable prices are perceived to negatively affect the demand for imported apparel. It is also reported that buying imported apparel goods and their high price has a negative effect on consumers’ saving behaviour. Therefore, to improve consumer saving levels and revitalize the domestic apparel industry, it needs to be required to improve the competitiveness of product characteristics and advertising efforts.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Consumer preferences for foreign-made vs. domestically manufactured apparel have been recognized as important issues in the apparel industry. Preference for foreign-made goods affects the competitiveness of the apparel business along with consumer savings. This directly threatens the sustainability of local apparel industries. As a consequence, this study investigates the consumer preference for buying imported apparel products and its impact on perceived savings in the Debre Markos District, Ethiopia. The study indicated that about 77% of those surveyed favoured foreign-made apparel. Advertising, fashion style, peer group, social status, and preference have all contributed to the rise in demand for imported apparel. However, it is also revealed that, out of the complete sample surveyed, about 73% of the consumers affected their perceived savings due to buying foreign goods at a relatively high price. Therefore, to revitalize the apparel industry, improving the competitiveness of product characteristics and advertising efforts should be required.

Introduction
Economic globalization encourages increased economic interdependence among countries, primarily in the areas of trade, capital, and technology exchange. Countries, in this case, share their products with one another. If a country fails to conduct thorough checks, it may miss out on trade benefits. Because goods and services may flood from a country's market to the dominant countries, such a system slows local production. In the global era, consumers' attitudes towards product choices originating from foreign countries have been an emerging issue (Florent et al., 2014).
Ethiopia's government has prioritized the apparel and textile sectors to reap the benefits of free trade by creating jobs and increasing foreign currency revenues. This is supported by the establishment of various industry policies and incentives, such as encouraging FDI and allowing duty-free exports, as well as offering quality apparel goods to local consumers (Brautigam et al., 2015;Khurana & Ryabchykova, 2018;Staritz et al., 2016). Following international trade agreements (such as the World Trade Organization), Ethiopia joined the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in the early 2000s. Then, later, the textile and apparel industries started to grow, reaching 130 medium-and large-scale garment manufacturers in 2015. In complement to AGOA, the Ethiopian government established an AGOA Center under the Ministry of Trade with the goal of assisting Ethiopian firms in using this agreement (Khurana, 2018). According to ETIDI (2016), Ethiopia also has duty-free access to 16 countries, including Turkey, Switzerland, Russia, Norway, Japan, Australia, and others, and it is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), as well as duty-free access to the European Union and the United States, which are in the process of establishing trade for the textile and apparel sectors.
Consumers in developing nations, however, prefer imported apparel products as a result of globalization and the persistence of indirect economic colonization (Ifediora et al., 2017). Apparel imports from the United States, the Middle East, Asia, and China dominate the trade industry, posing a direct challenge to local brands as customers turn to purchasing branded imported products (Khurana & Tadesse, 2019). According to the National Bank of Ethiopia's annual report (NBE, 2020), the value of imported textiles and apparel would reach 29 billion birr in 2020. The same year's statistics indicate that the value of textile and textile product exports reached 6 billion birr. This evidence confirmed that there is a significant difference between import and export values, indicating a negative trade balance with regard to these items in particular, and the overall economy in general. Additionally, over the last five years, demand for leather and leather products has fallen from 2.4 billion in 2015/16 to 2.2 billion in 2019/20 due to a drop in export volume.
It has been argued that consumers in developed countries are concerned about the quality of apparel and prefer domestically produced apparel to imported clothing. Consumers in developing countries may prefer imported products from developed countries over locally produced goods because foreign products serve as a status symbol (Dulal & Islam, 2018;Ifediora et al., 2017;Imo & Maiyo, 2012). Ifediora et al. (2017) assure us that the impact of negative attitudes toward local products is diverse, affecting local industries, cultures, and the economy as a whole. According to the price-quality-value model (J.E. Lee & Chen-Yu, 2018), purchasing higher-priced apparel products implies greater sacrifice (paying more) and higher value, which might threaten the consumers' saving behaviour.
The growing use of global markets and the advancement of information technology make it easier for Debre Markos City residents to purchase products imported from other nations. The major apparel shopping malls in town dominate foreign items, and most buyers choose to buy imported products rather than locally made ones. Despite being of equivalent quality and pricing, the researcher observed that imported products are more popular than locally produced ones. Most customers also associated high prices with high quality and value, which may have hampered their purchasing power. As a result, consumer savings may suffer. There has also been little or no study on the factors that influence consumers' purchase decisions for imported and locally produced apparel goods in the study area. This is what encouraged the researcher to investigate the determinants of Ethiopian consumer choice of imported apparel goods and their effect on perceived savings. As a result, the purpose of this study was to investigate empirically the factors influencing a consumer's choice in purchasing imported clothing products and to assess their influence on perceived savings. Thus, this study is intended to address a huge need, and it may be extremely useful for governments in terms of trade policies and plans for reviving the nation's economy.

