Why U.S. Consumers Buy Sustainable Cotton Made Collegiate Apparel? A Study of the Key Determinants

Abstract

U.S. collegiate apparel is a $4 billion market in which cotton and polyester made by conventional production methods account for 85% of materials used. Sustainable cotton made collegiate apparel offers a new opportunity for cotton made by novel and sustainable production methods to enter and replace conventional cotton and polyester for environmental protection and sustainable business development. This study aimed to provide insights on why U.S. consumers buy sustainable cotton made collegiate apparel and help understand the emerging trend of sustainable cotton apparel. Building on the Theory of Planned Behavior, an enhanced research model of consumer intent to purchase sustainable cotton made collegiate apparel (SCCA) is proposed. 225 eligible survey responses were gathered for data analysis and hypothesis testing. Attitude, subjective norms, perceived consumer effectiveness, and environmental knowledge positively influences U.S. consumers’ purchase intentions toward SCCA while the effect of perceived behavioral control is insignificant. Furthermore, consumer environmental knowledge positively moderates the relationship between U.S. consumers’ attitude and their purchase intentions. There are no significant differences between age groups, genders, education levels, or income levels among U.S. consumers in regards to their purchase intentions. The proposed research model exhibits a good explanatory power, accounting for 47.3% of the variance in U.S. consumers’ purchase intentions toward SCCA.

Pandemic Fear and Weight Gain: Effects on Overweight and Obese Adults’ Purchasing Exercise Apparel Online

“…That is, others' social pressure had least impact on intentions to purchase exercise apparel online. This is inconsistent with previous studies that found a strong effect of subjective norms on purchase intentions in the context of counterfeit products (Kim & Karpova, 2010) and sustainable cotton-made collegiate apparel (Chi et al, 2019).…”

“…When individuals consider that they have sufficient resources and opportunities to purchase exercise apparel online, the purchase intention increases. In previous studies, these three antecedents (i.e., attitudes toward purchasing, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) were predictors of purchase intention in the context of apparel products, such as counterfeit products (Kim & Karpova, 2010) and environmentally-friendly products (Chi et al, 2019; Yan et al, 2012). Based on the previous findings, overweight and obese adults’ online purchase intentions may be positively affected by favorable evaluations of online purchase behavior, others’ expectation on online purchase behavior, and one’s perceived difficulty of performing online purchase behavior toward exercise apparel.…”

Modelling the predictors of young consumers' sustainable consumption intention

“…The findings of this study are similar to some of the studies in the developed countries who have found TPB a strong theoretical frame- Sun, 2019;Judge, Warren-Myers, & Paladino, 2019). However the strong impact of subjective norm might be attributed to the Indian collectivistic culture.…”

How Does Channel Integration Affect Consumers’ Selection of Omni-Channel Shopping Methods? An Empirical Study of U.S. Consumers

“…The average score of the multi-items for each latent construct was computed and used in further statistical analysis such as correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis [104][105][106][107]. Pearson correlation analysis examined the relationship between the constructs.…”