IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i8p4589-d791927.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Digital Technologies Increase Consumer Acceptance of Circular Business Models? The Case of Second Hand Fashion

Author

Listed:
  • Fiona Charnley

    (Exeter Centre for the Circular Economy, University of Exeter, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4PU, UK)

  • Fabienne Knecht

    (Clariant International Ltd., Hardstrasse 61, 4133 Pratteln, Switzerland)

  • Helge Muenkel

    (Sustainable Finance, DBS Bank, 12 Marina Boulevard, Singapore 018982, Singapore)

  • Diana Pletosu

    (Sustainable Finance, Crédit Mutuel Arkea, Descartes Street, 29480 Le Relecq-Kerhuon, France)

  • Victoria Rickard

    (Victoria Rickard Consultancy, 116, Priory Road, London N8 7HP, UK)

  • Chiara Sambonet

    (Tommy, Jordan House, 47 Brunswick Place, London N1 6EB, UK)

  • Martina Schneider

    (RSchneider, Weg am Schaechle 5, 78144 Schramberg, Germany)

  • Chunli Zhang

    (WeeKett Ltd., 64a Cumberland Street, Edinburgh EH3 6RE, UK)

Abstract

Experimentation with, and the implementation of, circular business models (CBMs) has gained rapid traction within the textiles and fashion industry over the last five years. Substitution of virgin materials with bioderived alternatives, extending the lifecycle of garments through resale, and rental services and the recycling or upcycling of garments are some of the strategies being used to reduce the 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and 92 million tonnes of waste associated with the sector in 2017. However, whilst CBMs demonstrate environmental and economic benefits, low consumer acceptance is considered by business professionals and policymakers to be one of the main barriers to the transition towards a circular economy. Digitisation is widely acknowledged as a catalyst for innovation in many sectors and digital technologies are driving new ways to exchange and share goods and services, enabling companies to match the supply, and demand for, otherwise underused assets and products. Online platforms, in particular, have played a crucial role in driving the growth of used goods and resale in other consumer goods markets, such as consumer technology. A mixed methods approach, including a review of 40 organisations operating second hand fashion models, a consumer survey of over 1200 respondents and in-depth interviews with 10 organisations operating second hand fashion models, is adopted to reveal (a) the barriers to consumer acceptance of reuse models in the fashion industry, and (b) how digital technologies can overcome these barriers. Findings highlight the significant progress that organisations have made in using digitalisation, including data analytics, algorithms, digital platforms, advanced product imagery and data informed customer communications, to address barriers associated with convenience, hygiene, trust and security. Furthermore, the study identifies opportunities for the development of more sophisticated digital technologies to support increased transparency and address concerns associated with the quality, authenticity and sourcing of materials. Positioned at the interface of digitisation and consumer acceptance of circular business models, this study makes an important contribution to understanding consumer barriers and how to address them and concludes with a set of recommendations for practitioners.