Literature review
Apparel consumers in developing countries, including Ethiopia, need to maximize their utility by consuming both foreign-made and locally-made apparel goods. However, the consumers' choice of buying foreign-made and locally-made or both goods is influenced by a variety of factors. Various studies have been undertaken across nations that determine the consumer's choice of apparel goods. For example, Ismail et al. (2012) in Pakistan; J.E. Lee and Chen-Yu (2018) in the United States; Florent et al. (2014) in Tanzania; Kaur and Malik (2015) in India; Ergin and Akbay (2010) in Turkey; Dulal and Islam (2018) in Bangladesh; Nyarunda (2016) in Kenya; Naseem et al. (2015) in Pakistan; Ifediora et al. (2017) in Nigeria; Sanad (2016) in Egypt; Shafi and Madhavaiah (2014) in India;and Palma et al. (2016) in China. Based on the empirical findings of these studies, quality, social status, fashion trend, advertisement, brand image, preference, peer influence, income, education, age, good fit, durability, and comfort are the major factors that influence the consumer's attitude towards imported and branded apparel goods. Only one author, such as Khurana and Tadesse (2019), reviews the relevance of second hand clothing in Ethiopia. The descriptive statistics indicate that quality, durability, price discount, gender, and age affect the consumer's purchase decision of second-hand clothing. But, beyond this, apparel consumers also purchase new foreign-made brands to the best of the researcher's knowledge. However, in both cases, no research was found in the literature indicating the consumer's choice decision of buying imported and domestically produced apparel goods in Ethiopia, where the domestic apparel market seems dominated by imported apparel brands. Table 1 is an overview of the empirical findings of past studies on the factors affecting consumers' choice decisions. The key elements influencing a consumer's choice, as shown in Table 1 below, may be classified as personal, social, and psychologically related factors. Education, peer pressure, advertising, and occupation are all social factors, while age, sex, and education are part of personal factors. Besides, preference, quality, price, social status, and fashion style were part of psychologically related variables.
Despite this, all of the reviewed literature lacks appropriate model estimation. Most of the papers have used descriptive analysis. Additionally, the determinants of consumer choice between imported and domestically produced apparel goods have not been researched so far, and many millions of apparel consumers in developing countries prefer to buy foreign-made goods. Moreover, it is clear that the income of developing countries is flooding out to purchase imported goods at higher prices, which reduces consumers' saving pattern. But, the effect of consumer choice of buying imported brands on consumers' saving was also absent in the literature. As a result, this study examined the determinants of consumer choice decisions about buying imported apparel goods and their effect on perceived savings in Debre Markos Metropolian city, Ethiopia.  Figure 1 depicts the conceptual framework of the study, as well as the important variables involved and how they were connected.

Research design
The determinants of consumer choices between domestically produced and imported apparel were studied using a descriptive and inferential research design.

Study area
This research was carried out in Ethiopia's DebreMarkos District, the administrative center of the East Gojjam Zone. It is 299 kilometres northwest of the capital city, Addis Ababa. It has a latitude and longitude of 10 � 20 0 N37 � 43 0 ; and an elevation of 2; 446 meters. Demographically, Debre Markos has a total population of around 262,497, of whom 129,921 were men and 132,576 women (Census, 2012). The choices of this study area were, it was the city administration of the Zone. Given this, high number of interactions of people from different woredas and different income levels of households, economic activity, politicians, students, businessmen and women were found.

