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1 – 10 of 136The purpose of this paper is to explore fast-fashion consumers’ post-purchase behaviours and examine relationships among fast-fashion purchase, disposing, hoarding, participation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore fast-fashion consumers’ post-purchase behaviours and examine relationships among fast-fashion purchase, disposing, hoarding, participation in recycling, and environmental attitudes.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey questionnaire was developed and a total of 335 college students completed it in a classroom setting. Of the data collected, 274 students who purchased fast-fashions were used for this study. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data and Pearson correlations were conducted to examine relationships among the variables.
Findings
Results of Pearson correlations indicated that fast-fashion purchase was positively related to disposing and hoarding, but negatively related to participation in recycling. Apparel hoarding was positively related to recycling, but no relationships were found between environmental attitudes and any of the following: fast-fashion purchase, disposing, hoarding, or participation in recycling.
Practical implications
Fast-fashion suppliers should encourage consumers’ participation in recycling and should take responsibility for collecting their post-purchase products.
Originality/value
This paper provides important contributions to the literature about fashion retailing/marketing and post-purchase behaviours. Although young fashion-oriented consumers easily purchase and dispose of trendy and cheap fast-fashions, little is known about their post-purchase behaviours. Findings of this study showed that fast-fashion consumers had positive attitudes towards the environment, yet they did not participate in recycling. The finding implies that fast-fashion suppliers need to develop a culture to support sustainability of consumption.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate materialistic consumers' apparel purchase, compulsive buying, environmental attitudes, and post-purchase behaviors regarding hoarding…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate materialistic consumers' apparel purchase, compulsive buying, environmental attitudes, and post-purchase behaviors regarding hoarding, disposing, and participation in recycling.
Design/methodology/approach
Clothing is used to express the self. Materialistic consumers tend to be young and highly involved with clothing, and purchase compulsively and more than needed. They are more interested in getting possessions than disposing of them. This study was designed to uncover materialistic consumers' post-purchase behaviors. A survey questionnaire was developed and a total of 333 college students completed it in a classroom setting.
Findings
Results of a k-mean cluster analysis suggested two groups (materialistic consumers and non-materialistic consumers). Findings of independent t-tests indicated that materialistic consumers had significantly higher scores for apparel purchase, compulsive buying, value-oriented hoarding, and disposing, but lower scores for environmental attitudes than did non-materialistic consumers. No difference was found in participation in recycling between the two groups.
Research limitations/implications
This study suggests that marketing media should address benefits and ways to recycle and educate consumers in sustainable consumption behaviors.
Originality/value
Due to the nature of fashion, clothing is easily adopted and quickly becomes obsolete. Consumers easily dispose of clothing, which contributes to the increasing volume of textile waste. Although consumers are encouraged to participate in recycling to protect the environment, little research has focused on clothing post-purchase behaviors. Materialistic consumers' post-purchase behaviors regarding apparel hoarding, disposing, and participation in recycling is a new research area.
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Ji Young Lee, Holly Halter, Kim K.P. Johnson and Haewon Ju
The purpose of this paper is first, to investigate young consumers' fashion disposition behavior, second, to identify motivations for their fashion disposition, and third, to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is first, to investigate young consumers' fashion disposition behavior, second, to identify motivations for their fashion disposition, and third, to identify emotional responses experienced during and after the fashion disposition process. The paper also aims to investigate young consumers' ideas about their future fashion disposition practices and to what extent did participants link being socially responsible to their fashion disposition decisions and behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was adopted wherein undergraduates wrote an essay concerning their apparel disposal habits. Data were analyzed using content analyses.
Findings
Participants engaged in multiple fashion disposition behaviors including donation, selling, repurposing, and swapping unwanted clothing, Participants mentioned fashionability, physical condition of an item, and social responsibility as factors that prompted their fashion disposition. Participants experienced primarily positive emotions when disposing of unwanted apparel items. In the future, participants indicated a desire to make additional efforts to donate unwanted clothing, repurpose clothing, and to attempt to reduce the amount of clothing they acquired.
Originality/value
By investigating young consumers' fashion disposal, underlying motivations for disposal were identified as well as the need for education on how to dispose of clothing items in socially responsible ways as responses suggested that these young consumers were open to disposing of their unwanted fashion items in a socially responsible manner but did not always have the skill or knowledge to do so.
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Sasikarn Chatvijit Cook and Jennifer Yurchisin
The current research explored both pre-purchase and post-purchase factors of consumer behaviour. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships that…
Abstract
Purpose
The current research explored both pre-purchase and post-purchase factors of consumer behaviour. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships that may exist among consumers’ perceptions of perishability, scarcity, low price, attitudes, impulse buying, post-purchase emotions, and product returns within the context of the fast fashion environments.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 246 usable questionnaires completed by female undergraduate students, who made purchases and product returns at fast fashion retailers, were analysed in SPSS and AMOS 23.0. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Consumers who are attracted to scarcity due to limited supply and scarcity due to time, referred to as perceived perishability, have a positive attitude towards the fast fashion retailers in which products are presented in scarce environments. Likewise, consumers have a positive attitude towards fast fashion retailers due to low priced merchandises they offer. Consequently, consumers who have a positive attitude towards the fast fashion retailers are likely to purchase products from them impulsively. Moreover, impulse buying behaviour positively influenced some negative post-purchase emotional responses, which in turn positively influenced product returns in the fast fashion environments.
Research limitations/implications
The results of the current study contribute to a greater understanding of apparel-related consumer behaviour in general. A theory formation of fast fashion consumer behaviour from acquisition to disposal can be drawn from the results of this study. Because some fast fashion retailers do sell clothing for both men and women, researchers could compare the responses of males and females to examine differences in consumer behaviour related to demographic characteristics. In the future, an examination of actual emotional responses and return behaviour would be beneficial for a more complete understanding of post-purchase consumer behaviour.
Practical implications
Fast fashion retailers could use this information to carefully design shopping environments that induce impulse buying behaviour because it may result in product returns. Fast fashion retailers need to understand the causes of the return behaviour, whether consumer related or product related, to better meet the needs of their target market. Return policies must be considered.
Originality/value
This research is the first to examine the impact of negative emotions following consumers’ impulse buying on product returns in the fast fashion retail environments.
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Merve Coskun, Shipra Gupta and Sebnem Burnaz
The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of store messiness and human crowding on shoppers' competitive behaviours, in-store hoarding and in-store hiding, through the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of store messiness and human crowding on shoppers' competitive behaviours, in-store hoarding and in-store hiding, through the mediating effect of perceived scarcity and perceived competition.
Design/methodology/approach
2 (store messiness: messy × tidy) × 2 (human crowding: high × low) between-subject factorial experiment was conducted online to manipulate retail store atmospheric factors. A total of 154 responses were collected through Amazon MTurk. The hypotheses were analysed using ANOVA and PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) procedure.
Findings
Results suggest that store messiness and human crowding within a fast-fashion store lead to perception of scarcity and competition that further affects competitive behaviours. When consumers experience store messiness, they are likely to hide merchandise in store, thus making it inaccessible for other consumers. Further, when they experience human crowding in the store, they feel that the products will be gone immediately so they have a tendency to hoard them.
Research limitations/implications
This study examined the effects of scarcity perception by studying the case of fast-fashion retailers; generalizability needs to be established across different contexts.
Practical implications
Retailers by manipulating human crowding and store messiness can create a perception of scarcity in their stores, thus enhancing sales. However, they should also pay attention to deviant behaviours such as in-store hoarding and in-store hiding as these behaviours may decrease the store sales.
Originality/value
This research contributed to the retailing literature by finding a significant relationship between human crowding, store messiness and competitive behaviours through perceived scarcity and competition.
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Allan Webster, Sangeeta Khorana and Francesco Pastore
The choice of Southern Europe is partly based on the observation that the sample includes a number of countries whose economies faced more severe difficulties than elsewhere in…
Abstract
Purpose
The choice of Southern Europe is partly based on the observation that the sample includes a number of countries whose economies faced more severe difficulties than elsewhere in Europe. Economically they were less able to absorb the economic shock posed by COVID-19. It is also partly based on the characteristics of the pandemic. A number of countries in the sample were amongst the earliest in Europe to be hit by the pandemic and a several were harder hit in terms of both morbidity and mortality.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses evidence from World Bank enterprise surveys of a sample of firms from six countries in Southern Europe. It examines the early evidence of the effects of COVID-19 on labour markets. The economic consequences potentially cover a wide range of issues. The focus of this study is on firm level evidence of the effect on labour. The evidence and the analysis are provided at a time when the pandemic is still in progress. The authors use both traditional regression analysis and IPWRA to assess the joint effect of loans versus government support on, firstly, the change in sales revenues and, secondly, the number of weeks that the firm would expect to survive with no sales revenues.
Findings
The study suggests that, despite efforts to support firms and hoard labour, there is a prospect of a significant number of firm closures with a consequent loss of employment. Temporary firm closures also represent a substantial loss of labour weeks. These are partly related to a significant number of workers subject to furloughs. The empirical findings suggest that COVID-19 cases and deaths have directly affected firm sales but government containment measures, particularly closures, have more strongly affected firms. Losses of sales were unsurprisingly related to losses of employment. Remote working has contributed to sustaining employment but online business has not affected most sectors.
Research limitations/implications
The future progress of COVID-19 and government containment measures is uncertain, and the full economic consequences will probably continue to emerge after the end of the pandemic. The full extent of the impact on labour will probably not be the first of these. There are obvious advantages in seeking to learn lessons from the early stages of the pandemic but there are also obvious constraints. The full economic consequences will take longer to emerge than the pandemic itself and the full consequences for employment will take longer to be evident than many other economic effects.
Practical implications
Both temporary closures and furloughs impose costs that will be borne by firms, workers and government. The effects of COVID-19 on firms differ across sectors. Adverse effects tend to be higher in hospitality, non-essential retail and travel. That many firms lack the capacity to survive further temporary closures of a similar duration to those in the earlier stages emphasises that the support provided in the near future is of critical importance to control employment losses through permanent firm closures. A long-term perspective suggests neither permanent closure nor laying off workers may be the best response to a temporary crisis in demand. A stakeholder model of the firm would often suggest that it is not an optimal for the point of view of workers or the wider economy either. Both imply a preference for labour hoarding.
Social implications
The most affected are sectors with a high proportion of female workers and, in consequence, most of the countries in the sample exhibit an early decline of the already lower than average share of women in employment.
Originality/value
The data used have been recently released and this is the first analysis using the data to look at the consequence on firms employment decisions during the Pandemic. The case of Southern Europe is much understudied, though one of the most dramatic as to the consequences of the pandemic. From a methodological point of view, the authors use not only traditional regression analysis, but also the matching approach to identify the effect of different policy options on labour demand by firms.
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Eleonora Pantano and Kim Willems
Crisis can bring out the true nature of people. Also in terms of consumers, this can be for better or for worse. On the one hand, irresponsible consumer behaviours rose, with for…
Abstract
Crisis can bring out the true nature of people. Also in terms of consumers, this can be for better or for worse. On the one hand, irresponsible consumer behaviours rose, with for example people starting to hoard bulk quantities of toilet paper, rice and flour, which in turn increased scarcity perceptions and induced fear in others. Besides panic buying, impulse purchasing also rose, as a means to alleviate negative feelings and to treat oneself (particularly once the stores reopened again). For some consumers, this increased buying can become compulsive, leading to shopping addiction and financial problems. On the other hand, the crisis also forced a pause in the rat race we live, allowing people to reconsider their consumption behaviour and evolve towards more sustainable choices. This chapter provides insights on both directions, allowing retail managers to incorporate this new reality in further strategic decisions. In what follows, three consecutive stages in notable changes in consumer behaviour in the pandemic crisis are discussed: from reacting (e.g. hoarding), over coping (e.g. do-it-yourself behaviours), to longer-term adapting (e.g. potentially transformative changes in consumption).
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Stuart Glosser and Lonnie Golden
Has the character of adjustment of labor input in the US manufacturing sector been changing over the last few decades? This question is addressed with time‐series estimation using…
Abstract
Has the character of adjustment of labor input in the US manufacturing sector been changing over the last few decades? This question is addressed with time‐series estimation using data through 2001. Impulse responses of employment and average weekly hours to a given shock in output demand are generated from multi‐equation vector autoregressions. The results reveal a marked change in the character of labor input adjustment as compared with the two decades prior to 1979, with some heterogeneity among 18 detailed industries. Adjustment of hours has risen somewhat while adjustment of employment has dropped considerably. This intensifying adjustment of hours vis‐à‐vis employment is consistent with hypotheses regarding employers' potential reactions to a skill‐upgrading of jobs under greater market pressures to restrain cost. US manufacturing employers appear to be increasingly adopting strategies of “lean staffing,” while “hoarding” and shedding work hours, in response to cyclical fluctuation in demand. This phenomenon may be a structural change contributing to a recent “jobless recovery” in the US.
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Sunildro L.S. Akoijam, Sultana B.A. Mazumder and L. Shashikumar Sharma
With the advent of the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to analyse the scenario of panic buying (PB) behaviour of the customers which was evident in the first…
Abstract
Purpose
With the advent of the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to analyse the scenario of panic buying (PB) behaviour of the customers which was evident in the first wave. This paper aims to examine the PB scenario as well as the moderating effect of past buying experience (PBE) on PB in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on the theories of stimulus–organism–response model and the competitive arousal model. Based on these theories, this paper investigates how panic situation created by external stimuli such as perceived scarcity (PS), perceived risk (PR), news in media (NM) and social learning affect the perceived arousal (PA) among people which in turn influence the PB behaviour of customers. Data were collected from 253 customers from different parts of India. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse the moderating effect of PBE on the PB in the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
Findings
The results indicate that the PS, PR and NM continue to be strong predictors of a buyer for PA. However, the PB is not reinforced by the moderation effect of PBE.
Research limitations/implications
This paper investigates the consumers’ PB behaviours in the wake of third wave of COVID-19 pandemic which add to the existing literature of COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, this study also examines how previous buying experience can moderate the PB behaviour of the customers in subsequent phases of COVID-19 pandemic. This supports the potential effectiveness of self-regulation as an intervention strategy for reducing PB behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Practical implications
This study emphasises the impact of external stimuli like PS, PR and media coverage on PB behaviour, marketers and policymakers should manage to avoid triggers. Although PBE may not moderate PB during a pandemic, it can play a significant role in future buying behaviour. Anticipating potential triggers and designing effective marketing strategies that cater to customers' needs can help manage PB behaviour during disasters or pandemics. In addition, promoting conscious consumption awareness and self-regulation practices among customers can help manage PB behaviour, benefit the environment and society and make customers more responsible buyers.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study examines the PB behaviour of customers during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic for the first time. This study also investigates the moderating effect of PBE on the PB behaviour of customers during a pandemic which is new and significant that extends the literature on PB behaviour during a pandemic.
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