Does sustainability really matter to consumers? Assessing the importance of online shop and apparel product attributes

被引:60
作者
Rausch, Theresa Maria [1 ]
Baier, Daniel [1 ]
Wening, Stefanie [2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Bayreuth, Univ Str 30, D-95447 Bayreuth, Germany
[2] BAUR Versand, D-96222 Burgkunstadt, Germany
关键词
Sustainable apparel; Online shopping; Willingness to pay; Best-worst scaling; E-commerce; WILLINGNESS-TO-PAY; FRIENDLY PACKAGED PRODUCTS; RETURN POLICY LENIENCY; DECISION-MAKING; YOUNG CONSUMERS; MEDIATING ROLE; WORST; BEHAVIOR; PREFERENCES; PERCEPTIONS;
D O I
10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102681
中图分类号
F [经济];
学科分类号
02 ;
摘要
Although there is a shift in consumers' consumption behavior towards more sustainable patterns across a variety of different contexts, sustainable apparel has still not become a mainstream trend despite the textile industry's excessive usage of valuable resources. Albeit extant research found different potential barriers elucidating why consumers hesitate to purchase such apparel, it remains unclear whether sustainability really matters to consumers in a clothing context and further, which aspects are of relevance during consumers' purchase decision. We thus conducted two studies with four best-worst scaling experiments in which 4,350 online shoppers assessed the importance of both conventional and sustainable apparel attributes, as well as sustainable apparel attributes only, and the willingness to pay for sustainable product attributes. We further inquired the importance of conventional as well as sustainable online shop attributes. Our findings indicate that conventional apparel attributes such as fit and comfort, price-performance ratio, and quality are of higher relevance to consumers than sustainable attributes. The most important sustainable apparel attributes are the garment's durability, fair wages and working conditions, as well as an environmentally friendly production process. Consumers also indicated to prefer the latter three attributes to a 20% discount. Moreover, consumers demand less as well as sustainable packaging, free returns, and discount campaigns. Our findings reveal a gender gap regarding green consumerism with female respondents assessing most sustainable attributes as more important than male respondents do.
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页数:16
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