Thesis
The Influence of External and Internal Factors on Behavioral Response in the Second-Hand Market
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005273
Abstract
The fashion industry has a significant negative impact on the environment throughout the entire lifecycle of a product (Leal et al., 2019), resulting in it being the second-largest contributor to environmental pollution (Chaturvedi et al., 2020). In 2018, only 2.5 million tons of textiles were recycled while landfills received 11.3 tons of textiles in the United States (Environmental Protection Agency, 2022). To address these issues, the sustainable fashion movement has gained momentum, leading to an increase in second-hand shoppers (Koay et al., 2022). In 2021, the second-hand market was valued at 96 billion U.S. dollars and this value is estimated to reach 218 billion U.S. dollars by 2026 (Smith, 2022). Despite the growth of the second-hand market, there is limited research using S-O-R as the theoretical framework to investigate the external and internal factors that influence second-hand clothing consumption.
The purpose of this research is to investigate 1) how external environmental factors, consisting of product quality, information quality and service quality influence consumers internal emotional state and 2) how consumer perceived hedonic, utilitarian, environmental and economic values along with perceived risks affect their purchase intention and word-of-mouth. The S-O-R model serves as the theoretical foundation for this study. This theory assumes that unique environmental factors affect people’s internal feelings and emotions, which will ultimately determine their actions (Saricam, 2022). The primary data was collected on an online survey platform via. Qualtrics and Amazon Mturk. After cleaning the data, a total of 448 reliable responses were recorded.
This research empirically found that out of 25 hypotheses, 21 were supported, being statistically significant at p<0.05. Specifically, product quality and service quality positively affected U.S. second-hand consumers hedonic value, utilitarian value, economic value, and environmental value. Information quality only positively influenced three out of four values, hedonic, utilitarian, and environmental value. Service quality was the only external variable that had a negative relationship with perceived risk. Furthermore, all internal values positively affected consumers purchase intention while perceived risk negatively influenced purchase intention. All internal values, other than economic value, positively influenced word-of-mouth while perceived risk negatively impacted word-of-mouth.
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Details
- Title
- The Influence of External and Internal Factors on Behavioral Response in the Second-Hand Market
- Creators
- Olga Berezyuk
- Contributors
- Xingqiu Lou (Advisor)Ting Chi (Advisor)Yini Chen (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 100
- Identifiers
- 99901019234501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis