Abstract:
One of the worst pollutants in the world is allegedly the fashion industry. Landfills receive
enormous amounts of post-consumer trash each year. However, as current customers' awareness
of environmental issues grows, they are increasingly drawn to wearing used clothing. The concept
of second-hand fashion consumption, however, clearly lacks awareness in the Sri Lankan context.
In the qualitative study, it incorporates the theoretical notion of the means-end chain model and
demonstrates five consideration values of second-hand consumers: price-consciousness,
emotional bond consciousness, comfortability consciousness, quality and brand consciousness,
and social and environmental consciousness. Additionally, we demonstrate non-second-hand
fashion consumers' consideration values of social status consciousness, hygienic consciousness,
comfortability consciousness, quality and brand consciousness, and self-expressive
consciousness. Ten hypotheses were developed based on the findings. Hypotheses were
investigated using a survey questionnaire in study two. The data were analysed using multiple
regression analysis in SPSS. As the findings indicated, consumer purchase intention and word-ofmouth
intention
grew
as
emotional
bonds
and
consumer
knowledge
increased,
and
with
low
and
medium
consumer
knowledge,
they
decreased.
So,
consumers
with
high
emotional
bonds
have
the
highest
consumer knowledge, purchase intention, and word-of-mouth intention. Purchase
intention increased as hygienic factors and consumer knowledge grew, whereas it declined at low
and medium levels, indicating that consumers with high knowledge had the highest purchase
intention. This study sheds some light on the growing knowledge of second-hand consumption by
first identifying Sri Lankan consumer values and then studying how consumer knowledge interacts
with their purchase intention and also word-of-mouth intention. This study also has practical
implications by highlighting a few opportunities and constraints related to the second-hand fashion
retail sector in Sri Lankan fashion retail.
Citation:
Geegamage, P.H.T.A. (2022). Towards an understanding of Sri Lankan consumer’s second-hand fashion consumption [Master's theses, University of Moratuwa]. Institutional Repository University of Moratuwa. http://dl.lib.uom.lk/handle/123/22457