I have been shopping all my life, and I still have nothing to wear - An Exploratory Study of Fashion Rental Business Models and Operational Tactics in the Swedish Market

Abstract: In the emergent Swedish fashion rental industry, a central challenge is the lack of insights into the existing fashion rental business models (FRBMs) and their implementation. To tackle this empirical gap, a qualitative multiple-case study was conducted. By adopting a product service system (PSS) perspective on business models and operational tactics, the study has the purpose to investigate the existing FRBMs in the Swedish market and how operational tactics are used to implement them. The analysis identified three FRBMs and confirmed that all the tactics established by previous research were used upon implementation. However, the analysis found (1) differences across FRBMs in the use of the underlying tactical aspects and (2) a two-level hierarchy between tactics, affecting the influence between tactical aspects. The findings therefore suggest that employing one tactical aspect may in turn affect other aspects. This ultimately has consequences for FRBM implementation, being the latter the result of a combination of different tactical aspects.