3rd PLATE Conference
September 18 – 20, 2019
Berlin, Germany
Nils F. Nissen
Melanie Jaeger-Erben (eds.)
Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin
Itza de Miguel, Mariana; Schoormans, Jan; Tunn, Vivian; van den Bergh,
Marie: Optimizing second hand clothing stores based on consumer
preferences . In: Nissen, Nils F.; Jaeger-Erben, Melanie (Eds.): PLATE
– Product Lifetimes And The Environment : Proceedings, 3rd PLATE
CONFERENCE, BERLIN, GERMANY, 18 – 20 September 2019. Berlin: Uni-
versitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2021. pp. 387 – 390. ISBN 978-3-7983-3125-9
(online). https://doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-9253.
This article – except for quotes, fi gures and where otherwise noted – is
licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0).
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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3rd PLATE 2019 Conference
Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2019
Optimizing Second-hand Clothing Stores Based on Consumer
Preferences
Itza de Miguel, Mariana; Schoormans, Jan; Tunn, Vivian; Van den Bergh, Marie
Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft, The Netherlands
Keywords: Second-hand Fashion Stores; Fast Fashion; Sustainable Behavior; Consumer
Preferences; Sustainable Fashion.
Abstract: The use of second-hand clothing can reduce the sustainability impact of clothing. It is a
prerequisite of second-hand clothing shops to attune to consumers’ needs to significantly increase the
sales of second-hand clothing shops. In this paper, the consumer preferences with respect to second-
hand clothing shops are researched using a conjoint experiment. Four store characteristics were
manipulated, namely the quality of clothing, clothing availability, warranty, and brand. The study shows
that participants prefer second-hand clothing stores that offer branded clothes, offer a wide assortment
of good quality clothing, and even provide consumers with a 6-months warranty. Such shops are
comparable to the omnipresent fast-fashion shops. It is advised to build a brand for second-hand
clothing shops, e.g. using a franchise strategy to increase the diffusion of these shops. However, the
limited availability of large quantities of high-quality second-hand clothing might hinder such a diffusion.
Fast Fashion
The impact of product consumption is one of
our deepest cultural fissures. The fashion
industry has played a major role in this by
creating the so-called fast-fashion concept.
Fast fashion can be defined from an industry
point of view as the selling of trendy,
fashionable products that are universally
affordable and continually changing (Cachon
and Swinney, 2011). The supply of fast fashion
requires flexible and cheap production and
distribution processes. Indeed, omnipresent
fashion retail chains, like H&M and Zara, sell
low cost products, are very flexible in product
design and excel in speed to market (Bhardwaj
and Fairhurst, 2010). By building on the fast-
fashion business model these companies have
grown to become the largest apparel
companies in the world (Caro and Martínez-de-
Albéniz, 2015).
From a consumer’s point of view, fast fashion is
associated with relatively low product prices
that are combined with an acceptable level of
quality, a broad and deep assortment and the
frequent renewal of collections (Gabrielli, Baghi
and Codeluppi, 2013). Fast fashion has
influenced the meaning of clothing for
consumers. Buying clothes has become part of
a lifestyle. The adoption of fast-fashion
products by young consumers is motivated
by their limited financial resources and by the
fact that trendy and socially visible fast-
fashion apparel plays an important role in
socializing at this stage in their life (Joung,
2014). Unfortunately, today’s treasures are
tomorrow’s trash (Joy, Sherry, Venkatesh,
Wang and Chan, 2012). Indeed, a strong
negative side effect of the constant urge to buy
the newest fashion items is the discarding of
items that were bought just a month before.
The fashion industry, more than any other
industry in the world, embraces obsolescence
as a primary goal (Abrahamson 2011). This is
highly unsustainable (Boström and Micheletti,
2016) as most discarded clothing is still send to
landfills (Gwordz, Steensen Nielsen and Müller,
2017).
Second-hand clothing and
sustainability
More sustainable consumption of products
requires product longevity by the first user or
through reuse (Mugge, 2017). This applies
strongly to clothing. Farrant, Olsen and Wangel
(2010, p. 726) showed that “the reduction of
impacts resulting from collecting 100 garments
for reuse range from 14% decrease of global
warming for the cotton T-shirt to 45% reduction
of human toxicity for polyester/cotton trousers.”
Clothing is often reused by being passed on to
family members, donated to charity, but also by
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3rd PLATE Conference Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2019
Itza de Miguel M.; Schoormans J.; Tunn V.; Van den Bergh M.
Optimizing second-hand clothing stores based on consumer preferences
being sold through second-hand clothing
shops. We will focus on shops in this paper.
Second-hand clothing stores
Second-hand clothing shops have seen rapid
growth in the past decades (Giout and Roux,
2010), but they still only make up a small
fraction of the clothing market. Buyers of
second-hand clothes are motivated by two
different motives. Either they shop for
fashionable reasons, e.g. searching for highly
fashionable items (unique, rare) or they shop
for low-price related reasons (Williams and
Paddock, 2003; Cervellon, Carey, and Harms,
2012; Ferraro, Sands and Brace-Govan, 2016).
This means that consumers shop for vintage
items and/or shop for what is mostly referred to
as second-hand items. In the market, shops
can be found that are targeted at vintage
shoppers and shops that are more focused on
the price-seekers. As indicated above, the fast-
fashion industry is highly unsustainable. It
would be beneficial if the percentage of clothing
bought by consumers in second-hand stores
grows significantly for sustainability reasons.
However, such a growth can only be realized if
consumers’ demand for second-hand clothing
increases significantly.
How to optimize second-hand clothing
stores?
In marketing the idea is key that market
success relates strongly to the ability of
companies to provide products and services
that fulfil consumers’ needs and wants (Kotler,
& Armstrong, 2010). A relevant factor towards
an increase in demand for second-hand
clothing therefore will be the availability of
second-hand clothing shops that attune to
consumers’ needs and wants as much as
possible. Second-hand clothing stores also
need to optimize store attributes in order to be
able to compete in the market. This is
especially important as the fast-fashion industry
has been able to create strong consumer
demand by optimizing marketing elements like
branding, positioning, store placement, pricing
and advertising. In this paper, we will research
the following question, How should second-
hand clothing shops be designed to better
attune to consumers’ needs and wants? In
doing so, we will limit ourselves to the second-
hand clothing shops (and exclude shops that
mainly sell vintage clothing) as we believe that
a much larger effect on sustainability can be
expected by an increase in sales of highly
available items.
Research method
To answer our research question, we calculate
the preferences of consumers for stores that
vary in four relevant store variables. As
indicated above, an important reason to buy
second-hand clothing are the relatively low
prices of items. However, fast fashion is also
characterized by relatively low prices. This
means that the financial advantage of buying
second-hand clothing is small. Next to price,
other store attributes such as product
assortment, warranty, product quality, travelling
distance, etc. determine consumer preference
(Chernev, 2012). Research (Paulins and
Geisffeld, 2003; Visser, Janse van Noordwyk
and Du Preez, 2006) has shown that
consumers’ store preference is mostly based
on the products that are sold in store (e.g.
merchandise, type of clothing). Other store
attributes, like availability of parking spaces,
influence preference to a (much) lower extent.
Based on these insights, we define four
attributes of second-hand clothing stores in this
paper, namely clothing quality, product
availability, warranty, and branding. We
selected these four clothing store attributes
because of their relevance for consumer
preference. The first two variables are directly
related to merchandise on offer and type of
clothing. Clothing quality is a measure of
excellence of the offered clothing. Product
availability indicates the amount and sort of
items found in store. Warranty and Branding
are variables that are included because of their
value in the “normal” fashion store preference.
Warranty is a guarantee promising to repair or
replace a product. Branding is defined by a
design and a name used in order to create an
image that identifies a store and differentiates it
from its competitors.
A conjoint experiment
It is widely assumed that product or store
preference is related to the perceived utility of a
number of relevant variables, such as brand
name, price, etc. Consumers are expected to
make a choice for the product or store that has
the highest utility. In this study, a conjoint
experiment was used to assess consumers’
preferences. In conjoint analysis it is assumed
that consumers build their preferences by
considering several attributes with different
levels (Green and Srinivasan, 1990). In this
research, four attributes with two levels each
were used, namely brand: high-end, low-end;
quality: high, low, availability: extensive, limited,
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Itza de Miguel M.; Schoormans J.; Tunn V.; Van den Bergh M.
