Rent More, Buy Less: A Quantitative Study on Men's View on Renting Clothes Online

Abstract: The present overconsumption of fashion leaves a massive ecological footprint on the planet. An emerging business model in collaborative consumption addressing this problem is online clothing rentals, which allow consumers to rent everyday clothes instead of buying them. However, the rising business model is mainly targeting women, both in research and practice. Previous findings might not be directly applicable to men because of existing gender differences in shopping behavior and fashion involvement. For clothing rental companies to successfully target men, they need a better understanding of what currently hinders this economically important customer group from renting clothes online and how they differ from women. Therefore, this thesis aims to understand men's barriers to adoption and the differences in perceptions between men and women. A quantitative study was conducted to address this aim. The choice of relevant barriers and perceptions to include was based on previous research in clothing rental and gender differences in shopping behavior and fashion involvement. An online survey with 436 potential consumers showed that men have a noticeably lower attitude and intention to rent clothes online than women. While men and women differ in their perceptions of how useful they perceive the service, no differences exist in perceptions of ownership and gender identity of renting clothes online. For men, not perceiving clothing rentals as useful and highly valuing ownership of clothes depict significant barriers to adopting the renting service. However, perceiving clothing rentals as feminine is not a barrier for them. These findings have relevant implications for businesses wanting to target men. They also show the need to investigate the topic further.