Master’s Programme in Collaborative and Industrial Design

Consumer attitude towards

buying and selling second-hand
clothing

Bohan Sun

MASTER’S
THESIS

1
Aalto University
MASTER’S THESIS 2021

Consumer attitude towards

buying and selling second-hand cloth-
ing

Bohan Sun

Otaniemi, 15 Nov 2021

Supervisor:
Dr. Andrés Lucero,
Associate professor, Aalto University

Advisor:
Dr. Marium Durrani,
Postdoctoral Researcher, Aalto University

Aalto University School of Arts

Design Department
Collaborative and Industrial Design
 Abstract
Aalto University, P.O. Box 11000, FI-00076 Aalto [Link]

Author
Bohan Sun
Title
Consumer attitude towards buying and selling second-hand clothing

School School of Arts

Master’s programme Collaborative and Industrial Design
Major Collaborative and Industrial Design
Supervisor Andrés Lucero
Advisor Marium Durrani
Level Master’s thesis Date 15 Nov 2021 Pages 69 Language English

Abstract
In spite of its long history, the second-hand clothing market has received massive at-
tention in recent years due to an increasing awareness of environmental impact of fast
fashion. As the second-hand clothing business is expanding, a deeper understanding
about why people choose pre-used garments and how they are involved in this recycling
process is needed. This thesis investigates consumers’ attitude, consumption patterns
and factors that influence their decision making while choosing second-hand garments.
Additionally, the role of sustainability as a motivation for the consumers in second-hand
clothing shopping experience is evaluated.

This study consists of a combination of semi-structured interview as the main method

and a followup quantitative evaluation survey for data acquisition. The interviews were
conducted with 8 participants, second-hand clothing consumers who visit second-hand
stores with varying frequency. A survey was then conducted with 31 responses to validate
the results obtained from the interviews. During the interview process, the participants
are also interviewed about their second-hand clothes consumption patterns including
purchasing, using, and disposing.

The findings showed six major motivations to be the driving factor for the purchase of
second-hand garments. Among them, hedonistic shopping value plays an important role
in attracting consumers to visit second-hand clothing stores. Even though most of the
consumers consider sustainability as a reason for choosing pre-owned clothing, they do it
primarily because they are against consumerism rather than for being more sustainable.
They view second-hand clothes as a compromise or less harmful option when compared
to buying fast fashion. However, consumer’s utilitarian value can not be fulfilled by
second-hand shopping as it demands more effort and time.

Keywords second-hand clothing, sustainability, consumerism, clothing reuse, clothing

disposal, consumer behaviour, consumer motivation
urn

ii
Contents

Abstract ii

Contents iii

1. Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research objectives and questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Structure of the thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2. Literature review 4
2.1 Consumerism and Fast Fashion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Emotional aspects of the shopping experience . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Reuse, resale, second hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.4 Contamination Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.5 Clothing disposal behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3. Methodology 14
3.1 A quantitative method as follow up to a qualitative method . . . 14
3.2 Sampling: two user groups with different views. . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3 Data collection methods and process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4 Data analysis technique: affinity diagramming . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.5 Ethical considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4. Findings and analysis 23

4.1 Clothing disposal and consumption behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 Why we choose to acquire second-hand clothes . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3 Why we don’t choose second-hand clothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

5. Discussion 38
5.1 Against consumerism instead of sustainable consumers . . . . . 38

iii
 Contents

5.2 Take from cycle and give back to cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

5.3 Hedonistic shopping value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6. Conclusions 45
6.1 Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6.2 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.3 Future research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

References 50

Appendices

iv
1. Introduction

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the topic and its context. First, the
impact of fast fashion industry and the potential of garments reuse are presented as
a background of the thesis. Then, it outlines the objective with research questions.
In the end, the structure of the thesis is provided.

1.1 Background

Consumerism has become an important part of our modern lives but it also has
brought a number of waste and environment challenges with it. These challenges
are some of the most important challenges we face today as a civilization. The
rapid economic growth of the industrial revolution era came at an expense of huge
natural resource consumption. In the last half century, the consumption of natural
resources including wood, water and land has increased much faster than the
population growth (Dauvergne, 2010). The private consumption expenditures from
1960 to 2000 grew 4 times, although the population only doubled in these forty
years (Dauvergne, 2010). Except for consuming natural resources, consumerism
also leads to pollution emission, contamination of water sources, deforestation,
and accelerated climate change (Dauvergne, 2010).

The garment industry, is one of the biggest and oldest consumer products industry.
Apart from agriculture, it is the industry which consumes more water in produc-
tion. The chemicals used for dyeing textile expels huge amount of toxic substances
into the environment (Niinimäki et al., 2013). Moreover, while the clothing indus-
try has been moved to Asian and far eastern countries, the lower price products
have lead to a rapid growth of fashion consumption in the western countries. The
clothing industries are mainly export driven targeting wealthier western countries.
It is also a very resource intensive industry which demands more resources from

1
 Introduction

the populous areas of the world where there is lesser resources per capita. This
leads to increased pollution and poverty in the local environment (Dauvergne,
2010) which in turn leads to increase in global inequality.

As the clothing industry production rate increases, the textile and garment waste
is also growing. However, the length of a garment’s life cycle has been shortened.
Among the garments discarded, many of them cannot decompose at all such as
polyester. Some of them even release toxic chemicals to the land when decompos-
ing (Niinimäki et al., 2013).

However, most discarded garments are in a sufficient condition to be reused. Ac-

cording to a study by the British charity Barnado’s in 2015, 80 billion garments
are consumed every year globally but, on average, each item has only been worn
seven times before discarded (Jones-Davis, 2019). Reusing, is one of the practices
for promoting sustainable fashion, is proved to have significant benefits to the en-
vironment. Collecting, sorting and reselling used clothes needs 10 to 20 times less
energy than producing a new one (Fletcher, 2013). Purchasing second-hand cloth-
ing instead of new one is a promising practice toward sustainable consumption.
While second-hand stores are flourishing and popular to consumers (Willersdorf,
n.d.), there are still many people who prefer to buy new items. Therefore, this
study is focused on researching second-hand products consumption behaviour and
what influences consumers to choose or not to choose second-hand clothing.

1.2 Research objectives and questions

The second-hand clothing market already has a long history in Europe and it is
getting increasingly popular in recent decades. Many factors have made it such a
heated topic like subculture movement, thrift behaviours, ethical considerations,
and personal identity (Noon, 2011). Nowadays, we can see a reused clothing cycle
is forming: second-hand clothing businesses are sustained by consumers who buy
used clothes, maintain it and bring it back. In Finland, nowadays, there are more
and more new second-hand stores and online channels, especially with the COVID-
19 pandemic. It has become an important part of society. The role of consumers is
undoubtedly crucial in maintaining and developing a healthy reused clothing cycle.
Hence, understanding consumers’ attitudes towards second-hand garments and
their consumption behaviour in the reused clothing cycle can provide meaningful
insights as a input for business owners to form a sustainable market.

2
 Introduction

Therefore, the objective of this research is to understand consumers’ attitudes to-

wards reused clothing and what is the reason for consumers to choose second-hand
clothing. Meanwhile, to what level does sustainability serve as an underlying
motivation influencing the consumer behaviour.

The main research question of this thesis is:

What are consumers’ attitudes towards second-hand clothing consumption in the
context of the city of Helsinki?

The following sub-questions were researched for supporting the main research
question:
1. What is the role of sustainability as motivation in second-hand fashion con-
sumption?
2. What is the existing consumption pattern of second-hand clothing?
3. What factors influence consumers’ decision making in second-hand fashion?

1.3 Structure of the thesis

This thesis consists of 6 chapters. In the current chapter, an introduction of

the current fashion consumption culture and its impact to the environment are
presented as a background for the reason of doing this research. The following
chapter is focused on the literature discussion on consumer studies around reused
fashion, fast fashion culture, emotional aspects of the shopping experience, and
consumers’ disposal behaviour. It provides a theoretical context for the research.
In the third chapter, the methodology applied in this study is presented: a qual-
itative semi-structured interview as the main research method, followed by a
quantitative evaluation survey as a supplementary method. In the fourth chapter,
the result of the research is presented. A clothing disposal pattern is presented
as a starting point of the reused clothing cycle. The reason consumers choose
second-hand clothing and the factors that discourage them towards second-hand
garments are identified. The fifth chapter summarizes the results and presents
the main findings of the research. The sixth chapter concludes this study as we
present the limitation and the suggestion for future research.

3
2. Literature review

This chapter presents the literature discussion on consumer research around reused
garments, fast fashion culture, emotional aspects of the fashion shopping experience,
as well as consumers’ disposal behaviour and pattern are outlined to provide a
theoretical context for the research.

2.1 Consumerism and Fast Fashion

The term "consumerism" has been given different definitions, nowadays it is often
referred to "the consumption of goods and services in excess of one’s basic needs"
(Education, 2015). Owing to the massive increase in production brought about by
automation and technology in every industry, the production and renewal cycle
has become increasingly short and so has the lifetime of products (Glaubitz, 2012).
What is changing with this is also the consumption pattern. People have the
inexhaustible longing for new experiences brought from new products. Consumers
are chasing the excitement as purchasing a new item is to bring novel experiences
(Fletcher, 2013). Overwhelmed by the huge variety of products, people are easily
trapped in a mindless and hedonistic cycle of buying, working, and consuming.
This is what has given "consumerism" an unfavorable name (Trentmann, 2016).

Consumption is seen as search for satisfaction, it is not naturally negative since it

fulfills our fundamental needs. Taking garments as an example, except for keeping
us warm, it also empowers us, helps us express our identity and enhances well
being. However, when strategies focus on maximizing profits and market share,
artificial needs are created which need to be satisfied by the expansive scale of
production, as a result consumption has become like a bad habit rather than about
fulfilling our needs (Fletcher, 2013).

The clothing industry as a part of this consumerism mechanism carried us away

from the physical and functional needs of people. The cycle of new items introduced

4
 Literature review

to stores become so fast, even up to 12 seasons a year, and brands compete with
speed and novelty (Fletcher, 2013). To respond to customer’s preferences, some
brands even have the strategy to update a small amount of clothing and deliver to
the store even twice a week (Aakko et al., 2016). That brings redundant textile
especially low quality ones into the market and they need a long time to get back
into circulation.

Fast fashion refers to mass produced garments which are designed in a standard-
ised fashion based on the current street fashion for a very cheap price (Fletcher,
2013). Some of the fast fashion giants include: ZARA, MANGO, H&M and so
on. The low cost fashion production supports consumerism by generating a high
turnover of clothing but as a side effect, it also generates a huge environmental im-
pact (Aakko et al., 2016). Meanwhile, mass production processes manufacture low
quality garments resulting in redundancy in the wardrobe and discarding faster.
In addition, planned obsolescence, referring to reducing the lifetime, quality and
function of a product on purpose to stimulate purchases, contributes to the current
consumption habits of buying new objects and replacing the old ones (Aakko et
al., 2016). The increasing consumption pattern of buying low quality apparel also
brings difficulties to the following economy like textile recycling, sorting, garments’
distributing and reselling, as recycling is expensive and cheap clothing in the
market are so available (Fletcher, 2013).

For reducing the unsustainable aspect of fashion production, some people indicate
that increasing the length and durability of garments will reduce the consumption
of raw resource and waste produced from production. A 2017 report for WARP sug-
gested that extending the lifetime of half of UK’s clothing by 9 months, the carbon
emission can reduce 8 percent, and water use can be reduced by 10 percent per
tonne of clothing (WRAP, 2017). However, the factors influencing consumption of
apparel are more complex. Consumption habits, behaviour, culture, psychological
reason, and knowledge influence the active lifespan of a garment together. Old
garments get replaced rarely because of being worn out but instead for a change
in trends. Although high quality material and good craft skills can increase the
durability of garments, the average active use time of clothing is still around 6
months while it is in fashion. Thus, we also face a challenge of maintaining the
usefulness and appropriateness of a garment for longer time (Fletcher, 2013).

5
 Literature review

2.2 Emotional aspects of the shopping experience

Why do we go shopping? What is our motivation behind purchasing? Shopping

has been seen as an entertainment activity. Except for buying a desired item, cus-
tomers browse the shelves in the store for having fun. Batra and Ahtola suggested
that customers’ attitude towards shopping has two fundamental dimensions: util-
itarian and hedonistic (Batra & Ahtola, 1991). Utilitarian shopping refers to
shopping for a specific task. It is rational and it fulfills a certain goal. When
customers shop with a utilitarian shopping motivation, they are doing an assess-
ment of functional benefits and economic value (Nopnukulvised, Husamaldin, &
Bowen, 2019). Instead, hedonistic shopping is more subjective and personal. It
involves potential entertainment and emotional worth (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003).
Hedonistic shopping behaviours are driven by explorations and entertainment.
Customers are looking for pleasure instead of completing a specific purchase task
from the shopping trip. Moreover, a hedonistic shopping value can be fulfilled with
or without a purchasing anything (Nopnukulvised et al., 2019). Meanwhile, Cin-
jarevic addressed that hedonistic shopping motivations are significantly related to
impulse purchasing behavior (Cinjarevic, Tatic, & Petric, 2011).

Hedonistic shopping behaviour is more complex than utilitarian shopping. The

emotional aspects of shopping experience gained immense attention years ago,
especially when online shopping was booming. Hedonistic shopping motivation,
in some levels, changed the retailing strategy and the conventional shopping
environment. Looking deeper into the hedonistic shopping motivation, Arnold and
Reynolds categorised six broad motivations. First, adventure shopping motivation,
which refers to shopping for seeking excitement, adventure, and the feeling of
entering another world. The second one is social shopping. Customers go shopping
for enjoying company of friends and family. Shopping to them is an opportunity to
socialise and bond with others. The third one is labeled "gratification shopping". It
refers to using shopping as a way of distressing and alleviating negative emotions.
The fourth is "idea shopping" which customers go shopping for keeping up with
the fashion trends and looking for new innovation and products. The fifth is
"role shopping" which refers to customers go shopping for buying for others. Its
drive and enjoyment of the shoppers are in choosing for their loved ones and
ones important to them. The last one is "value shopping". In the value shopping
motivation, shoppers enjoy shopping for sales and discounts. Here, shoppers can
be seen as a bargain hunter, shopping for a good deal (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003).
In the second-hand shopping experience, hedonistic motivations play an important
role, especially adventure shopping and value shopping and, to some extent, social

6
 Literature review

shopping (Laitala & Klepp, 2018). In terms of fashion, shoppers with high fashion
tendency would go to shop more often. Fashion shoppers also are more likely to
fulfill their hedonistic needs through shopping (Kim & Hong, 2011).

With an understanding of the hedonistic shopping motivation, it gives an explana-

tion of why people like to go to the shopping environment and enjoy the shopping
experience. However, it doesn’t address much about the purchasing behaviours.
What emotional stimulation can purchasing give to the shoppers? What is the
emotional reason to continually purchase and possess objects while our necessary
needs were already getting fulfilled? From previous research, Richins suggested
before the purchase, consumers experience a positive emotional elevation. It
comes from the expectation of "their life is going to be changed in a meaningful
way through the use and acquisition of the expected item" (Richins, 2013). The
expectation includes the pleasure and efficiency that a product can bring to the
life and also the change will be made in one’s social identity. After the purchase,
the positive emotion associated with the item is not durable. Due to the fading of
the positive emotion, consumers inevitably get accustomed to a new acquisition
(Richins, 2013).

In terms of apparel, except for fashion and functional aspects, emotional motiva-
tion and social reasons also play an important role in the way consumers choose
what to buy and what to wear. Dressing can be considered as an act of identity
construction (Woodward, 2007). It involves considering oneself in a external per-
spective. Standing in front of the mirror, when we are able to see ourselves as from
and objective point of view, it is the moment when the external self and internal
self meet. We consider our identity through the material form of clothing to negoti-
ate if the individual we see is "me". At the same time, we try to build ourselves as
the idealized person we imagine we want to be through our wardrobes. However,
the construction may already start before facing the mirror when we are thinking
what to wear (Woodward, 2007). When we are browsing in a store to choose which
piece of clothing to buy, we are not only negotiating through which piece I would
like to present "me", but also what I want others to see me as. Social occasions
are another factor influencing how people dress. As we are choosing what to wear
we are trying to balance fitting in the social expectations and personal preference.
That adds to the complexity of motivation for purchasing clothes.

7
 Literature review

2.3 Reuse, resale, second hands

Although the second-hand clothing market has been growing rapidly in recent
years, it has existed for a long time, and can be traced back to seventeenth
century (Anzak, Zulfiqar, & Mohyuddin, 2019). Before modern global world,
itinerants usually called rag pickers, waste collectors and ‘old cloth men’ did the
trading of old clothing and used items by exchanging from one village to another.
These networks spread across different areas in Europe and America (Hansen &
Le Zotte, 2019). Till 1960s, second-hand clothing were introduced for the first time
into contemporary fashion by hippies. Hippies rejected the mainstream culture
and many hippie garments were self-made or bought from flea market (JONY,
ISLAM, & TABASSUM, n.d.). Then in 90s, as the second-hand clothing gained
more interest among investors, customers and retailers, resale market started
expanding (Turunen, Leipämaa-Leskinen, & Sihvonen, 2018). Since second-hand
goods were no longer seen as a symbol of “poor“ or ”shame”. The stigma related to
second-hand consumption vanished. The new perception of second-hand products
changed to stylish and cool (Steffen, 2017). Buying second-hand garments became
a behaviour of consuming ’creatively’ and ’smartly’ (Hansen & Le Zotte, 2019).
The growing attention for second-hand fashion isn’t expected to slow down. From
a US resale report, the second-hand clothing market is expected to grow 414% in
the next 4 years (TredUp, 2020).

Although during the COVID-19 pandemic, many industries have been facing a
hard time and many sectors have been shrinking, the second-hand market, is
nonetheless booming. There were a lot more visitors to thrift stores both for
donation and purchasing. Online resale even gained more attention compared
to the time before the pandemic. From the 2020 TredUp report, between 2019
and 2020, second-hand clothing online shopping gained a growth of up to 69 %
(TredUp, 2020). Second-hand clothing has the potential of reshaping the current
fashion industry which is mainly dominated by fast fashion. However, the practice
of second-hand selling is still being iterated in traditional retail stores (Steffen,
2017).

Second-hand clothing refers to the garments which are pre-owned or pre-used.

Their price tends to be cheaper than the new ones (Steffen, 2017). There are also
many second-hand clothing that are not worn by the previous owner. Unpacked
clothing or textile also can be found in a second-hand store. Those items are
exceptions but also seen as second-hand because they are pre-owned.

There is a big range of second-hand stores, thrift stores, flea markets, charity

8
 Literature review

shops, consignment stores, and vintage shops. They differentiate from one another
with different ways of acquiring and selling items. For example, thrift stores and
charity shops tend to get items from donation and recycling, after collecting, they
are displayed in stores and sold to customers at a lower price. Consignment stores
provide a place and services for customers to sell their pre-owned garments to
others customers. Sellers rent a certain part of the store for a certain period of
time to showcase their items and staff take care of the products and help them
to sell the items. Vintage shops don’t directly refer to second-hand since ‘vintage’
emphasizes on aged items instead of used. Many first hand items also can be
found in vintage stores.

With social media becoming more and more important part of life, consumers have
gradually adopted shopping through social media. Social media and online second-
hand market bring a big change to the fashion industry, encouraging consumers to
become both buyers and sellers (Markova & Grajeda, 2018). Except for buying pre-
reused apparel from the market, other ways of second-hand clothing acquisition
happen through family networking and between familiar people. Yet, this kind of
exchange is considered to be declining (Fletcher, 2013).

The second-hand clothing we see in the local market is only a small proportion of
the whole collection. Most of the used clothing people donated to the local charities
are shipped to regions in Africa. There is only 20 percent collected second-hand
clothing resold in domestically in UK. In many western countries, most of the
second-hand apparel is shipped abroad to be sold on the worldwide commodities
market.

On the one hand, the second-hand clothing from western countries benefits the
poor population in developing countries with more affordable apparel to meet their
basic needs (Fletcher, 2013), at the same time, the second-hand clothing trading
provides a big amount of employment opportunities (Anzak et al., 2019). On the
other hand, although imported clothing saved resources, energy and materials in
local areas, low price apparel has impaired local clothing production development
and undermined the traditional textile industry (Fletcher, 2013). In Tanzania,
second-hand garments imported is estimated to be over 540 million every year, yet,
only 20 million pieces of garments are domestically produced (Calabrese, Balchin,
& Mendez-Parra, 2017).

Second-hand clothing imported in African counties also brings another issue: it is

impairing the social identity of traditional dressing culture. Nigeria is a country
shaped by more than 250 ethnic groups and their culture is different from one

9
 Literature review

another. Every ethnic group has their own traditional dress. The design and
pattern of the attires have a wide range of diversity. After the colonial period,
Nigeria ought to produce their own apparel and other products to develop in-
dustrialization and economy. However, local products production declined and
second-hand garments import increased. Although affordable imported pre-used
clothing can help people who are poor to fulfill their basic needs, that just helps
them maintain the status quo but cannot bring them out of poverty (Abubakar et
al., 2018).

2.4 Contamination Interaction

The modern fashion market is unsustainable. For turning fashion industry to-
wards a circular economy, many new business models have been tried, including
garments swapping services and commercial garments rental strategies, where
the life cycle of clothing can be expanded through continuous use between multi-
ple owners. Although those practices have proved to be beneficial to reduce the
consumption of virgin natural sources for producing new goods, consumers’ choice
for acquisition of pre-owned products is still a challenge. Among those consumer
barriers, contaminated interaction (Baxter, Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017) is the one
that needs to be mentioned.

According to Baxter, three types of contamination influence the circular econ-

omy: technical, systemic, and contaminated interaction, to prevent reuse among
consumers. It is inevitable for practitioners to deal with the third one which is
about user-object interaction and consumers’ decision making (Baxter, Aurisicchio,
Mugge, Childs, & Mugge, 2017). Contaminated interaction is when a product
alters from the ideal status due to the interactions of previous users (Baxter,
Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017). For example, a garment is seen as disgusting for a
consumer because it was worn by the past user. Hence, how consumers perceive a
used product poses significant influence to consumer’s decision making.

However, not all contamination is undesirable. A garment owned by a loved one

or a celebrity. In such cases, the contamination is likely perceived as positive
(Baxter, Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017). Baxter divided contaminated interaction to
real and imagined. The real contamination comes from the physical change, such
as stain, odour, and worn. The imagined one is psychologically associated (Baxter,
Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017). An example can be found in a car rental business. A
user shows repulsion when imagining the previous person holding the steering

10
 Literature review

wheel for whole day (Clube & Tennant, 2020).

Contaminated interaction occurs subjectively on a personal level and impacts

consumer’s decision making in the second-hand market. For reducing its negative
effects, it is important to understand how it happens. There are three drivers,
hygiene, territory and utility (Baxter, Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017). Hygiene is
concerned with the feeling of disgust, and potential harm for health, thinking the
product is not clean enough to buy. The influence of hygiene considerations is
negative and it increases when it is about more intimate clothing. The territory
driver in this context is about the value change of the things because of the
presence of others. When an item is owned by someone, it is considered that it
carries the essence of the owner. This driver can be both negative and positive. It
depends on the previous contaminator’s impact to the consumer. The utility driver
deals with the functional aspect of the products. Some consumers think the value
of a car decreases due to wear from several years use. Contrarily, a used house
can be popular. These three drivers shape the mentality of consumers through
cultural and personal experience (Baxter, Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017).

The relationship between consumers and objects is essential to implement a

circular economy business strategy. The contaminated interaction not only chal-
lenges reuse based business model but also re-manufacturing and recycling. A
re-manufactured car is seen not as good as a new one, even though the quality
actually is enhanced because the previous use exposes the flaws and flawed units
get changed to new (Baxter, Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2017). Contaminated interac-
tion also hinders the development of circular economic business models due to
devaluation of the products. The devaluation leads to a lower profit rate which in
the end challenges the commercializing (?). A concept change from linear owner-
ship to multiple ownership needs to be addressed. Since this thesis is focusing on
the consumers’ perception and behaviour toward pre-used item other aspects such
as re-manufacturing and recycling will not be considered.

2.5 Clothing disposal behaviour

Given the current speed of consumption in terms of fashion, a large a mount of

garments are discarded causing many environmental problems (Fletcher, 2013).
A sustainable consumption cycle of clothing not only includes its purchasing stage
but also the post-purchase behaviour involving using, taking care and disposing
of the clothing. Consumer’s disposal behaviour is crucial from an environmental

11
 Literature review

perspective. As it decides when and where the clothing would end up, thus it
decides the lifespan, the amount of waste generated, and the possibility to be
reused and recycled (Laitala, 2014). Waste prevention and management is a top
priority issue in Europe. A set of hierarchy for managing waste, ranked according
to the impact to environment:
1. Prevent generation of waste.
2. Prepare the product to be reused including: cleaning, sorting and repairing.
3. Recycle the used product to a new product.
4. Recovery including incinerating for energy recovery.
5. Disposal to land fills or incineration without energy recovery (Directive et al.,
2008).

Consumers show different disposal behaviour towards clothing than general waste
due to its unique characteristics (Shim, 1995). Jacob Jacoby asserted that the
disposition behaviour of consumers can be identified to three main categories:
Firstly, Retention (including continuous use for its original purpose or other
purposes, and store it for use later); Secondly, Permanent disposal (including
discard, give away, and sell it); Thirdly, Temporary disposal (i.e. loan or rent it)
(Jacoby, Berning, & Dietvorst, 1977). The majority of the studies showed that
consumers are more inclined to dispose the clothing for reuse by donating, selling
as well as giving away to friends or families rather than binning it. Among the
various channels of disposing. According to (Laitala, 2014), when consumers
determine in which way to dispose clothing, convenience plays an important role
in decision making.

There has been many research to study the reasons behind consumers’ disposal
behaviours and how consumers choose a certain disposal method. Kirsi Laitala
asserted that the disposal reasons can be categorized in four main groups: wear
and tear; size and fit; fashion and taste; and other reasons. In the last category,
lack of storage space is included. To dispose one piece of clothing, there can
be multiple reasons (Laitala, 2014). Boredom is a common emotional reason
relating to fashion and taste reflects the nature of consumers’ fashion preference
(Kwon, Choo, & Kim, 2020). Anna Kwon identified four main factors leading
to boredom of clothing: oldness of clothing, referring to a garment becoming
physically less attractive due to the passage of time; change in trends referring
to clothing becoming outdated leading to less interest for the owner; decreased
social fit includes social inappropriateness due to the owner’s age and social status
changing; a purchase of new apparel referring to the excitement of buying a new
piece (Kwon et al., 2020). Among them, the second driver, decreased social fit

12
 Literature review

was also stressed by Sophie Woodward that dressing is an act of balancing social
expectations and personal preference (Woodward, 2007). Social fit is a significant
factor for women to choose what to wear, therefore, it is more likely to lead to a
new purchase and discarding. The decision making of clothing disposal is also
influenced by moderating factors: attachment; resource input (includes money
and time); and convenience (Kwon et al., 2020).

13
3. Methodology

In this chapter, the methods applied in data gathering and analysis are pre-
sented. First, the methodology used in the research is discussed: a qualitative
semi-structured interview is the main research method followed by a quantitative
evaluation survey as a supplementary method. Following that, the way of sampling
and different sample groups are presented. At the end, the affinity diagram applied
as a data analysis technique is explained.

3.1 A quantitative method as follow up to a qualitative method

Since different research methods have various strengths and weaknesses, the
combination maximizes the ability to bring the strengths together. According
to the Priority-Sequence Model, a qualitative in-depth interview was chosen as
the principal method and a quantitative survey as follow up complementary
method. (Morgan, 1998) In-depth interviews with different user groups were
conducted to get a better understanding of what are the motivations and barriers
for acquiring pre-owned clothing; the practices of consumers in the acquiring-
consuming-disposing cycle. Following that, the insights from the qualitative
interview were added to the quantitative survey as input.

Figure 3.1. Methods table

Interviews are a discovery method to obtain detailed information about the topic

14
 Methodology

especially when the researchers are not experts in this field. With the opportunities
to ask follow up and spontaneous questions for additional information, a rich
understanding of the target group’s behaviour, attitude, perception and value
is built. (Gray, 2013) By conducting interviews in a familiar environment and
channels that participants feel more comfortable with, the rapport can be built
between interviewers and interviewees so that experience, feelings and examples
can be shared openly to generate more insightful responses. (Johnson & Weller,
2002) Although interviews have many advantages, the numbers of interviews and
numbers of participants for them are relatively small. Due to that, interviews are
more helpful to get a deeper understanding but the result is not representative
of the general trend. Therefore, a follow up quantitative survey is used as a
complementary method in the next stage. A smaller quantitative study can help
to evaluate and interpret the data gathered from the interviews. The result from
the interviews was added as input to the survey. Conducting these two methods in
sequence helps us understand the general trend by adding what is learned from
one to the other. (Morgan, 1998)

3.2 Sampling: two user groups with different views.

Young consumers have always been seen as the target market for promoting new
products and services. (Yan, Bae, & Xu, 2015) They are also a primary market
for second-hand garments because they represent a generation of consumers who
grew up with a broader awareness of environment, recycling, climate change and
humanity issues that are affecting their world. (Yan et al., 2015) In addition to that,
they are seen as valuable consumers who have a big influence on the consumption
decision of people around them. University students are the people who are about
to enter the society and become the main consumer group in the market and have
a massive potential influence to others due to their consumption choice and their
social responsibility. Therefore, several consumers who are studying in college or
universities, and who just entered working life were chosen to be participants for
semi-structured interviews .

For the purpose of the research, the study was focusing on consumers who live
in the city around Helsinki. For studying the situation of second-hand clothing
in this area, the demographic were intentionally chosen to try to make it close
to the Helsinki’s population structure. Most of the samples chosen for interview
are Finnish citizens or have more than 9 years experience living in Finland.
8 participants were interviewed as consumers, among them 5 participants are

15
 Methodology

Finnish citizens, 2 participants were born in Finland, 4 participants have been

living here for more than 9 years, the other 2 participants live in Helsinki for
respectively 2 years and 4 years. To keep the diversity of the samples, participants
were chosen with different education background. Since women are more likely to
spend time on shopping for clothing, of the 8 interview participants, only one is a
male in order to give a different perspective.

To diversify the perspective of the second-hand clothing data acquisition, samples

were divided in to two categories. The main category is motivated second-hand
consumers who prefer second-hand clothing rather than first hand ones. For
many of them second-hand clothing is their first option when there is a request
for adding more garments to the wardrobe. Among the motivated consumers, 4
participants have been buying second-hand clothing for years since their teenage
age and the rest 2 participants used to buy first hand garments and experienced a
transition from firsthand to second-hand for different incentives. Samples were
divided in this way in order to understand the different factors which effect on
consumers purchasing choices towards reused garments.

Figure 3.2. Interviewee information

The second category is occasional visitors who have been to and have bought
apparel from second-hand stores but second-hand clothing are not their first
option when a new request arises. There were two participants in this category,
between them, one participant has been trying to adapt a sustainable lifestyle in
different aspects in life for years but never considered second-hand garments as an

16
 Methodology

option. The other participant used to consume a large amount of fast fashion and
first hand clothing but transitioned to a more conscious consumption pattern. With
the different perspective of occasional visitors, the motivation and expectation of
their shopping experience can be outlined in a more general way. Understanding
the view of occasional visitors helps to find out the reason why people don’t choose
pre-owned clothing and what makes this consumption decision challenging.

3.3 Data collection methods and process

3.3.1 Semi-structured interview

Semi-structured interview is a flexible and powerful method to capture the voice

of the customers and give meaning to their experiences. (Rabionet, 2011) For
conducting an interview, what is already known is as important as what is needed
to be learnt. What we want to learn determines the question we are going to ask.
(Leech, 2002) A set of questions according to predefined themes were made into
an interview structure to guide the interview but questions were not limited to
the structure. Two structures were made for two user groups.

Two main themes were identified in order to get a holistic view of consumer’s
behaviour pattern during the clothing reuse circle. One theme is about how
participants experience the circle of clothing acquisition- possession-deposing.
(Laitala, 2014) The other one was about the inner reason why they do or do not
choose second-hand clothing over first hand ones. From the positive answers, the
driving factors for adoption of second hand clothes are understood. Through the
negative answers, obstacles hindering consumers and problems in the second-hand
clothing cycle can be identified.

Before conducting the interviews, a pilot was conducted with participants not
included in the target group to ensure the success of the formal interviews. (Majid
et al., 2017). Every interview was conducted for 45-60 minutes. All of the inter-
views were conducted virtually through online meeting, except one, which was
done face to face. Before conducting the interviews, a consent form and meeting
schedule was sent to the participant. Every interview was recorded and after
every interview, the audio was turned into a transcript for analysis purposes.

While preparing the interview structure, selection of interviewees was done at

the same time. Messages of request for participants were sent to different social

17
 Methodology

media [Link] avoid personal bias, known people were avoided. After several
interviewees were selected, snowballing method was applied to recruit more
interviewees through asking for relevant people to be interviewed in the end of
every interview session. (Noy, 2008) In this way the interview conducting and
interviewee selection took place.

Figure 3.3. Card sorting activity conducted offline. Participants were asked to recall the situations
when they visit second-hand clothing stores. During the exercises, they were also asked
to choose and prioritize the answers.

During the interviews, design probes exercises were conducted slightly differently
for the two target groups. The first exercise was applied as a trigger to make
participants recall the experience they had previously in order to identify what
motivated them to visit a second-hand store as well as what they experienced
there. Here, design probes play a role of entry into understanding of the partici-
pant’s context and a means of getting a genuine understanding of their experience.
(Mattelmäki, Lucero, & Lee, 2016) In the first exercise, for the occasional visitors
group, the questions were focused on shopping for clothing instead of asking about
second-hand shopping which was the question for the another group. The content
on the cards were created according to related literature. According to different
themes, cards were made with different colors. A grey one was presented, in case
participants have their own content. In the end of each interview, participants
were asked to identify what type of second-hand consumer they were from a dia-
gram. This exercise was meant to force participants to consider their motivation.
The expectation of "what type of consumer they want to become" was also talked
about during this activity.

18
 Methodology

Figure 3.4. Card sorting activity conducted with online workshop tool.

3.3.2 Evaluation survey

After analysing the data gathered from interviews, a part of the results, motivation
and challenges to choose second-hand clothing, were chosen to be the input for
the survey to evaluated in next stage of the survey. For evaluating the result,
the questions were framed into a personal statement with the option to agree or
disagree. Regarding the time limits and reaching out to a relatively larger number
of participants, the number of questions were limited to 25 which included the de-
mographic questions and options to comment. In total, 21 statements were framed
referring to motivation and barrier of buying second-hand clothing. According to
the result of interview, some motivations contained different subcategories which
indicated diverse aspects that influence consumers’ decision making. Those sub-
categories were also formed to individual questions with a form of statement and
received responses from participants. An option to be anonymous was available to
the participants. See the survey in the Appendix D.

The survey was sent out through different social media groups as well as email to
the interview participants. The purpose of the survey was informed in the begin-
ning of the survey. In the survey, these seven motives which drive consumers to
choose second-hand clothing were presented to participants. The seven motivation
and five challenges were evaluated through the extent of participants’ agreement.
During the survey session, 31 valid responses were gathered.

19
 Methodology

Figure 3.5. In the end of interview, participants were asked to identify what kind of second-hand
consumer are they from a diagram.

3.4 Data analysis technique: affinity diagramming

After interviews, a large amount of unstructured qualitative data were gathered.

Hence, affinity diagramming, a technique applied for analysing, making sense,
and organizing a big amount of qualitative data was chosen to be the method to
analyze the raw data. (Lucero, 2015)

Figure 3.6. Affinity diagram: Round 1

Interview records were listened to and interview transcription was read repeat-
edly so that the important findings relevant to the research were highlighted and
extracted. Meanwhile, additional notes were taken. Then the highlighted sections
were copied to post-it notes in a virtual whiteboard. Original lines from transcrip-
tion were kept as much as possible to make sure that the text was understandable
with respect to the context. Meanwhile, a colour coding technique was adopted,

20
 Methodology

giving each participant a different colour, to differentiate. Then, clustering was

conducted for two rounds. In the first round, post-it notes were grouped in terms
of similarities. Then in the second round, the clustered groups and notes were
reorganized according to the relationship to each other. During the process, notes
emerged and new notes were added.

Figure 3.7. Affinity diagram: Round 2

A total of 490 post-it notes were generated. They were clustered to 48 groups and
6 main themes were identified. They were second-hand clothing consumers’ con-
sumption pattern, disposing pattern, motivation, problems of buying second-hand
garments, attitude to online platform, and factors considered when purchasing
pre-owned garments. It gave a general understanding of consumers’ attitude to-
wards reuse clothing cycle as well as the factors that influence consumers’ decision
making.

3.5 Ethical considerations

On account of the research involved collecting personal information, days before

the interview, a consent form was sent to participants via email and sent back with
signature. Participants were fully aware of the intention of the interview and how
their information would be used before they agreed to accept the interview request.
The purpose of the interview and request of recording was written in the consent
form as well as the informational email. All the rights as a participant were
clarified in the consent form. In the interview meeting, the rights as a participant
and request for recording were asked again before starting the interview. For
protecting the privacy of participants, all the participants were kept anonymous.

21
 Methodology

See the consent form in Appendix A.

22
4. Findings and analysis

In this chapter, the result of the research is presented. First, consumer’s clothing
disposal pattern is taken as a starting point of the reused clothing cycle which
is followed by purchasing and usage. Then, the reason for consumers to choose
second-hand clothing and the factors that discourage them towards second-hand
garments are identified.

4.1 Clothing disposal and consumption behaviour

4.1.1 Disposal pattern

Figure 4.1. Disposal pattern

From the interviews with both motivated consumers and occasional visitors, cloth-
ing disposal starts with collecting unwanted apparel together in one place. After
collecting, most people tend to leave them stationary for a period of time before
disposing them, which gives the owner time to reflect. During the stationary time,

23
 Findings and analysis

the pieces that have the potential to be worn again could be picked out and brought
back to use. During that time, the owner’s friends and family members can have a
chance to pick the ones they want. Clothing left out would be disposed. The most
common way to get rid of them is donation. Second-hand store, UFF, is the most
popular place for donating used clothing. Although some participants sell clothing
by themselves, most of the unwanted garments end up in second-hand stores as it
takes less time and is more convenient.

Since it is easy to find a clothing recycling point in the city, giving garments back
to the cycle is the handiest and direct way to get rid of unwanted clothing. More
importantly, in this way, clothing can be moved out of the room without waiting
for it to be sold. The hassle of selling second-hand clothing also makes them more
likely to bring them to donation.

Extract 1:
"I really find it troublesome, because the buyer is an individual buyer. You have
to make an appointment with them and the price, or the shipping also brings too
much effort and trouble." (P8)

From the interviews, several reasons for disposing clothing are identified:
1. De-cluttering
2. Moving
3. Style changing.

The most mentioned reason for disposing garments was de-cluttering. Partici-
pants mentioned that the concepts such as "minimalist lifestyle" and "building
your capsule wardrobe" gave them the idea to remove extra items. Limited living
space was also mentioned as a contributor to this point.

Moving is a common trigger for disposing since moving gives the owner an opportu-
nity to do a thorough organisation of their wardrobes. When asked about when do
the participants want to get rid of their garments, the most frequent answer was
"when moving". One different answer was every season because this participant
organises wardrobe when the season changes. Similarly, it was also a time when
the owner does a big organization. Participants of this study mentioned that they
always face the situation that they have to move for work or study. Frequent
changing accommodation made them want to reduce the unnecessary clothing for
convenience. An occasion of moving provides a chance for organising garments

24
 Findings and analysis

when disposing the garments that would not be worn anymore.

Style changing was another reason mentioned for disposing a large amount of
old clothing. Many participants talked about their dressing style changing a lot
due to a younger age which leads them to get rid of clothing. Error buying and
style trying were also happened often in a time close to teenage age which caused
redundant garments purchasing.

Extract 2:
"I might have been influenced by others at that time because many people also
wore this. When others wore and I also wore. I think clothes must be a very
important element. It can represent what kind of person you are. When I was a
teenager, I did not have my own style but now I am trying to find that. It may also
be because of my age that I feel I am not a child anymore." (P8)

4.1.2 Using and taking care

Many participants indicated that when buying garments, the ways of taking care
of the items also have a big influence on their purchase decision. For clothing
that are made of delicate materials such as leather and wool, participants usually
took a second thought before purchasing. Most of the participants mentioned that
they do not intentionally pay attention to the washing instruction and expect an
easy and universal way of taking care of the clothing. Some participants showed a
reluctance to special caring of clothing. Because of this reason, they choose to only
purchase the ones that need simple care. Two participants also mentioned that
one benefit of wearing second-hand garments was that they do not need to pay
attention to maintain the clothes since they bought them at a cheap price. Those
participants were more into enjoying the activities instead of dividing attention
for clothes. On the contrary, one participant showed the patience to the items that
they appreciate and only wear them on certain occasions.

Some participants also showed concern of environment issues of washing clothes.

They also mentioned their ways of decreasing environmental impact of their
consumption pattern, for example, reducing the frequency of laundry, lowering
the temperature of water, and avoiding extra chemical ingredient of detergent.
Although they tried to take their action, they still have worries of their carbon
footprint. One participant showed an awareness of the micro plastic in the fabric
and that is something they can not avoid.

25
 Findings and analysis

Extract 3:
"I know that a lot of the things that I buy are still (not sustainable), for example,
they contain plastic, especially with clothes. If you wash any plastic containing
clothes, this micro plastic goes from the laundry machine to the water stream. It
is bad for the environment." (P3)

4.2 Why we choose to acquire second-hand clothes

From the interview with both second-hand clothing motivated consumers and
second-hand store occasional visitors, seven categories were identified as the
motivation for choosing second-hand clothes over firsthand ones in Finland, even
though the sixth motivation was removed from the list after conducting the
evaluation survey. The seven motivations are presented below:
1. Social value.
2. Fun seeking.
3. Financial reason.
4. Post-purchase pleasure.
5. Sustainability reason.
6. Shopping consciously.
7. Uniqueness.

4.2.1 Social value.

Going to second-hand store is more like an activity for friends to catch up rather
than have a purpose to buy anything. Almost every participant including both
occasional visitors who do not often buy second-hand garments and motivated
second-hand clothing consumers mentioned that they go to second-hand store with
friends. For them, going to a second-hand stores is not an aim-driven task but a
trigger for hanging out. The products themselves in second-hand stores also add
fun to consumers when they are browsing in the stores with friends. Different
from conventional stores, there were more possibilities to find unique items in
a second-hand shop. The process of exploring and trying brings entertainment
to a social activity. Due to that, a long and tedious treasure hunting process can
become to a fun and relaxing social activity especially, with company of friends
who have a similar interest. The incentive for them to go to second-hand stores

26
 Findings and analysis

was not any aim of purchasing but an "excuse" for them to meet friends. Many
participants even mentioned that they never go second-hand shopping alone.

Extract 4:
"I never go alone. I only go with friends so that it is an activity to do with friends.
It’s fun. I enjoy going with people especially because you can start finding some
funny things and looking at them around and trying them out. We can make jokes
and give comments." (P6)

From the interviews, it showed, the transition of a conventional consumer from

purchasing firsthand clothing to second-hand clothing usually influenced by a
sustainable friend who is already a second-hand clothing lover.

Extract 5:
"I used to go to shopping malls but now because I met her, she is always taking
me to second-hand shops. Lately I started buying from second-hand stores." (P8)

4.2.2 Fun seeking.

Interviews showed that many consumers see shopping in second-hand stores as

an adventurous experience. Different from conventional stores, consumers can
easily find items which were produced decades ago or an item which has come
from a foreign country, or even handmade craft works of the previous owner. This
attribute of second-hand store attracts many customers who are seeking for an
adventure-like shopping experience.

Many participants indicated that they enjoy treasure hunting in second-hand

stores. There was a high possibility for them to find an item with good quality but
a price lower than the conventional market. This unexpected experience brings
pleasure and drives customers to visit second-hand stores again.

Second-hand stores are usually run by individuals and small businesses. This
way of operating makes them have different channels of supply, instead of being
produced by a factory like big fashion brands. Second-hand stores rely on the
recycling and donation from consumers. Therefore, items are unique and unpre-
dictable. Items produced in one place can be brought to another place by the
travels of its owner. One common item in one place can be moved to another place
where the same item did not exist. The movement between different locations
makes products in second-hand stores unacceptable to consumers. This gives
consumers more opportunities to find items interesting and unexpected.

27
 Findings and analysis

Extract 6:
"I usually go to second-hand stores to get my clothes because you never know what
you’re gonna find there. Sometimes I found interesting prints or ornaments. You
can also find something from other countries which is interesting that they don’t
try to sell anywhere." (P4)

4.2.3 Financial reason.

From the interviews, participants showed a high regard for financial reason of
choosing second-hand clothing. Participants mentioned cheaper price was an
important factor for them to choose second-hand clothing over firsthand. Even
though many participants have the awareness of many firsthand fast fashion
brands provide even lower price than many clothes in second-hand stores, they
believe second-hand clothing have a cheaper price regard to the same quality level.

In this research, the participants are who have chosen second-hand items because
they enjoy the shopping process or buying products which are not necessities,
although financial hardship was mentioned by some participants due to their
students status. They tend to pursue the excitement of the purchase experience
of bargain hunting, since they also mentioned about quality and style concerns.
When asked the question about "how many garments in wardrobe are second-
hand". Only one participant answer the proportion of second-hand cloth is above
fifty percent but no financial hardship was mentioned. Although financial benefits
of second-hand clothing were mentioned multiple times in interviews, other mo-
tives such as uniqueness, good quality, and environmental concern were linked
together to drive consumers choose second-hand clothing.

4.2.4 Post pleasure.

The interviews showed that buying second-hand brings different type of post-
purchase pleasure. Consumers usually have to spend a lot of effort and time for
searching a perfect item, the long process of searching makes them more appreci-
ate the piece of garment they find. The pleasure after the purchase lasts longer
than buying in a conventional store. Consumers also tend to be proud of their
successful bargain hunting skills. In the interview, one participant even brought a
garment and showed it while telling the story of its origin. Since finding a good
piece from a pile of clothing needs an eye for gems, when the consumer receives
compliments from others, they feel more proud of themselves and it helps the

28
 Findings and analysis

pleasure last even longer.

Additionally, many participants also mentioned they feel less pressure when buy-
ing something second-hand. They also referred to the less guilty feeling when
purchasing something extra. Impulse purchasing also exists in second-hand shop-
ping but when products are relatively low price, consumers are more likely to
indulge themselves for not considering enough before paying for the purchase.

Less pressure feeling is also shown in the possession phase and disposal phase in
consumers’ consumption journey. Some participants mentioned that since they
did not pay a lot of money for the clothes, they felt less hurtful if a garment was
damaged, thus, they can wear freely and they do not need to pay attention to take
care of them. After a period of use, if they want to dispose them, they also feel
more comfortable to give them away or sell them at a lower price.

Extract 7:
"It’s even easier to sell the second-hand things. If I spend too much money on a first
hand garment, I know I am not gonna be paid much but if you buy second-hand
and sell, then, it’s easy for me." (P5)

4.2.5 Sustainability reason.

In the interviews, every participant mentioned they consider sustainability a

reason when choosing second-hand garments and it is one of their motives. In the
interview, participants expressed the awareness of environment issues. They were
aware of the environmental impact of fast fashion industry. They are more in-
clined to choose pre-used clothing for reducing the waste by their personal effort by
giving a usable product a second-hand life. However, although they mentioned the
environmental concern, most of them still consider themselves as "consumerism
against-er" instead of "sustainable consumer". Many participants mentioned that
they wanted to be a sustainable consumer but the way they consume clothing
was not sustainable enough. On comparing these two concepts, they consider
second-hand clothing to be more like an action against consumerism.

Extract 8:
"(worker exploitation) I decided to not support. I’m not really supporting these
brands after I just heard this news. So I decided to buy more second-hand things."
(P5)

29
 Findings and analysis

Except for concerning environmental issues, "shopping for good" was another
motive for consumers to change their attention from big fashion chains to pre-used
clothing and small businesses. Participants indicated that except buying from
second-hand stores, they also support local brands and small business instead of
big fashion chains. When asking about "brands", their perception of a good brand
was about good quality products and ethical production.

Extract 9:
"Choose brands because of better materials, and quality and I know they produce
things ethically. I know they try to minimise their impact." (P3)

4.2.6 Shopping consciously.

Consumers need to spend more time to find an item that meet all of their re-
quirements which included size, quality, aesthetic, cleanness and suit wearer’s
personal preference. Meanwhile, even though consumers can resell them gar-
ments as second-hand, the no-return policy also contributes to the "inconvenience"
of second-hand shopping. Because of the flaws that second-hand shopping pos-
sessed different from firsthand shopping, participants indicated that dedicating to
second-hand products helps consumers purchase more consciously. Since finding a
suitable and desirable piece of clothing needs a lot of effort and time, participants
indicated that they only wanted to buy necessary things.

As pre-owned clothing, its fashion attribute is not dependent on the fashion trend
as conventional fashion brands who release a new collection in every season. Aes-
thetic and fashionable attributes for pre-used clothing relies on the consumers’
personal preference. A participant who is an occasional second-hand store visitor
indicated that because of this nature of second-hand apparel, they can consume
more consciously and not chasing the trend blindly.

Extract 10:
"Lots of people going shopping, because there’s a new trend. People saw this one
item of clothing, then, they felt that they have to get it because everyone is wearing
it." (P7)

However, whether choosing second-hand clothing can make consumers shop more
consciously was still debatable. From the interviews, some participants who

30
 Findings and analysis

bought second-hand clothing quite often indicated that buying second-hand cloth-
ing forced them to consider more factors before purchase, that made their con-
sumption behaviour become more conscious. On the other side, some participants
indicated that even though they choose second-hand garments, impulse purchase
was made very often. Many participants mentioned that they checked the collec-
tion in second-hand stores quite often and shopping in second-hand stores was
also frequent. They did not consider much when buying and shopping in second-
hand shops was like a hobby. Those participants also mentioned they disposed
unwanted clothes regularly. One participant even mentioned that when they feel
upset, they tended to buy new items to cheer themselves up, although afterwards
they realized that buying cannot bring happiness.

4.2.7 Uniqueness

One important motivation for people to choose second-hand garments is the unique
style. With the massive production in fashion industry, many fashion brands’ cloth-
ing tend to show an identical style. Consumers can easily find similar items in
different stores. For consumers who are looking for a diverse style and uniqueness,
second-hand stores are more satisfying.

Extract 11:
"It’s like you know that in the first hand store, let’s say if you go to H&M, obviously
you know what you’re gonna find there. Everything looks similar. All of the people
we see on the street basically follow the same style." (P4)

Because of the way of operation and supply in second-hand stores, the collec-
tions usually do not specifically follow any genre. The collections supply depends
on recycling, donation and consignment customers. Thus, the clothing styles in
second-hand stores are random. This is different from a vintage store where
clothes are collected according to a certain genre or era, in second-hand stores
garments may come from the last generation or produced years ago but not found
in the current market any more. It was also common to find highly customised
garments or handmade items in second-hand stores. All of these, provide the
uniqueness of second-hand clothing, which becomes an attractive factor for con-
sumers.

Extract 12:
"You can see both, new designs and old designs in the second-hand stores but in

31
 Findings and analysis

the vintage stores, the selection is restricted in a certain way." (P4)

4.2.8 Result of evaluation survey

An evaluation survey was formed according to the results of the interviews. From
the survey, a more general image was presented. From the result of the evaluation
survey, the first ranking motivation is "sustainable reason". The second one is
"Financial reason" and the third one is "Fun seeking".

Among these seven motivations, there were only 9 participants among total 27
participants who agreed on the fact that buying second-hand makes them to shop
more consciously. Among these seven reasons, "sustainable reason", "financial rea-
son", and " fun experience" were the first three most popular motivations. There
are 93 percent of participants agreed on that they choose second-hand clothing for
sustainable reason. "Sustainable reason" ranked first among the 7 motivations.
The second popular reason for consumers to choose second-hand clothes was the
"Financial reason". There were 78 percent of participants who thought that the
cheap price was an important reason for them to buy second-hand clothes. The
"fun experience" ranked in the third position.

Although participants mentioned that because of the lower price of second-hand

clothing, they felt more comfortable to sell them in the second-hand market or
while giving them away, most participants in the survey disagreed on "I like
buying second-hand clothing because I find it easier to sell, recycle and give away
since it costed less". Among total 27 participants, only 9 participants agreed on
this one. From here, we can see that whether clothes are second-hand or not
may not have a strong influence on consumers’ disposal behaviours. However,
the other statements inside the "post-pleasure" category all get more than fifty
percentage agreement, which include "I like buying second-hand clothing because
as its cheaper I feel a lot less guilty if its just for experimenting some look, and I
also feel less hurtful if it gets spoilt.", "I like second-hand clothes because I feel
more proud when people compliment it compared to my first hand clothes.", and
"Buying second-hand clothes make me more appreciate the clothing because it is
not easy to find a desirable one."

From the interviews and the result of survey, people tend to see second-hand
clothing as less worthy to spend time on selling them since they were purchased
second-hand with lower price.

32
 Findings and analysis

Figure 4.2. Survey result: why we choose second-hand clothing

Extract 13:
"I usually bring them to yellow box or throw them away because I don’t think used
clothing is worth such effort to sell. That takes a lot of time but only for pennies."
(P8)

When question is about disposing their unwanted clothes and reselling it in

second-hand market, regardless of whether consumers bought them firsthand or
second-hand, consumers are more likely to spend effort and time to sell the items
which were more expensive and contain technical attributes. Selling second-hand
clothing was not easy. Therefore, most of them were brought back to second-hand
store after a period of use time.

"I like buying second-hand clothing because as it’s cheaper I feel a lot less guilty if
its just for experimenting some look, and I also feel less hurtful if it gets spoilt."
And "Buying second-hand helps me shop more consciously and only buy necessary

33
 Findings and analysis

Figure 4.3. Diagram of the response of "I like buying second-hand clothing because as its cheaper I
feel a lot less guilty if its just for experimenting some look, and I also feel less hurtful if
it gets spoilt." And "Buying second-hand helps me shop more consciously and only buy
necessary things."

things."show opposite results. That indicates that cheap price of second-hand

clothing is more likely for people purchase more thus, to some extent, making
people consume more unnecessary things. Plus, "No return" policy also contributes
to this point.

Extract 14:
"Often, what could happen is that you think something would make sense and you
want to buy it but then when you take it home, you realise that it’s not comfortable.
The problem is that you can’t return those things. You bought many things, then
you have things that are unnecessary. This has been a part of the second-hand
shopping. it is a disadvantage." (P6)

4.3 Why we don’t choose second-hand clothing

Although participants showed their interest towards pre-owned garments, the

inconvenience of second-hand shopping still influences consumers to make their
choices. From the conversation with participants, dissatisfaction and challenges
in second-hand clothing shopping experience were identified.

34
 Findings and analysis

There were five challenges identified from the result of both studies, the first one
"Requires more time and effort.", the second, "No guarantee for quality.", the third
"Usage contamination.", the fourth was "Competition with firsthand.", and the
last one "Physical environment limitation." Through the survey, only one among
them was agreed by both consumer groups. The first group consisted of consumers
who see second-hand clothing as first option and who shop in second-hand stores
often. The second group included occasional visitors and who have never gone to
second-hand stores for buying clothes.

Figure 4.4. Group 1’s attitude to the barriers of second-hand clothing consumption.

From the result of survey, these two groups showed different attitudes towards
the challenges of second-hand clothing consumption. For the first group who visit
second-hand stores often, their attitude was more positive and they thought the
only barrier was that second-hand garments shopping required more time and
effort to find a desired piece. When they have a requirement to buy a specific item,
the possibility to find it in second-hand market was small and it required a long
time of searching, which leads them go to conventional stores.

Extract 15:
"If there is something specific, I am not sure that I can find it in second-hand
stores. First, I try to find something that I need from the second-hand stores but if
I don’t find it then I will go and search the usual stores." (P4)

35
 Findings and analysis

Figure 4.5. Group 2’s attitude to the barriers of second-hand clothing consumption.

For the second group who buy second-hand clothing occasionally and who never
bought, except for "Require more time and effort.", there were more participants
who agreed on "physical environment limitation" was also a barrier for them to
buy pre-owned garments. In this group, 42 percent of participants showed that
the environment of second-hand stores were not pleasant compared to 5 percent in
the other group. That implies that making the second-hand store’s environment
more pleasant may attract more potential second-hand lovers.

Although some participants mentioned that hygiene was an important factor for
consumers to decide if they would buy this item or not, there was a bit of an
uncomfortable feeling when they were trying them on in the stores. After the
evaluation survey, both groups showed that "hygiene" was not a challenge to
purchase second-hand garments. There were 24 out of 31 participants showed
disagreement on "Buying second-hand clothing is a bit difficult for me because it
has been worn by someone before, therefore it doesn’t feel very hygienic to me."
Among them, participants in the first group even showed more positive attitude
than the second group with 95 percent disagree on this point included 58 percent
of participants choose strongly disagree. There were half participants in second
group choose disagree.

Extract 16:

36
 Findings and analysis

"There might not be a mechanism to disinfect things and keep them up. All that,
sometimes, makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. I don’t just go ahead and do it,
but I still wouldn’t say I’m 100 percent comfortable doing that." (P6)

In the interviews, some participants mentioned that some fast fashion firsthand
clothing even has a lower prize than some better quality second-hand clothing.
When they wanted to buy a certain product to fulfill a basic need regardless
the level of quality, a piece of brand new first hand clothing can be very cheap
especially in discount period whereas some pre-owned clothing can be more ex-
pensive. Some participants expressed that this might be a hindrance for them to
choose second-hand garments since there were more options in firsthand market.
Therefore, "Competition with firsthand" was also included in the survey. However,
after the survey, the result showed that out of 31 participants, 20 participants
disagreed on this. Among them, there were more participants who belonged to the
second group (who visit second-hand stores occasionally and who have never gone
to second-hand stores) than the first group (who visit second-hand stores more
often).

37
5. Discussion

In this chapter, the main findings from the research are presented. First, consumer’s
motivation to be sustainable is evaluated. Then, consumer’s shopping behaviours
and factors which influence the decision making towards second-hand clothing are
discussed in the context of hedonistic and utilitarian shopping value.

5.1 Against consumerism instead of sustainable consumers

Although all the participants in the survey of the interviews consider environ-
mental factors when choosing pre-owned clothes, they don’t see themselves as
sustainable consumers instead of consumers who are highly against consumerism.
This result is similar to Carolyn J. Lo’s view on second-hand apparel’s ethical
benefits (Lo, Tsarenko, & Tojib, 2019). 92 percent of participants in the survey
agreed on that they choose second-hand garments for sustainability and all of the
interview participants mentioned that sustainability is one of the factors for them
to buy second-hand garments. However, when asked to define themselves, only
one participant defined themselves as a sustainable consumer.

Participants in the interviews have the awareness of sustainability and expressed

that being a sustainable consumer is what they want to be, but are not yet. They
are aware of the impact of the fast fashion industry to the environment. They
are against consumerism culture which makes people stimulated to purchase
more than they need. We can find stimulation from everywhere. As a participant
mentioned "I deleted my social media because when you see it you may want it. If
I don’t see it, I won’t want it and I avoid buying". Many consumers showed the
intention of conscious shopping and avoiding impulsive purchasing. As some par-
ticipants mentioned in the interview that they like buying second-hand clothing
as choosing a good piece needs more time and effort, which in a way have them to
avoid buying unnecessary product and prevent impulsive shopping. Even though

38
 Discussion

there are still some consumers who purchase impulsively in the second-hand
clothing market, choosing reused garments is an action they tend to do to move
towards to a sustainable consumer.

Consumers also have a complex attitude towards green label products. They are
more inclined to products that are using recycled materials, even though it is not
a deciding factor. Consumers usually also showed a suspicious attitude towards
green labels. On one hand, there are different types of green labels in the market
issued by different organizations, which poses doubt to consumers on which to
believe. On the other hand, many green labels only clarify one aspect of the manu-
facturing such as materials but whether a piece of cloth can be seen as sustainably
produced depends on many aspects. Consumers need more information for exam-
ple where and how it was produced to reassure. Meanwhile, the financial situation
is another factor for young consumers to choose sustainable clothing. Many partic-
ipants indicated that they would like to buy more sustainable clothing but due
to their price being higher than other clothing in general, they have to compromise.

There are several different stages in a sustainable clothing consumption cycle,

not only the purchase behavior is important for researchers to understand but
also post-purchase behaviours including use, care and disposal (Laitala, 2014).
They expressed that so far the way they consume and the clothes they purchase
were not considered as sustainable enough to call them sustainable consumers
because many clothes even though bought from a second-hand market, they were
manufactured with micro plastics which released to the water and air when doing
laundry. Therefore, choosing clothes from second-hand markets instead of fast
fashion brands is a way of compromising.

5.2 Take from cycle and give back to cycle

The stigma of wearing second-hand clothing no longer exists and consumers have
embraced pre-owned garments for their unique style and pleasant shopping expe-
rience. Meanwhile, consumers are also prepared to bring their unwanted and old
clothes back into the cycle. Even though alternative modes of consumption such
as garment renting and sharing platform are still rare but it is a sign of support
from the consumers.

For purchasing garments, people are more likely to try it on. That brings extra

39
 Discussion

steps and effort for both individual selling customers and buying customers in the
reselling process, such as selling used clothing in online second-hand platforms.
It makes the purchase more risky in a manner of time and effort consuming,
especially if the buyer needs to travel a long distance. There are also cases in
which the seller did not tell the truth of the product or there is a misunderstanding
between these two parties. Those hustles make purchase in online channels diffi-
cult. In some online channels like ZADAA, deals are usually made without buyers
trying it on. If the clothes do not fit, that becomes a waste of time and money for
buyers. Meanwhile, it creates a bigger carbon footprint, since after the deal is
made, clothing will be sent to the buyers and there is no opportunity to return.
Therefore buying in stores is more convenient for most of the second-hand clothing
consumers. Instead of online channels, a flea market is also a place people sell
their pre-owned clothes and has more successful transaction since it is physical
and held regularly.

In the second-hand market in Helsinki, highly functional items are easily found
and may continue to serve another owner. That tells two sides of the story. On the
good side, the life time of this item can be fully used instead of being throwaway.
Additionally, it can also meet the need for another owner who may be not able to
afford it with the original price as brand new. However, on the opposite side, it
means the previous owner disposed it when it hasn’t lost its value of use. That
triggers the question of what makes the previous owner get rid of a fully functional
item. In the existence of second-hand market, when purchasing firsthand items,
consumers also take the second-hand market into consideration as a alternative
solution for an impulsive purchase or a failed acquisition. As the result found in
the survey, most participants don’t agree on that second-hand shopping makes
them shop more consciously. In the interview, a similar result also showed that
impulsive purchase is common. There are still consumers who shop second-hand
clothes in a similar way as firsthand ones. Whether the existence of second-hand
market, in some extent, indulges consumers to purchase more since there is a
place to allocate the unwanted ones afterwards becomes a question. This point is
similar to Karen Tranberg Hansen and Jennifer Le Zotte’s concern on second-hand
trade, as it is not always linked to the effort of consumption reduction but even
more firsthand production (Hansen & Le Zotte, 2019).

For second-hand clothing specifically, however, this phenomenon can find a middle
ground. Clothing is not only for fulfilling the utilitarian value to keep the wearer
warm but is also involved in identity construction of the wearer and to help the

40
 Discussion

owner build a desired personal image that matches their personality, biography,
and society (Woodward, 2007) (Durrani, 2014). Aesthetic attributes contain lot of
the value of clothing. Reconstruction of identity is usually an important reason for
the youth to dispose a large amount of old clothes. University age people are in the
time of changing the role in society which influences their identity recognition and
construction. More appropriate style clothes would be purchased for a new role.
During teenage years, people tend to try different styles with the eagerness of
finding their own dressing style. Trying and testing lead to more failed purchases
and error test. When a person is growing older, their dressing style tends to be
more stable (Woodward, 2007). In this process, the clothes bought unsuccessfully
end up being disposed.

With the option of exchanging apparel within the cycle, consumers are able to
get rid of the boredom of always using old clothes and enjoy the excitement and
satisfaction from fresh new look but not at the cost of adding more to the landfill.
As mentioned in the second chapter that regardless of the quality of the clothes,
the average active use time of clothing is around 6 months due to the fashion trend
change (Fletcher, 2013). To some extent, second-hand clothing market fulfills this
demand of changing style. However, pre-used garments are usually old and delay
from the current fashion trend, consumers’ need of keeping up with trends have to
compromise a bit.

5.3 Hedonistic shopping value

Second-hand clothing shoppers showed hedonistic shopping motivation. Con-

sumers attitude towards shopping in second-hand stores is similar to the "social
value" motivation in hedonistic shopping behaviour (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003)
mentioned by Mark J. Arnold. Shopping with friends provides an import of
emotional connection and personal entertainment. They enjoy shopping in second-
hand stores with company of friends and many participants even indicated that
they only visit second-hand stores with friends. A company of friend plays an
important role in second-hand shopping experience. It showed its significance not
only for multiplying the entertainment factor, but also to encourage one to become
more inclined to pre-used items.

Meanwhile, in second-hand stores, it is easier to find something unexpected, which

amuses shoppers and attracts them to visit there again. This motivation and the

41
 Discussion

previous one, "social value", both show up as a strong recreational driver. They are
related to the emotional shopping experience which includes the excitement and
playfulness from treasure hunting and bargain hunting experience (Turunen et
al., 2018). "Idea shopping" value in shopping experience (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003)
mentioned by Mark J. Arnold also can be seen in second-hand shopping, even
though it has a weak influence. Instead of keeping up with new fashion trends and
new products, consumers go to second-hand store for getting inspiration because
of the randomness of the listing clothes. Financial benefit is another reason for
consumers to choose second-hand clothes since they can always find items with
lower price. Similar to the concept of "value shopping" addressed by Arnold (2003),
financial motivation is linked to the choice optimization which means finding a
bargain can lead to satisfaction from personal achievement. (Arnold & Reynolds,
2003) Financial reason plays an important role in second-hand shopping. This
finding is similar to Kirsi Laitala and Ingun Grimstad Kleppthe’s view of economic
benefits of second-hand clothing acquisition (Laitala & Klepp, 2018)

Different from firsthand shopping, a high post-shopping pleasure is also a im-

portant factor for consumers for choosing second-hand products. The positive
emotions such as excitement and joy, tends to show a decrease during the purchase
process in conventional shopping experience. Positive emotions start declining
from pre-purchase stages (Richins, 2013). Due to consumers’ expectation to the
product they are about to buy and the change the product may bring to their life,
before purchasing the item, the positive emotion remains high but after purchas-
ing, it shows an apparent decrease. Different from Richins’s view on materialism
consumers, for second-hand consumers, the expectation before purchase is rela-
tively low because of their awareness of the effort and time needed for searching a
suitable item and also the risk of getting nothing. Once they find the desirable
clothes, the positive emotion goes up and the appreciation from others helps to
increase the joy even months and years after the purchase.

Online second-hand channels were not the first option for second-hand clothes
shoppers. Except for the reason of getting limited product information. The
hedonistic shopping motivations of second-hand clothing also indicate why con-
sumers prefer shopping in physical stores. This finding gives strength to Laden
Husamaldin’s view of physical environments role in hedonistic shopping expe-
rience. When consumers go shopping for pleasure, especially for second-hand
shopping, it is a social activity for bonding with friends and families, which is
only able to be done in a physical environment (Nopnukulvised et al., 2019). It

42
 Discussion

also implies the importance of the physical environment of second-hand stores. It

was also shown in the research result, consumers who visit second-hand stores
occasionally and who never go to second-hand stores see the unpleasant physical
environment and location limitation as a barrier for them to choose pre-owned
garments. Second-hand shopping tends to be an activity to allow consumers to
enjoy a pleasurable experience. Suitable decoration, comfortable moving space,
and relaxed lights in the environment together play a significant role for providing
shoppers a pleasant shopping experience.

Second-hand clothing consumption shows a mix of hedonistic and utilitarian shop-

ping value. From the interviews, many participants had mentioned they enjoy
shopping experience in second-hand store but also participants who see second-
hand items as their first purchase option showed a strong utilitarian shopping
value on second-hand shopping. For utilitarian consumers, even though shopping
in second-hand stores, it still tends to be a task with a specific aim and involves
rational purchasing motives. When consumers’ purchase intention was more task-
specific, rational and goal-fulfilling, due to this attribute of second-hand shopping,
consumers are more likely to choose to buy firsthand for saving time and efficiency
(Nopnukulvised et al., 2019). They tend to seek for convenience and efficiency in
their shopping experience (Nopnukulvised et al., 2019). Consumer’s sustainable
motivation also supports in this sense. However, due to the nature of second-hand
shops, the main factors in utilitarian shopping experience included convenience
and product availability cannot always be satisfied. This also supports the chal-
lenge, "buying second-hand clothes is hard because it takes a lot of time and effort".

Convenience does not only influence the purchasing component in the reused
clothes cycle but also the disposing component. Bringing used clothes back to
second-hand stores is the choice for most of people to dispose clothes. However,
for most consumers, reselling in online second-hand channels has a caveat. Al-
though there are channels like Facebook and [Link] for people to sell their clothes,
successful transaction rate on those channels is relatively low and it takes a long
time. From the interviews, most people only choose to resell the clothes that they
think are worthy for them to spend effort on. How the owner chooses the disposal
method not only depends on their perception of the reuse value of their unwanted
clothes, but also the tendency of them to select the ways that require low effort
and are convenient for them to get rid off. That is the same as Kirsi Laitala’s
opinion that convenience is the paramount factor when choosing disposal methods
(Laitala, 2014). Since it is easy to find a clothing recycling point in the city, giving

43
 Discussion

garments back to the cycle is the most handy and direct way to get rid of unwanted
clothing. Clothing can be moved out of room without waiting to be sold. The hustle
of selling second-hand clothes also contributes to this point.

44
6. Conclusions

This chapter concludes the study with a discussion of outcomes and implications in
more detail. Then, the limitation of the research is elaborated with suggestions for
further research. The chapter is closed with a conclusion summarizing the findings
and reflection of the research.

6.1 Implications

When consumers are shopping in a second-hand market, both hedonistic shopping

value and utilitarian shopping value need to be satisfied. Different second-hand
exchange channels have their own advantages that would help on different as-
pects of the consumer’s demands. To improve the second-hand clothing shopping
experience for encouraging sustainable fashion behaviour, hedonistic shopping
values can be highlighted, while the barriers for fulfilling utilitarian values need
to be addressed.

An offline market is a place consumers can enjoy a fun shopping experience. Cus-
tomers can visit stores with friends and family, browse in the stores, and at the
same time bond with each other. In this scenario, shopping is not an aim-driven
task but an activity for them to socialize with others. In this case, a spacious and
comfortable environment decides if customers can have a good time in the store
and if they stay longer or hurry. Enough space that allows customers to go around
and give each other suggestions, as well as seating place for a temporary rest can
help the customers stay in the stores longer to have enough time to check the
collection. Different from a conventional store, a second-hand shopping experi-
ence needs more time and effort. A comfortable shopping environment can make
customers do the searching in a pleasant manner. Besides, location is another
important factor for fulfilling consumers’ utilitarian shopping value. When second-
hand clothing stores are near each other, customers have more possibility as well

45
 Conclusions

less time to find the item they need, thus, enhancing the shopping experience and
encouraging consumers to visit reused markets again.

Online and physical stores possess different functionalities that can work as
supplementary channels to one another with focusing on different demands of
consumers. Online channels due to their specific advantages can provide a more
efficient shopping experience that fulfils consumers’ utilitarian shopping value,
even though they can not provide the opportunities for socialising. In an online
channel, consumers can easily find available items through the filter function.
One of many potentials, a digital platform can provide a more customized feed
according to individual customers’ personal conditions, such as size, location, and
further, according to customers’ preferences. In this way, consumers seeking an
efficient shopping experience can be satisfied.

With reused clothing market flourishing, it is becoming a mainstream shopping

channel. The way consumers and business owners see it is going to change from
being just second-hand stores to something similar to conventional stores. The
difference between firsthand and second-hand is disappearing. From the interview,
second-hand store consumers not only have the demands for garments with unique
style but also for basic clothes as consumers in conventional shops. For example,
displaying a store’s collection according to the different needs of consumers, mean-
while, it can also provide ethically produced firsthand undergarments to fulfil a
whole package shopping experience. A transition can be made, changing from
providing reused clothing to providing a sustainable fashion shopping experience.
Moreover, to encourage more sustainable fashion supporters, supplementary activ-
ities such as self-service sewing machines also can be provided. According to the
interviews, most motivated second-hand clothing consumers mentioned that they
had fixed their clothes or had used mending service.

6.2 Limitations

The research mainly followed a qualitative research approach to gain a deep un-
derstanding of second-hand clothing consumption behaviours and then evaluated
the result in a more general level with a quantitative method. The samples of
the study were second-hand clothing consumers who see second-hand clothing as
the first purchase option, and consumers who visit second-hand shops in varying
frequency. The samples were based on the city area of Helsinki with different back-

46
 Conclusions

grounds, occupations, and life situations. The age of the interview participants
was from 22 to 36. With the limitation of the age range of the samples, the result of
the research was more representative of a relatively young generation. This group
of people also prefer to try and accept new ideas. There were also people from other
age groups who visit second-hand clothing shops frequently such as senior citizens
and teenagers. Thus, in terms of increasing the quality and reliability of the re-
search, considering a more general population would provide more helpful insights.

The data gathering was mainly based on semi-structured interviews. As a qualita-

tive research method, it highly relies on the researcher’s interview skills which
include questions structure, interview content transcription, as well as trust be-
tween participants and interviewers. The following survey was an evaluation
supplementary method. Due to time limitations, the questionnaire only collected
31 responses. In terms of drawing a more reliable conclusion, a bigger number of
responses could help to gain a more general picture. Meanwhile, the questions
in the survey were based on the result of the semi-structured interviews. The
quality of the interview result was directly influenced the result of the evaluation
survey. The original plan for the survey structure was a Likert scale survey with 4
questions related to the same topic, structured in different ways to evaluate every
aspect. Due to time limitations and the length of the questionnaire, the survey
could not be structured in such a way, instead, a more concentrated structure for
reaching out to more participants in a short period of time was used.

6.3 Future research

This thesis focused on the aspect of consumer attitude and behaviour of second-
hand clothing consumption. The role of sustainability as motivation in consumers’
decision making was also highlighted. This study was mainly concentrated on the
offline market, although the attitude towards online reused garments exchange
channels was discussed with participants. Even though so far, physical second-
hand clothing stores are still popular to consumers, the online reused channels
have potentials that offline shops do not possess. Thus, another interesting topic
can be consumer’s behaviour on online reused clothing channels. Meanwhile, to
encourage more consumers to take action on sustainable consumption, research
from business and policy perspectives would also be helpful. Moreover, except
for the second-hand clothing market, alternative business models such as rental,
sharing, and exchanging are also interesting topics to study further to create

47
 Conclusions

sustainable change in the fashion market. Additionally, the way of evaluating the
effectiveness of the change is also worthy to study as well as the negative side of
the second-hand goods market to prevent the side effects of new models.

6.4 Conclusions

The aim of this research was to investigate consumers attitudes towards second-
hand clothing buying and selling in the context of city of Helsinki and potentially
provide insights for the second-hand fashion businesses, store owners, and traders
to encourage more reused clothing customers. Moreover, the role of sustainability
in consumers’ decision making was also investigated in the context of consumers’
consumption pattern included purchasing, washing, and disposing process.

The research identified a consumption pattern of second-hand clothing consumers

from "taking garments from the reused clothing cycle" to "taking them back to the
cycle". The second-hand market provided an alternative channel for consumers to
update their wardrobe in demand of pursuing style change in a more sustainable
way. Moreover, six most recognized motivations that drive consumers to choose
second-hand clothing were identified. Among them, sustainability, fun seeking,
and financial reason were the top three important reasons that attracted con-
sumers to purchase second-hand clothing. Sustainability as a motivation was the
most popular one to be considered in the decision-making process of second-hand
clothing purchasing. However, most participants did not consider themselves as
sustainable consumers but their purchase choice was more for the aim of being
against consumerism. With a high awareness of the fashion industry’s and tex-
tile’s environmental impact, most participants saw buying reused garments as a
compromise towards taking sustainable action given the high price and lack of
trustworthy information of the current sustainable fashion brands.

Both hedonistic and utilitarian shopping factors influence consumers in second-

hand clothing purchases. Hedonistic factors included fun seeking, financial consid-
eration, and social opportunity which were the attractive points for consumers to
choose second-hand clothing. However, convenience, is a crucial utilitarian factor
for encouraging consumers with sustainability motivation to visit second-hand
shops and dispose unwanted clothing, so far, had a negative impact on consumers
decision making. The physical environment, location limitation, and more efforts
needed for searching for a desirable piece of garment hinder consumer’s choice
regarding choosing second-hand clothing as their first option. Based on this re-

48
 Conclusions

search, a conclusion can be made that consumers in the city area of Helsinki have
a positive attitude towards second-hand clothing with a high awareness of envi-
ronmental concerns. Meanwhile, addressing the utilitarian barrier in second-hand
clothing consumption has the potential to encourage more supporters who choose
used clothes for being sustainable.

49
References

Aakko, M., et al. (2016). Fashion in-between: Artisanal design and production of
fashion. Aalto University.
Abubakar, M., Oluyemi, J. A., Abdulateef, R., Emmanuel, A., Adejoke, J., &
Williams, T. M. (2018). Imperialism and loss of identity in second hand
clothes: The nigerian okrika experience. Journal of Language, Technology &
Entrepreneurship in Africa, 9(1), 151–172.
Anzak, S., Zulfiqar, S., & Mohyuddin, A. (2019). Dumping of trash in peripheral
countries through landa bazaar: System analysis of second hand clothing
business. BUJHSS, 2(2), 23–23.
Arnold, M. J., & Reynolds, K. E. (2003). Hedonic shopping motivations. Journal of
retailing, 79(2), 77–95.
Batra, R., & Ahtola, O. T. (1991). Measuring the hedonic and utilitarian sources
of consumer attitudes. Marketing letters, 2(2), 159–170.
Baxter, W., Aurisicchio, M., & Childs, P. (2017). Contaminated interaction: another
barrier to circular material flows. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 21(3), 507–
516.
Baxter, W., Aurisicchio, M., Mugge, R., Childs, P., & Mugge, R. (2017). Decontami-
nating experiences with circular offerings. Delft University of Technology, 8,
10.
Calabrese, L., Balchin, N., & Mendez-Parra, M. (2017). The phase-out of second-
hand clothing imports: what impact for tanzania?
Cinjarevic, M., Tatic, K., & Petric, S. (2011). See it, like it, buy it! hedonic shopping
motivations and impulse buying. Economic Review: Journal of Economics
and Business, 9(1), 3–15.
Clube, R. K., & Tennant, M. (2020). Exploring garment rental as a sustainable
business model in the fashion industry: Does contamination impact the
consumption experience? Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 19(4), 359–370.
Dauvergne, P. (2010). The shadows of consumption: Consequences for the global

50
 References

environment. MIT press.