Study population
Male and female shoppers aged 20 and up who visited the shopping mall were the target populations. The target population's data was gathered from the five major shopping malls in the Debre Markos District: Star, Yeraba, Goma Tera, Tanna, and Gudu Kassa.

Sample size
We used the Cochran (1967) sample size formula, which is useful when the population size is large and unknown. As written below; n ¼ Z 2 P 1 À P ð Þ d 2 Figure 1. Conceptual framework of the study.

Source: authors compilation based on literature
Where n = the desired sample size, P = sample proportion, Z = Z-score corresponding to the degree of confidence. In this case, the Z score is 1.96 at 95% of the confidence interval. d = the minimum desired precision, which is 0.05. We have taken 50% as a population proportion, so that we have taken 50% of the population proportion, which is recommended if the population proportion is not precisely estimated or not sure.
384 ¼ 1:96 2 0:5 1 À 0:5 ð Þ 0:05 2 Using this formula and the figures provided, the total number of consumers surveyed for this study was 384. Simple random sampling was also used on shoppers at Debre Markos' five major apparel shopping malls.

Data collection instruments
Three methods were used in this study to collect relevant data and information about the demand for locally and non-locally produced apparel goods.
(1) Structured questions: questions were prepared and randomly distributed to shoppers at the apparel retail mall.
(2) Focus Group Discussion (FGD): FGD was conducted using a prepared checklist to determine the determinants of their choice between domestic and foreign-branded apparel, as well as the effect on their saving behavior.
(3) Key Informant Interviews (KII): KII were conducted with people who are knowledgeable about the apparel market. Retailers of both domestically and foreign-made apparel were interviewed as a result of this

Method of data analysis and model specification
For analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics will be used. The Stata 14 version statistical software was also used to analyze the data. The frequency distribution, percentage, and mean value of various determinant factors are used to explain descriptive statistics. In addition, the information obtained from the discussion and other respondents was reviewed. The inferential statistics were analyzed using a binary logistic regression model because the dependent variable is binary. Therefore, apparel consumers have two choices: either to purchase imported (foreign-made) apparel or domestically produced goods. When the dependent variable is binary and the independent variable is a measurement scale variable, the logistic regression model is used to estimate probability (Cramer, 2003). The following assumptions were made: In the model, If Y is the dependent variable; it can take values of either 1 or 0.
Yi = 1 if a consumer purchased imported apparels Where Y denotes the dependent variable that is when a consumer purchased foreign made apparel goods and Y takes the value of either 1 or 0.
Hence, the logistic regression model for estimating the probability of consumer choice (Pi) of imported apparel goods is specified as follows Similarly, the probability of purchasing local goods is When dividing (1) by (2), it gives odds ratio: The logit model is a logarithmic transformation of the odds ratio.
Where Li is the log of the odds ratio; e is the base of natural logarithms; α is a constant; X1, X2, . . ., Xk are explanatory variables; β1,β2, . . .,βκare estimated parameters corresponding to each explanatory variable; k is number of explanatory variables; and ει is the random error. The log likelihood estimation was used to compare the marginal values of the explanatory variables for choosing imported apparel goods to check whether the difference was significant.
Here, description of the variable used in the regression and their measurement for consumer choice of purchasing imported and domestically produced apparel goods has shown below.

