Sustainability factors affecting caregivers' toy preferences: An evaluation of e‐commerce best sellers in Turkey

Abstract

Toys make a considerable clutter in homes over time unless managed responsibly. Given the ease of buying anything these days, especially toys, due to the rise of online shopping (Richards et al., 2020), toy piles can grow quickly. Current literature on the sustainability of toys is based on physical touch points, such as material, design, assembly, or transport, and suggested methods to enhance sustainability performance up to the “before‐use” phase. Our study focuses on how consumers address the issue of sustainability in toys, from the moment they intend to buy a toy to the time they terminate the toys' use, with a focus on green purchase behavior. We used data from a survey to depict 220 Turkish caregivers' perceptions of sustainability with snowball sampling to build an analytic hierarchy process system. The aim was to understand caregivers' approaches to toy sustainability factors in general and to interpret their motivations for green purchase activity. Among the eight sustainability criteria explicitly set for toys, child development‐related factors dominated durability, while price was found to be ineffective. This study of six best‐selling toys for 3–6‐year‐olds on a shopping site revealed that long‐term use is crucial for sustainability in toys. We observed that digital platforms are insufficient to convey the sustainability features of products, and thus propose a concept that evaluates the sustainability performance of toys and advises the consumer about the sustainability potential of the toys on the sales site.