Directive, E., et al. (2008). Directive 2008/98/ec of the european parliament and of
the council of 19 november 2008 on waste and repealing certain directives.
Official Journal of the European Union L, 312(3).
Durrani, M. (2014). Understanding clothing consumption choices in oslo; identify-
ing and addressing barriers to sustainable consumption of clothes (Unpub-
lished master’s thesis).
Education, M. (2015). Grade 12 global issues: Citizenship and sustainability (40s).
Retrieved March, 10, 2015.
Fletcher, K. (2013). Sustainable fashion and textiles: design journeys. Routledge.
Glaubitz, J. P. A. (2012). Modern consumerism and the waste problem. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1206.0604.
Gray, D. E. (2013). Doing research in the real world. Sage.
Hansen, K. T., & Le Zotte, J. (2019). Changing secondhand economies. Taylor &
Francis.
Jacoby, J., Berning, C. K., & Dietvorst, T. F. (1977). What about disposition?
Journal of marketing, 41(2), 22–28.
Johnson, J. C., & Weller, S. C. (2002). Elicitation techniques for interviewing.
Handbook of interview research: Context and method, 491–514.
Jones-Davis, D. (2019). Fashionopolis: The price of fast fashion and the future of
clothes. Science, 365(6457), 977–977.
JONY, A. J., ISLAM, M. A., & TABASSUM, T. (n.d.). Influence of 1960’s hippie
counterculture in contemporary fashion.
Kim, H.-S., & Hong, H. (2011). Fashion leadership and hedonic shopping moti-
vations of female consumers. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 29(4),
314–330.
Kwon, T. A., Choo, H. J., & Kim, Y.-K. (2020). Why do we feel bored with our
clothing and where does it end up? International Journal of Consumer
Studies, 44(1), 1–13.
Laitala, K. (2014). Consumers’ clothing disposal behaviour–a synthesis of research
results. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 38(5), 444–457.
Laitala, K., & Klepp, I. G. (2018). Motivations for and against second-hand
clothing acquisition. Clothing cultures, 5(2), 247–262.
Leech, B. L. (2002). Asking questions: Techniques for semistructured interviews.
PS: Political Science & Politics, 35(4), 665–668.
Lo, C. J., Tsarenko, Y., & Tojib, D. (2019). To tell or not to tell? the roles of perceived
norms and self-consciousness in understanding consumers’ willingness to
recommend online secondhand apparel shopping. Psychology & Marketing,

51
 References

36(4), 287–304.
Lucero, A. (2015). Using affinity diagrams to evaluate interactive prototypes. In
Ifip conference on human-computer interaction (pp. 231–248).
Majid, M. A. A., Othman, M., Mohamad, S. F., Lim, S. A. H., Yusof, A., et al.
(2017). Piloting for interviews in qualitative research: Operationalization
and lessons learnt. International Journal of Academic Research in Business
and Social Sciences, 7(4), 1073–1080.
Markova, I., & Grajeda, J. (2018). Consumer attitudes and purchase intentions to-
ward second-hand clothing online and through social media platforms: Does
gender and income matter? In International textile and apparel association
annual conference proceedings (Vol. 75).
Mattelmäki, T., Lucero, A., & Lee, J.-J. (2016). Probing–two perspectives to
participation. In Collaboration in creative design (pp. 33–51). Springer.
Morgan, D. L. (1998). Practical strategies for combining qualitative and quantita-
tive methods: Applications to health research. Qualitative health research,
8(3), 362–376.
Niinimäki, K., et al. (2013). Sustainable fashion: New approaches. Aalto Univer-
sity.
Noon, D. J. (2011). Changing patterns of consumerism: the rise and rise of the
second hand: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of master of arts in visual and material culture at massey univer-
sity, wellington, new zealand (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Massey
University.
Nopnukulvised, C., Husamaldin, L., & Bowen, G. (2019). The differences of
hedonic shopping value and purchase intention in the multichannel shop-
ping environment for apparel shopping. In Leveraging computer-mediated
marketing environments (pp. 125–142). IGI Global.
Noy, C. (2008). Sampling knowledge: The hermeneutics of snowball sampling in
qualitative research. International Journal of social research methodology,
11(4), 327–344.
Rabionet, S. E. (2011). How i learned to design and conduct semi-structured
interviews: an ongoing and continuous journey. Qualitative Report, 16(2),
563–566.
Richins, M. L. (2013). When wanting is better than having: Materialism, transfor-
mation expectations, and product-evoked emotions in the purchase process.
Journal of Consumer Research, 40(1), 1–18.
Shim, S. (1995). Environmentalism and consumers’ clothing disposal patterns: an
exploratory study. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 13(1), 38–48.

52
 References

Steffen, A. (2017). Second-hand consumption as a lifestyle choice. In International

conference on consumer research (iccr) (pp. 189–207).
TredUp. (2020). 2020 resale report. Author.
Trentmann, F. (2016). Empire of things: How we became a world of consumers,
from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first. Penguin UK.
Turunen, L. L. M., Leipämaa-Leskinen, H., & Sihvonen, J. (2018). Restructuring
secondhand fashion from the consumption perspective. In Vintage luxury
fashion (pp. 11–27). Springer.
Willersdorf, S. (n.d.). The consumers behind fashion’s growing secondhand mar-
ket. Retrieved from [Link]

-behind-growing-secondhand-fashion-market

Woodward, S. (2007). Why women wear what they wear. Berg.

WRAP, U. (2017). Valuing our clothes: the cost of uk fashion. WRAP, London.
Yan, R.-N., Bae, S. Y., & Xu, H. (2015). Second-hand clothing shopping among
college students: the role of psychographic characteristics. Young Consumers.

53
Appendices

54
Appendix A: information sheet and consent
form

You are invited to an interview which is for a research study for a Master thesis
conducted by Bohan Sun, a student of the Aalto University and supervised by
Andres Lucero.

The purpose of the interview is to gather information about consumers’ behaviours,

motivation and barriers towards secondhand garment acquisition, and the cur-
rent secondhand consumption status in Finland. The aim of this thesis is about
to research what shapes consumer’s behaviour towards secondhand garments
consumption and acquisition, what is the challenge of keeping the practice and
potentially an exploration of the future secondhand consumption trend.

Structure of the Interview:

In this study, you will be asked to take part in an in depth, semi structured
interview which will consist of 20 to 25 questions. The interview will take from 40
to 60 minutes. Depending on the answers and discussion and availability of the
participant, the time is flexible to change. The interview will be a single session
interview and if it is allowed by the participant, a follow up interview can be set.

Participant’s Rights:
The personal records, interview material and pictures gathered will be only used
for the purpose of the thesis. The photo gathered will be modified if used into the
thesis. You as the participant have the following rights:

Right to withdraw from the study at any time

Right to have privacy (confidentiality will be assured)
Right to have audio or video devices turned off at any time
Right to ask questions about the study at any time
Right to omit or refuse to answer or respond to any question
Right to be anonymous in the thesis
Right to receive information about the research results and conclusions

55
 Appendix A: information sheet and consent form

A complete debriefing of these rights will be made once again before the interview
commences. If you have any questions as a result of reading this information
sheet, you should ask the researcher before the study begins.

Confidentiality:
The personal information gathered in the interview about will only be limited in
age, job , major and culture background(if needed). They will only be used for
analysis data for the purpose of this thesis.

Thank you for your participation for the research!

Researchers Contact details:

[Link]@[Link]
If you want to find out about the final results of this study, you can also email
Bohan.

I have read the above project description. I agree with the terms and I am happy
to participate in the study.

Name
Signature
Please leave your e-mail details if you are interested for the future collaboration.

Name of the person obtaining the consent: BOHAH SUN

Signature of the person obtaining the consent:

56
Appendix B: interview structure for
motivated second-hand shopper

Introduction:
Thank for participation.
Briefly introduce the purpose of the interview and rights of participants.
Ask permit for voice record.

Interviewee background:
1. Tell me a bit about yourself (job, major, place)

Consumption pattern:
[Link] do you like to shop? How often. . .
[Link] your first time buy second-hand clothing?
4. a) In what situation you will go to a secondhand store?
(Please choose from the cards below and put them in the box. When you are
choosing it, please feel free to think out loud.)
b) Can you tell me more why you choose these cards?

Figure 0.1

5. Can you tell me how you feel and think when you are in a secondhand store?
(Please choose from the cards below and put them in the box. When you are
choosing it, please feel free to think out loud.)

57
 Appendix B: interview structure for motivated second-hand shopper

Figure 0.2

Supplementary questions:
6. Where you usually shop or get second-hand products from?
7. Do you buy fast fashion brands for example HM, zara? how often?
8. Do you do any plan before purchase?
9. How do you think about the recycling material products?

Using and taking care:

10. How do you take care your clothes? Are you intentionally taking care of them?
11. How about your second-hand clothing? How you take care of them?
12. How much proportion of your second-hand clothing in your wardrobe?
13. How often you wear your second-hand clothing?

Dispose pattern:
14. Have you dispose clothes?
15. How you choose which you want to get rid of?
16. How do you dispose the clothes?

Motivation and barriers:

17. How do you define yourself as a secondhand shopper?
(You can choose from below. Can you tell me why you choose this?)
18. What are the factors do you consider when you shop?
19. How do you think about this sentence?
"I see dress as an act of identity construction"
"I express myself through clothing"
"I value second-hand clothes more than fast fashion"

58
 Appendix B: interview structure for motivated second-hand shopper

Figure 0.3

20. What do you think about the advantages and disadvantages of shopping
second hands?
21. What is your motivation to purchase or acquire second-hand products?
22. What do you think about the obstacles to keep the practice?
23. What sustainable mean to you?

59
Appendix C: interview structure for
occasional second-hand visitors

Introduction:
Thank for participation.
Briefly introduce the purpose of the interview and rights of participants.
Ask permit for voice record.

Interviewee background:
1. Tell me a bit about yourself (job, major, place)

Consumption pattern:
2. Where do you like to shop? How often. . .
3. Can you list some items that you have bought during last three months?
4. In what situation you will go to shopping?
(Please choose from the cards below and put them in the box. When you are
choosing it, please feel free to think out loud.)

Figure 0.4

5. Have you ever buy second-hand clothes? How often. . . ?

60
 Appendix C: interview structure for occasional second-hand visitors

6. If very less, are there any specific reason?

a) Do you have any friends who like second-hand shopping? What do you think
about it?
b) Recently second-hand clothing is quite prevalent, how do you see it?
c) How about the second-hand clothes from family members or friends? Have you
ever get any from them?
7. Have you ever went to a second-hand stores? If not, ask why.
8. What do you think of the environment of a second-hand store?
9. What do you feel when you are in a second-hand store?
(Please choose from the cards below and put them in the box. When you are
choosing it, please feel free to think out loud.)

Figure 0.5

Supplementary questions:
10. Where do you usually shop?
11. Do you buy fast fashion brands for example HM, zara? how often?
12. Do you do any plan before purchase?

Using and taking care:

13. How do you take care your clothes? Are you intentionally taking care of them?
14. How about your second-hand clothing? How you take care of them?
15. How much proportion of your second-hand clothing in your wardrobe?
16. How often you wear your second-hand clothing?

Dispose pattern:

61
 Appendix C: interview structure for occasional second-hand visitors

17. Have you dispose clothes?

18. How you choose which you want to get rid of?
19. How do you dispose the clothes?

Motivation and barriers:

20. What are the factors do you consider when you shop?
21. How do you think about this sentence?
"I see dress as an act of identity construction"
"I express myself through clothing"
"I value second-hand clothes more than fast fashion"

22. What do you think about the advantages and disadvantages of shopping
second hands?
23. What sustainable mean to you?

62
Appendix D: evaluation survey

63
Appendix D: evaluation survey

64
Appendix D: evaluation survey

65
Appendix D: evaluation survey

66
Appendix D: evaluation survey

67
Appendix D: evaluation survey

68
Appendix D: evaluation survey

69