| Title |
Exploring garment rental as a sustainable business model in the fashion industry: Does contamination impact the consumption experience? |
| ID_Doc |
73470 |
| Authors |
Clube, RKM; Tennant, M |
| Title |
Exploring garment rental as a sustainable business model in the fashion industry: Does contamination impact the consumption experience? |
| Year |
2020 |
| Published |
Journal Of Consumer Behaviour, 19, 4 |
| DOI |
10.1002/cb.1817 |
| Abstract |
Fashion has evolved into an unsustainable industry;fast fashion, which has a low-cost, high-volume focus is the dominant business strategy, resulting in vast resource use and environmental externalities. The purpose of this research is to support the transition to a more circular industry through exploring the opportunity for short-term garment rental as a part of a product-service shift. A number of consumer barriers exist to the adoption of novel business models. Included is the issue of contamination; literature suggests that an item may be consideredcontaminatedwhen another person or object interacts with it. This poses a fundamental conflict to the garment rental proposition. This study furthers understanding of contamination through a qualitative content analysis of 566 online reviews of two existing fashion rental providers. This enables insight into the actual customer experience, revealing a range of contamination incidences-most commonly visual and odour-related. The impact of a contamination event on the customer experience was overwhelmingly recorded as negative, at worst resulting in total rejection of the entire rental concept. The analysis suggests that contamination presents a psychological and practical obstacle to successful rental. A range of managerial implications were raised with corresponding recommendations offered to mitigate and reduce contamination across the value chain. The study highlights that trade-offs exist between product quality and commercial profitability. Findings suggest that rental is likely to be a challenging business model, raising the need for further academic and practitioner research to augment the findings. |
| Author Keywords |
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| Index Keywords |
Index Keywords |
| Document Type |
Other |
| Open Access |
Open Access |
| Source |
Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) |
| EID |
WOS:000545337800006 |
| WoS Category |
Business |
| Research Area |
Business & Economics |
| PDF |
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