Second hand + Online + Gen Z = TRUE : A quantitative study on the motivations behind second-hand shopping for clothes online

Abstract: The environmental issues in the world are critical and sustainability becomes more important. There is a certain lack in the textile industry, where the production of clothes is responsible for water pollution, landfill waste and greenhouse gas emission. A more sustainable way of consumption is required, and one way is to shop for pre-owned and pre-used clothes. The demand for second-hand goods rapidly increases and the market is expected to continue to grow the next coming years. Internet has opened up for a new marketplace and the number of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platforms increases and become more and more popular to buy and sell second-hand through. Generation Z are the young consumers that were born with technology, and this has led to a change in young people’s behavior, and attitudes and lifestyle which need to be perceived differently from previous generations. However, there is still a lack of research regarding Gen Z as consumers and no previous research has focused on their behavior when it comes to Online Second-hand Shopping Clothes (OSSC) using digital P2P platforms. Hence, this led us to our research question “What are the motives for Generation Z to shop second-hand clothes on digital P2P platforms?”. The aim is to give important insights to managers who are developing marketing strategies in the environment of OSSC, through exploring motivations and dimensions that could impact the behavior of this amongst Gen Z. We also want to give insights of OSSC through not only incorporating theories on shopping motivations, but also include Impulsive Buying Tendency and Perceived Risk. Based on theories of motivations towards Second-Hand shopping such as economical, ideological, fashionability, convenience, ethical and theories of Impulse Buying Tendency and Perceived Risk we constructed a conceptual framework with several hypotheses. To answer our research question and achieve our research purpose we conducted a deductive quantitative study where we through a web survey targeted people born in Gen Z who had experience of OSSC. The findings revealed that as a motive in our baseline regression analysis, ideological and convenience was significant. In our analysis on bivariate correlation, convenience and ethical motives was significant. In the multiple regression with multiple-items measures, convenience was the only significant motivation. Perceived Risk was only significant in our alternative model where it would affect the consumers perception of monetary spending on OSSC. We found no support that fashionability and impulse buying traits are motives for OSSC. Economical motives were not found to be significant as a motivation, but it can be considered a hygiene factor for OSSC. In conclusion, the findings reveal that all motives are important in different aspects, but convenience and ethical motives are strongly supported to be important drivers towards OSSC amongst Gen Z.