Sustainable Product Strategy in Apparel Industry with Consumer Behavior Consideration

Abstract

Abstract:The article attempts to analyze sustainable product strategy in apparel industry specifically addressing a firm that is considering launching a sustainable product partly made from recycled materials. There are two types of consumers under consideration, environmentally conscious and regular consumers, as they have different perceived values for the sustainable products. The article provides an analytical model aimed to identify conditions under which a firm could benefit from adopting sustainable product strategy. The level of sustainability is determined by the trade-off between profitability and costs occurred and if more consumers value sustainable products, the firm will increase its sustainable level and get a higher profit. This is because of a combination effect of an increasing marginal profit and demand expansion. Moreover, the model has been further extended to address a situation where the firm could manage consumer segmentation. Depending on parameter settings, the firm may target different consumer segments and there is always a threshold of cost for managing consumer segments. When converting regular consumers to be environmentally conscious is not costly, the firm will convert all consumers to be environmentally conscious with great efforts; otherwise, the firm will convert part of consumers to be environmentally conscious.

Sustainability Issues in Textile and Apparel Supply Chains

“…Yang and Dong [26] investigated sustainable apparel product strategy where products are partially produced using recycled materials. They considered two types of consumers: environmentally conscious and regular consumers.…”

Innovation Management and Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the Nigerian Deposit Money Banks

“…To establish or improve sustainable competitive advantage, it is imperative to explore new routines (He, Fang, Ji and Fang, 2017; Yang and Dong, 2017). The paradox between acquiring knowledge sources and inter organizational trust is vital for improving sustainable competitive advantage (Afuah, 2013).…”

Could Black Be the New Gold? Design-Driven Challenges in New Sustainable Luxury Materials for Jewelry

“…As underlined by Achabou and Dekhili [4] in relation to French luxury clothing, "the presence of recycled material in luxury products is perceived negatively by consumers". The issue has been discussed and analyzed in the literature, with particular attention paid to eco-luxury consumer behavior [23].…”

“…Some research and several articles underline the difficulty and the divergence in terms of values between luxury and sustainable development [4,13] and highlight a weak association between the concepts of sustainability and elegance. However, several scholars, such as Lochard and Murat [21], support the idea that the two concepts are compatible: the sustainability of the project must be presented as a new form of elegance, as an added value to the product, to be universally recognized.…”

“…This paper presents a case study of a prestigious Italian goldsmith SME (SMEs are small-and-medium-sized enterprises, defined as having <250 employees and an annual turnover of up to EUR 50 million or a balance sheet total of no more than EUR 43 million) [1] struggling, like many others, due to increasing gold prices in 2011-2013 [2]. According to Hernández Pardo, Bhamra, and Bhamra [3], SMEs often do not possess the knowledge and awareness or capacity for investment to develop sustainable products and processes, even though consumers are becoming increasingly aware of corporate social responsibility, environmental protection, and environmentally friendly products [4]. …”