Descriptive analysis
The descriptive analysis provides an overview of the demographic characteristics and other factors influencing consumer purchases of imported clothing goods. The demographic characteristics of the consumers in the study area include gender, age, education, occupation, and monthly income.
According to Table 2 and 3, the majority of respondents are females, accounting for 71.86% (n = 263), while the minority of respondents are males, accounting for 28.14% (n = 103). The majority of respondents (77.05%) are between the ages of 20 and 36, followed by those between the ages of 37 and 53 (58.8%). This indicates that young consumers are more likely to buy clothing than older consumers. The majority of respondents (66.39%) have a college degree or above, followed by secondary (18.03), primary (13.11%), and illiterate (9%).
Furthermore, government employees account for 54.37% of the total, while non-government employees, such as students, housewives, business owners, and employees of non-governmental organizations, account for the remainder. About 41.51% of respondents earned between 6001 and 9000 birr, while 24.86% earned more than 9000 birr due to higher education level. The results showed that consumers prefer to buy imported clothing in all categories because there is a significant difference between imported and domestic apparel purchases.
When all other factors are held constant, the mean indicates that product preference was discovered to be the most important factor in shaping the consumer's purchase decision. This means that 96.17% of respondents will need to buy foreign-made clothing if the prices of locally produced and imported brands are the same.
Furthermore, the perceived quality of the product influences it. The third critical factor is one's social status. Imported clothing is purchased for social status by approximately 74.59% of consumers. Imported clothing is required for consumers to elevate their status and upgrade their modernity. Consumer purchasing decisions are influenced by peer group (pressure from family and friends), fashion style, and advertisements. Other factors such as preference, the demand for quality, social status, fashion style, peer influence, and advertisement all have a significant impact on the purchase decision, regardless of whether the product's price is reasonable or not.  Focus group discussion (FGD) results provide a basic, understandable answer. According to one of the FGD findings, retailers of domestically produced apparel in Debre markkos are wearing imported apparel when selling domestic products. In our opinion, we would not prefer to buy domestic clothing from that person because the seller prefers foreign-branded apparel, as do we.
From a total sample of 366, 71.86% of consumers said they bought clothes because of information obtained from advertisements. According to this, 43.35% of the information was obtained directly from the salesperson, while 28.90% came from family and friends. Magazine, television, and website information accounted for 4.94%, 10.65%, and 12.17%, respectively. The findings indicate that advertising plays a significant role in the selection of fashion labels.
282 consumers out of a total of 366 samples have not purchased clothing made in the United States. Respondents were asked why they did not buy local products, and their responses are presented in Table 4 and 5 below. According to the findings, 21.63% of respondents did not purchase because of poor quality, and 2.13% did not purchase due to a lack of sufficient options. Lack of variety in fashion styles with new trends, as well as consumers' preference to wear foreign brands as their friends, accounted for 29.08% and 10.99%, respectively. The desire to improve their consumer image by purchasing foreign brands is shared by 38% of respondents. Furthermore, 22.70% were unwilling to purchase domestic brands as a result of the aforementioned factors.
When asked separately why they do not purchase domestically produced apparel, one consumer stated that, even though there is a significant price discount for purchasing locally produced goods, it makes them feel inferior and shifts their preference to imported brands.
Another consumer responds, "My peer group and I have decided to purchase the same fashion clothes, which are obtained from imported brands." When my friends prefer this style, I prefer to follow suit for group ceremonial purposes.
With respect to consumer purchasing decisions, 77.05% preferred imported apparel while only 22.95% preferred domestically produced apparel. More than three-quarters of respondents said they were likely to buy imported clothing, and a large proportion of Debre Markos residents said they bought foreign-made clothing. According to the statistics, 72.95% of consumers believe their savings are reduced due to unreasonably high prices and a strong preference for purchasing foreign-made apparel. 27.05% of consumers reported that their perceived savings were unaffected because they purchased domestically produced clothing at a lower price than imported clothing. According to one of the FGD findings, our purchasing frequency of fashion clothing is increasing in order to stand out from our peers and boost our social status. However, competition with them in the purchase of fashion clothes has a negative impact on our personal savings because it is sold at a higher price, which is consistent with increasing the frequency of purchasing brands.
While key informant interviews with retailers of foreign-made and domestically produced apparel were conducted separately (Table 6), the following responses were obtained.

A retailer of imported apparel: Consumers associate high product prices with high quality and high purchase intent, and low product prices with low quality. When I sold high-priced imported clothing, consumer purchasing frequency increased, and vice versa when I sold locally made products. As a result, in order to improve my company's market performance, I should sell imported clothing.
A domestic apparel retailer: My customers are mostly low-income people. High-income consumers are not my customers, but they are for import-owned retailers. Customers' purchasing habits shift toward foreign-made goods as their income rises. Consumer purchasing frequencies are also low due to a lack of variety and updating of fashion brands. Moreover, my market performance is weak, and if I have a large income, I will shift my business towards marketing imported apparel.

Empirical analysis of purchasing imported apparel goods
The chi-squared distribution with n-2 degrees of freedom and the null hypothesis of the test represents a model that has been properly fitted to the data (there is not that much divergence  between the fitted and actual values). As a result, because the chi-squared distribution result is less than its probability value, we accept the null hypothesis, which is insignificant. As a result, the model is a good fit to the data, with little divergence between the actual and fitted values (Hosmer et al., 2013).
Linktest is used to determine whether the logit model is properly specified (Mekonen & Nega, 2021). The linear predicted value (-hat) and linear predicted value squared (-hatsq) must be predicted in order to build the model. The model is correctly specified for this purpose if -hat is statistically significant while -hatsq is insignificant. Consistent with this, the model output demonstrates that two conditions are met: (-hat) is significant, while (-hatsq) is insignificant. As a result, the logit model is correctly specified because the two conditions are met.
The assumptions of the classical linear regression model (CLRM), such as linearity, normality, homoscedasticity, and autocorrelation, are not required in logistic regression (Park, 2013). Independent variables, on the other hand, should not be collinear. To accomplish this, a multicollinearity test was performed using the variance inflation factor (VIF). According to Wooldridge (2016), a VIF of less than 10 indicates that the relationship between the independent variable and the independent one is weak. The smaller the VIF, the less multicollinearity there is. The results of the test show that the mean value of FIV is 1.71, which is less than 10, indicating that there is no multicollinearity problem in the logistic regression model.

