Socially Responsible Apparel Labels: Effects on Fashionable Shoppers

Abstract

Although socially responsible (SR) labels can facilitate consumers' SR purchasing choices, research addressing the effectiveness of SR labels for apparel products is limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate the consumer segment that practices SR label reading behavior and plans to purchase SR apparel. An online survey was conducted with a random sample of U.S. consumers (N = 718). The researchers used cluster analysis to segment participants based on the participants' fashion orientation and shopping behavior into three groups: fashionable shoppers, regular shoppers, and uninvolved shoppers. These segments were used to develop a profile with regard to SR label behavior for apparel products. Results showed that consumers who were interested in fashion and shopping were more likely to be SR label users, to be more familiar with SR labels, they practiced increased SR apparel consumption, and they had greater intentions to purchase.

Perceived ease of use and usefulness of sustainability labels on apparel products: application of the technology acceptance model

“…Previous studies (Dickson 2001;Gam et al 2014) indicate that consumers who are more likely to purchase sustainability-labelled products exhibit different characteristics than those who are not. Findings showed that a consumer's previous usage or purchasing experiences are the strongest indicator of an actual purchase.…”

Happiness, altruism and the Prius effect

“…To safeguard against this, the preamble was also used to define ERC for respondents, and to do so using descriptors adapted from existing scale items (i.e. Chan & Wong, 2012;Gam et al, 2014). This resulted in the following preamble:…”

The academic conceptualisation of ethical clothing

“…Responses for all seven constructs employed in this study were measured on a 7-point scale (1=strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree). The scales used to measure the four independent variables -environmentally responsible (Gam et al, 2014;Kim & Damhorst, 1998), employee welfare (Auger et al, 2003), slow fashion (Kim et al, 2013) and animal welfare (Auger et al, 2003) -were adapted from existing scales, as were the variables overall attitude (Shen et al, 2012) and purchase intention (Watchravesringkan et al, 2010).…”

“…To avoid this very risk, previous studies employing the term have sometimes provided preambles in order to clarify its meaning to respondents. For example, Gam et al (2014) informed their consumer participants that the term 'socially responsible' refers to sustainable practices such as environmental friendliness and fair labour conditions. However the use of such preambles for the purpose of this study would create bias by effectively defining the construct for respondents.…”

“…Others have assigned it a broader meaning by either conceptualising or operationalising it as comprising three dimensions. Symbolic of the academic confusion that reigns however, some academics have identified these as environmental responsibility, employee welfare and animal welfare (Carrington et al, 2010;Jegethesan et al, 2012;Raciniewska, 2014;Sneddon et al, 2014) while others have used environmental responsibility, ethical welfare and slow fashion instead (Gam et al, 2014;Goworek, 2011;Koszewska et al, 2013).…”