Suggested Citation

  • Fiona Charnley & Fabienne Knecht & Helge Muenkel & Diana Pletosu & Victoria Rickard & Chiara Sambonet & Martina Schneider & Chunli Zhang, 2022. "Can Digital Technologies Increase Consumer Acceptance of Circular Business Models? The Case of Second Hand Fashion," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-21, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:8:p:4589-:d:791927
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/8/4589/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/8/4589/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Belk, Russell, 2014. "You are what you can access: Sharing and collaborative consumption online," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1595-1600.
    2. Juana Camacho-Otero & Casper Boks & Ida Nilstad Pettersen, 2018. "Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-25, August.
    3. Neil Stewart & Christoph Ungemach & Adam J. L. Harris & Daniel M. Bartels & Ben R. Newell & Gabriele Paolacci & Jesse Chandler, "undated". "The Average Laboratory Samples a Population of 7,300 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers," Mathematica Policy Research Reports f97b669c7b3e4c2ab95c9f805, Mathematica Policy Research.
    4. Kirchherr, Julian & Piscicelli, Laura & Bour, Ruben & Kostense-Smit, Erica & Muller, Jennifer & Huibrechtse-Truijens, Anne & Hekkert, Marko, 2018. "Barriers to the Circular Economy: Evidence From the European Union (EU)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 264-272.
    5. Peter Lacy & Jakob Rutqvist, 2015. "Waste to Wealth," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-53070-7, October.
    6. Fleura Bardhi & Giana M. Eckhardt, 2012. "Access-Based Consumption: The Case of Car Sharing," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 39(4), pages 881-898.
    7. Di Silvestre, Maria Luisa & Favuzza, Salvatore & Riva Sanseverino, Eleonora & Zizzo, Gaetano, 2018. "How Decarbonization, Digitalization and Decentralization are changing key power infrastructures," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 483-498.
    8. Konstantinos Demestichas & Emmanouil Daskalakis, 2020. "Information and Communication Technology Solutions for the Circular Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-19, September.
    9. repec:cup:judgdm:v:10:y:2015:i:5:p:479-491 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lyndsay Mesjar & Karen Cross & Yang Jiang & Josie Steed, 2023. "The Intersection of Fashion, Immersive Technology, and Sustainability: A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Xiaoke Wang & Zhaohui Wang & Hengtao Li, 2024. "Quality Evaluation and Optimization of Idle Goods Swap Platform Based on Grounded Theory and Importance–Performance Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-15, October.
    3. Pei-Hsin Lin & Wun-Hwa Chen, 2022. "Factors That Influence Consumers’ Sustainable Apparel Purchase Intention: The Moderating Effect of Generational Cohorts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-14, July.
    4. Rui Jorge Carreira & José Vasconcelos Ferreira & Ana Luísa Ramos, 2023. "The Consumer’s Role in the Transition to the Circular Economy: A State of the Art Based on a SLR with Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-19, October.
    5. Xiao Han & Yang Zheng, 2022. "Driving Elements of Enterprise Digital Transformation Based on the Perspective of Dynamic Evolution," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-19, August.
    6. Yanwen Ruan & Yingjiao Xu & Hanna Lee, 2022. "Consumer Motivations for Luxury Fashion Rental: A Second-Order Factor Analysis Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-16, June.
    7. Sebastian Schroedel, 2023. "The Sustainable Business Model Database: 92 Patterns That Enable Sustainability in Business Model Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-27, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katherine Mansilla-Obando & Fabiola Jeldes-Delgado & Nataly Guiñez-Cabrera, 2022. "Circular Economy Strategies with Social Implications: Findings from a Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-16, October.
    2. Bauwens, Thomas & Hekkert, Marko & Kirchherr, Julian, 2020. "Circular futures: What Will They Look Like?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    3. Steven Kane Curtis & Matthias Lehner, 2019. "Defining the Sharing Economy for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-25, January.
    4. Küper, Inken & Edinger-Schons, Laura Marie, 2020. "Is sharing up for sale? Monetary exchanges in the sharing economy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 223-234.
    5. Jose María Martín‐Martín & María S. Ostos‐Rey & Jose A. Salinas‐Fernández, 2019. "Why Regulation Is Needed in Emerging Markets in the Tourism Sector," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 78(1), pages 225-254, January.
    6. Paolo E. Giordani & Francesco Rullani, 2020. "The Digital Revolution and COVID-19," Working Papers 06, Venice School of Management - Department of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.
    7. Dingju Zhu, 2020. "Big Data based Research on Mechanisms of Sharing Economy Restructuring the World," Papers 2001.08926, arXiv.org.
    8. Emmanuelle Reuter, 2022. "Hybrid business models in the sharing economy: The role of business model design for managing the environmental paradox," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 603-618, February.
    9. Lutz, Christoph & Newlands, Gemma, 2018. "Consumer segmentation within the sharing economy: The case of Airbnb," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 187-196.
    10. Myriam Ertz & Jonathan Deschênes & Emine Sarigöllü, 2021. "From User to Provider: Switching Over in the Collaborative Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-21, May.
    11. Valeria Andreoni, 2020. "The Trap of Success: A Paradox of Scale for Sharing Economy and Degrowth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, April.
    12. Daisy Bertrand & Pierre-Yves Léo & Jean Philippe, 2019. "The New Go-Between Services: Peer-To-Peer Sharing Platforms In Hospitality Services," Post-Print hal-02299130, HAL.
    13. Hartl, Barbara & Hofmann, Eva & Kirchler, Erich, 2016. "Do we need rules for “what's mine is yours”? Governance in collaborative consumption communities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 2756-2763.
    14. Manuel Sánchez-Pérez & Nuria Rueda-López & María Belén Marín-Carrillo & Eduardo Terán-Yépez, 2021. "Theoretical dilemmas, conceptual review and perspectives disclosure of the sharing economy: a qualitative analysis," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(7), pages 1849-1883, October.
    15. Mauro Capestro & Greta Chiavegato, 2023. "Il consumo dei beni di lusso nel contesto della sharing economy: un caso di studio italiano," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2023(1), pages 53-70.
    16. Hong, Soonkwan & Vicdan, Handan, 2016. "Re-imagining the utopian: Transformation of a sustainable lifestyle in ecovillages," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 120-136.
    17. Park, Hyejune & Joyner Armstrong, Cosette M., 2019. "Is money the biggest driver? Uncovering motives for engaging in online collaborative consumption retail models for apparel," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 42-50.
    18. Činjarević Merima & Kožo Amra & Berberović Denis, 2019. "Sharing is Caring, and Millennials Do Care: Collaborative Consumption through the Eyes of Internet Generation," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 49-60, June.
    19. Daniel Roos & Rüdiger Hahn, 2019. "Understanding Collaborative Consumption: An Extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior with Value-Based Personal Norms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 679-697, September.
    20. Möhlmann, Mareike, 2021. "Unjustified trust beliefs: Trust conflation on sharing economy platforms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(3).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:8:p:4589-:d:791927. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.