Determinates of consumer choices between imported and locally produced apparels
The dependent variables and determinants of purchasing imported apparel goods have been estimated in the binary logistic regression model. As a result, the coefficients, odds ratio, Z value, and probability values, as well as the robust standard errors, are reported in Table 7, 8 , 9 , 10 and 11 below. 10 variables out of 12 variables have a statistically significant effect on the purchase of imported apparel goods. Among these, variables such as age, education, income, occupation, preference, perceived price, social status, peer group, fashion style, and advertisements were found to have a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of purchasing imported apparel goods.  A consumer who is older is more likely to buy imported apparel than a consumer who is younger. Other things remaining constant, increasing a consumer's age by one year increases the odds ratio in favor of purchasing foreign-made apparel by 1.2375 units. This might be related to parents' knowledge and experience about the product attributes of foreign-made apparel (Khurana & Tadesse, 2019;Sanad, 2016). Consumers' education coefficient is also positively associated with the choice of imported goods. When a consumer's education level rises by one year, the odds ratio in favor of purchasing foreign-made clothing rises by 1.334273 units. This implies that demand for buying foreign-made apparel increases as consumers' formal education increases. The result is in line with Naseem et al. (2015) and Ifediora et al. (2017).
Moreover, consumer income is significantly related to the choice of imported goods. The results show that, when a consumer's income level rises by one unit, the odds ratio in favor of purchasing foreign-made apparel rises by 1.000295 units. This means that as consumer income increases, demand for foreign-made goods also increases. As the consumers stated, locally made goods are inferior to goods made abroad, while foreign-made goods are normal goods. So, demand for inferior goods falls as income rises, while demand for normal goods increases as income rises. According to Shafi and Madhavaiah (2014), Ifediora et al. (2017), and Naseem et al. (2015), lowincome consumers try to minimize expenditure as money is more important to them than goods. They will choose inferior goods actively. On the other hand, as consumer income increases, demand for quality and willingness to pay for it increase. It implies that low-income consumers purchase domestically produced apparel as it is cheaper. High income group consumers often attach great importance to style, quality, and brand image, which have been available from  imported apparel items. Brand apparel also appeals to middle-income group consumers, but they tend to have weak brand loyalty while price continues to be the determining factor influencing the buying behavior of low-income consumers.
Consumers with government employees are also more likely to buy foreign-made clothing than non-government employees (Shafi & Madhavaiah, 2014). Citrus paribus, the odds ratio in favor of buying imported clothing increases by 22.86 units when the consumer is a government employee versus a non-government employee. This implies that positions in white-collar jobs prefer to wear imported apparel, which is mostly branded apparel relative to blue-collar jobs. Furthermore, consumer preference has positively and significantly affected the purchase of imported apparel in Ethiopia. The result indicates that the log of odds ratio in favor of purchasing imported apparel increases by a factor of 152.9 units. Consumers in developing countries tend to prefer to possess an increasing demand for the purchase of foreign brand apparel products to admire and upgrade their value, and they consider such brands as a status symbol. They consider foreign-made goods more valuable and less risky than local-made goods. Even if the prices of imported and domestic apparel goods are in the same price band, apparel consumers in the study area prefer to purchase imported goods. The result is consistent with the previous studies (Dulal & Islam, 2018;Ifediora et al., 2017;Imo & Maiyo, 2012).
Consumers are less likely to purchase imported clothing if the price is reasonable. Other things being equal, the log of odds ratio in favor of purchasing imported apparel decreases by.0090272 when the price is perceived to be reasonable. This means that the likelihood of purchasing imported clothing increases as the product's price is perceived to be higher. This is because consumers perceive higher prices to be associated with higher quality, whereas lower prices are associated with lower quality. A high product price indicates high quality and thus higher purchase intent, but it may be out of reach for many consumers. This is consistent with the findings of Ismail et al. (2012). Social status also matters for choosing apparel. Consumers' purchase intentions for imported goods would increase if they believe wearing foreign-made apparel raises their social status and makes them feel unique (Khurana & Tadesse, 2019). Results show that the log odds ratio in favor of purchasing imported apparel rises by 11.43482 units. The findings confirmed the widespread belief in our society that wearing globally branded clothing is a status symbol. According to Ismail et al. (2012) and Ergin and Akbay (2010), consumers perceived as global brands have higher prestige, which enhances their self-image as cosmopolitan, sophisticated, and modern.
Family and friends have special skills, knowledge, and experience, which puts pressure on a consumer to buy imported clothing. Consumer knowledge gained through direct personal experience has proven to be more reliable than information obtained through other means of communication. Other things remain constant; the log of odds ratio in favor of buying imported clothing increases by 8.195316 units as the purchased clothing is liked by family and friends. The result is consistent with the findings of Shafi and Madhavaiah (2014), Ismail et al. (2012), and Gulati (2017), who showed that the influence of others has affected consumers' purchase intentions of foreign apparel goods. With regard to fashion-style, choosing to buy imported goods is positively correlated to the demand for the trend of fashion. As the purchased apparel has a fashion style, the log of odds ratio in favor of purchasing imported apparel increases by 120.3124 units. A number of people in the study area follow a lifestyle in which they pay attention to fashion information, closely follow the trend, "eat a healthy diet," are interested in foreign brands. The foreign brands form the ideal standards that they use to compare with the local brands. The existence of brand awareness makes consumers put emphasis on fashionable apparel goods to keep their interest in new and stylish goods (Dulal & Islam, 2018;Khurana & Tadesse, 2019;Nyarunda, 2016). Despite this, consumers are unaware of domestic fashion brands and they have low regard for their capacity in fashion. Consumers reported that the local fashion brands are unreliable as most designers are unable to deliver quality products at the required time.
Furthermore, advertising has a significant effect on the choice of imported goods (P < 0.1). The consumer-oriented advertisement tools aim at increasing sales to existing consumers and attracting new customers to the brands so that the consumer can take advantage of promotion tools either from the manufacturer or the dealer, or from both (Dulal & Islam, 2018). The result shows that, given the variables, the logs of the odds ratio in favor of purchasing imported apparel increase by 6.074447 units as the apparel brands are advertised. This confirms the findings of Kaur and Malik (2015).
However, sex and perceived quality have less of an impact on consumer purchasing decisions for imported clothing. This implies that there is no discernible difference between being female and male when it comes to purchasing international brand clothing. Males and females are equally the preferred buyers of such imported goods. Furthermore, whether the product is perceived to be of high quality or not, consumers do not refrain from purchasing imported clothing. As a result, quality has little influence on consumer purchasing decisions.

