Consumer attitude towards buying and selling second-hand clothing

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Volume Title

School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis
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Date

2021

Department

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Master's Programme in Collaborative and Industrial Design

Language

en

Pages

53+16

Series

Abstract

In spite of its long history, the second-hand clothing market has received massive attention in recent years due to an increasing awareness of environmental impact of fast fashion. As the second-hand clothing business is expanding, a deeper understanding about why people choose pre-used garments and how they are involved in this recycling process is needed. This thesis investigates consumers' attitude, consumption patterns and factors that influence their decision making while choosing second-hand garments. Additionally, the role of sustainability as a motivation for the consumers in second-hand clothing shopping experience is evaluated. This study consists of a combination of semi-structured interview as the main method and a followup quantitative evaluation survey for data acquisition. The interviews were conducted with 8 participants, second-hand clothing consumers who visit second-hand stores with varying frequency. A survey was then conducted with 31 responses to validate the results obtained from the interviews. During the interview process, the participants are also interviewed about their second-hand clothes consumption patterns including purchasing, using, and disposing. The findings showed six major motivations to be the driving factor for the purchase of second-hand garments. Among them, hedonistic shopping value plays an important role in attracting consumers to visit second-hand clothing stores. Even though most of the consumers consider sustainability as a reason for choosing pre-owned clothing, they do it primarily because they are against consumerism rather than for being more sustainable. They view second-hand clothes as a compromise or less harmful option when compared to buying fast fashion. However, consumer's utilitarian value can not be fulfilled by second-hand shopping as it demands more effort and time.

Description

Supervisor

Lucero, Andrés

Thesis advisor

Durrani, Marium

Keywords

second-hand clothing, clothing reuse, consumer behaviour, sustainability, consumer motivation, clothing disposal

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