5. Discussion and Managerial Insights

Through data analysis of Patagonia's product line, the following four important insights (i.e., eco-material selection, eco-design for functionality, eco-design for aesthetics in product line development, and eco-design and online reviewers' opinions) are valuable to discuss and summarize for both practitioners and scholars.

  •  Eco-material selection in product line development

Eco-material selection is the first stage of the sustainable supply chain. Eco-materials mainly include recyclable, recycled, and low environmental impact materials. At Patagonia, designers select organic, recycled, and traceable materials in sustainable product line development. Using such eco-materials can lower environmental impact. Recycled materials (e.g., recycled polyester, recycled nylon, recycled cotton, and recycled down) have been greatly used in Patagonia's product line development. In particular, recycled polyester is popular. This can be potentially explained by polyester materials' simple adoption in fashion design and that recycled polyester can be reshaped according to new product designs. Eco-material selection is not only critically important for eco-design, but also beneficial for establishing a more sustainable supply chain.

  •  Eco-design for functionality in product line development

Eco-design for functionality is critically important in product line development. Fashion functionality can refer to product weight, as the more functional products such as outdoor clothing are heavier than less functional products such as t-shirts. We found that for the basic products (without pattern design) at Patagonia, the functional products are more likely to be made by eco-materials. This result provides significant practical insights on eco-design for functional products, which should be promoted by the concepts of sustainability in marketing and distributed in environmentally efficient ways, even though the products are relatively heavy.

  •  Eco-design for aesthetics in product line development

Aesthetics is now the primary reason that consumers choose to purchase fashion products. In this paper, aesthetics refer to the choices of color and product fit (regular or slim) at Patagonia. Product fits are important for outlook and style. We found that for the regular fit product development, the products containing more eco-materials have more choices of color, but this does not apply to slim fit products. For the slim fit product development, the products containing more eco-materials are heavier, but for the regular fit products, products containing more eco-materials are lighter. This finding provides an important insight to sustainable fashion designers who should implement different eco-design strategies in terms of product fits for color choices and weight. Moreover, regarding product weight, this finding provides insights on logistics and distribution. If the product is aesthetics oriented (e.g., slim fit), logistics incur a higher cost because they are heavier, whereas if the product is not aesthetic oriented (e.g., regular fit), logistics may incur a lower cost because they are lighter.

  •  Eco-design and online reviewers' opinions

When online consumers purchase eco-designed products, they might leave comments on purchased websites and give a score to identify how they like the product. We found that the menswear eco-designed products, the eco-designed products with patterns, and the slim fit eco-designed products have less online consumers' acceptance. Both pattern and slim fit refer to aesthetics in fashion products. Thus, these results imply that when consumers purchase eco-designed products for aesthetics, patterns and slim fit would reduce the consumers' acceptance. In other words, the consumers may not be satisfied with the aesthetics of eco-design at Patagonia. This may further imply that Patagonia should focus on developing products for functionality instead of aesthetics when developing eco-designed products.

In the product development stage, designers determine how many colors will be available in each product. We find that for the regular fit products, designers are more willing to use eco-materials with more choices of color. This may be due to the following two reasons: (1) eco-materials may not be uniform, which can present multiple color choices after recycling, allowing designers to have more color choices in product design; (2) consumers may be more willing to select products among multiple color choices when they purchase sustainable products. These results provide important insights on eco-product inventory management. When the eco-products have more choices of color, it implies that the eco-products have more SKUs for each product. More SKUs lead to a higher chance of overstocking for certain colors and sizes. As a result, more choices of color in eco-products may increase the overstocking risk in the supply chain. Based on these results, we argue that better managing inventory for eco-products is critically important because the regular fit eco-products have more color choices, and consequently more SKUs to manage, which drive the inventory management to be more complex.