Effect of buying imported apparel goods on perceived saving
Once the determinants of consumer choice of imported apparel have been estimated, the next step is evaluating whether the demand for imported apparel goods affects the buyers' perceived savings or not. The determinant variables for consumer saving are related to the demand for imported goods. Thus, Table 12 below explains the logistic regression result.
Other things being equal, when a consumer buys imported clothing, the log of odds ratio in favor of perceived savings is reduced by a factor of 26.95 units. This is because, due to its scarcity and high price (J. E. Lee & Stoel, 2016;J.E. Lee & Chen-Yu, 2018), increasing the demand for purchasing imported brands increases spending and reduces savings by reducing the purchasing power of money.
When the perceived price is reasonable, the log of odds ratio in favor of perceived saving increases by 59.33 percent because it increases the likelihood of saving more income. When the price seems to be reasonable, the purchasing power of money is as expected, and the surplus money is used for saving purposes. When it comes to apparel, consumers perceive a high level of savings for a product when a higher level of price discount is provided (J.E. Lee & Chen-Yu, 2018). Moreover, consumers believe that a high price indicates both higher quality and a greater monetary sacrifice (saving) in purchasing the product. According to the price-quality-value model, consumers perceive higher prices as higher quality and thus higher value (Palma et al., 2016). Finally, consumers base their purchasing decisions on perceived value, and their willingness to buy grows as their perceived value grows.

Conclusions
The study used descriptive and econometric analysis to analyze consumer choice between buying garments made domestically and abroad and its impact on perceived savings by consumers. The study used key informant interviews, focus groups, and structured questioning to gather primary data from the five largest apparel retail malls in the Debre Markos district. According to the descriptive statistics, 77.05% of the respondents preferred to buy clothing made abroad, while the remaining 22.95% bought domestically produced apparel goods.
The binary logistic regression model reveals that factors such as age, education level, income level, employment in the government, preference for imported clothing, perceived price, the need to elevate social status, peer pressure from family and friends, the demand for fashion style, and advertisements have a significant impact on consumers' decisions to buy imported clothing. The outcome also showed that consumers' perceptions of savings had decreased due to the high demand for imported clothing and the high cost of such a product. The economic framework of a nation is crucial because it serves as the cornerstone upon which all other aspects of its residents' well-being are dependent. This suggests that for a nation's economy to develop, the government, business owners, and regular people must work together to ensure growth. Therefore, the following recommendations should be put forth in light of the study's findings: • The government should implement protectionism policy measures like tariffs on imports in order to expand the local market and protect it from outside competition. The domestic market was not overrun by cheap imports thanks to this protectionism legislation, and consumer savings also increased.
• The government must make an effort to educate and persuade consumers in every region of the nation to purchase goods made locally, as doing so will be beneficial to the economy. Customers gradually realize the various advantages of supporting the local economy and themselves by shopping locally as a result.
• It needs to convince consumers that domestically produced goods are of lower quality than imported goods, limiting their time horizons in the process. This is accomplished by aggressively supporting and fostering innovation and entrepreneurship to generate goods of the same caliber as imports.

Limitation of the study and implication for further research
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine consumer preferences for imported and locally made apparel and their impact on perceived savings in Ethiopia. One of the major challenges faced while conducting this study was the lack of reliable and organized government data regarding the number of foreign-made vs. locally produced apparel buyers and the factors influencing their purchasing decisions. There are no government entities that can give statistics in this sector. The study is being conducted in a single district using a cross-sectional data set. Future research should address these limitations by investigating consumer preferences for choosing between imported and locally produced apparel goods and their effects on perceived savings in large cities or at the national level using panel or time-series data where there are multifaceted social and economic conditions. Furthermore, this study only examines consumer demand for apparel goods. Future research should look at the economic efficiency, competitiveness, and marketing outlet choice of the apparel industries, as well as the level of government involvement in revitalizing the apparel industries.