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This article is a within-and crosscountry examination of the impact of fair trade certification on consumers' evaluations and attitudes toward ethically certified products. Across three experimental studies, the authors analyze how different levels of brand familiarity and fair trade expertise impact consumer decisions. The authors study this phenomenon across markets with different social orientation cultures to analyze potential dissimilarities in the way consumers evaluate and behave toward ethically certified products. Findings suggest that fair trade certifications enhance product valuations. However, this effect is especially observed for low familiar brands, once the level of fair trade expertise increases. Findings also suggest that there are individual cultural differences with respect to social and environmental labeling expertise that may account for some of the unexplained variation in choice behaviors observed across countries. Results indicate that especially in more (mature) individualistic markets (vs. collectivistic) consumer ethical behavior seems to be greatly influenced by consumers' perceptions about the eligibility of brands using (or not) fair trade. This effect is strengthened by the significant mediating role of consumers' ethicality perceptions on the relationship between fair trade and the willingness to pay for brands. Keywords Fair trade Á Product valuation Á Product evaluation Á Willingness to pay Á Ethical consumption Á Cross-cultural ethical behaviors Abbreviations CSR Corporate social responsibility CPE Consumer perceived ethicality WTP Willingness to pay

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Apart from the many social and health problems it has caused, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on most sectors of the economy worldwide. One of the areas where such impact is noticeable is the textile, apparel, and fashion (TAF) industry. The lockdowns and limited access to retailer outlets resulted in a considerable drop in consumption, creating problems related to the excess of stock, the decrease of sales, and the disposal of non-used items. This paper outlines the implications of the COVID-19 on the TAF sectors and European retailers. It analyzes how the current supply chains exacerbated stock control problems, and it reports on the changes in consumption during the pandemic. The worldwide restrictive measures implemented to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic were responsible for significant profit losses. Also, the decrease in consumption, caused by several geographically wide lockdowns, prompted a subsequent reduction in orders and sales, resulting in a significant number of constraints. The implementation of more environmentally friendly processes, including sustainable circularity as a competitiveness source to keep the TAF sectors in the loop and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, may help address the problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in the sustainability context, as reported in this paper.

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