Optimizing second-hand clothing stores based on consumer preferences
warranty: no, 6 months. By combining these
attributes (levels), 16 scenarios were defined
that describe a second-hand clothing shop. 50
TU Delft students participated who were aged
between 19 and 21, with 66% female and 34%
male participants. 72% of the participants buy
second-hand clothing. Participants ranked the
scenarios to answer the following question;
What shop would you prefer to buy your
second-hand clothing from? A regression
model was used to calculate the relative utility
of the attributes and their levels. These utilities
are expressed in terms of their relative
importance: the higher the importance of a
variable, the more it influences the choice of the
consumer in a positive way. To conclude the
experiment, participants completed an online
questionnaire to assess their concern for
sustainability, and preference for product
uniqueness.
Results
The relative importance value (higher
percentage equals higher importance) indicates
how important every attribute is regarded. The
results show (importance values: Product
quality 21.3%; Brand 24.9%; Product warranty
29.7%; and Product assortment 24.0%) that all
four variables have about the same importance
value, with warranty being slightly more
important. This means that the participants
have roughly the same preference for these
four variables; it is important that a second-
hand clothing store is branded, offers a wide
assortment of good quality clothing and even
provides consumers a 6-months warranty.
Next, based on the questionnaire assessing
participants’ concern for sustainability, and
preference for product uniqueness responses
were clustered; cluster 1 consists of 33
participants, and cluster 2 consists of 15
participants. The only difference between these
two clusters is that the value that participants
attach to sustainability when buying second-
hand clothing is slightly (but statistically
significant) higher in the second cluster. We
again calculated the mean importance values,
but now for the two clusters separately. The
analyses show that in general the results of the
two clusters are similar. The only difference is
that in the smaller cluster, participants value the
availability of warranty somewhat less.
Conclusions
Our study indicates that consumers perceive all
four variables relevant for a second-hand
clothing store; they prefer a store that offers
high quality, branded items, shows extensive
availability of items, and provides consumers
with an extended warranty. The results are only
slightly different for the two clusters of
participants that could be formed on the basis
of concern for sustainability, and preference for
product uniqueness.
Our results indicate that consumers prefer to
buy branded products in second-hand stores.
However, second-hand stores usually sell
products of different brands and therefore the
brands are less prominent. It is advisable that
second-hand stores develop their own brand,
by using a brand name and being visible on
social media, thereby building consumers’ trust
in the store and merchandise. Indeed, at the
moment a well-established brand of second-
hand stores seems to be lacking as most stores
are small and have a name, but not in the
sense of a “brand”. Therefore, a brand,
combined with a franchising strategy might be
an avenue to growth in this market.
Overall, the research indicates that consumers
want second-hand stores that offer propositions
that resemble those of mainstream (fast)
fashion stores. Only in this way second-hand
fashion stores are probably able to compete
with mainstream fashion stores on a much
larger scale than they do now. (This of course
is less relevant for the vintage clothing stores
that sell more on basis of uniqueness of
products.)
It is, however, questionable whether second-
hand fashion stores can supply enough high
quality and diverse products to satisfy large
groups of consumers. Maybe a cooperation of
second-hand stores with large (fast-) fashion
companies is needed to really increase the
availability of second-hand clothing. In this
case, product quality might be an issue, since
fast-fashion companies usually do not provide
high quality, durable clothing. Next, it is
interesting to research if a chain of second-
hand clothing stores under the heading of a
brand can be a good alternative to fast-fashion
stores and under what conditions this can be
the case.
Our study has some limitations, like the small
number of mostly young participants. Other
target groups should be taken into account in
future studies. Next, different ways to assess
consumer preferences like Likert–based items
can be thought of, as the present method
provides relative preferences only.
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Itza de Miguel M.; Schoormans J.; Tunn V.; Van den Bergh M.
Optimizing second-hand clothing stores based on consumer preferences
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