BUS602: Marketing Management

Our survey respondents reported giving about 70.7% of their discarded clothes a second life by donating, recycling, selling at flea markets, or passing them on to family members. Disposal of the remaining 30% is equally distributed between down-cycling (e.g., using clothes as rags) and putting them in the trash. When asked specifically about discarding jeans and t-shirts, participants responded that t-shirts are less likely (52.2%) to receive a second life but are more often down-cycled (27.8%) or trashed (20.1%). Jeans, on the other hand, are less often down-cycled (14.7%). Interestingly, not only did respondents report a lower share of second life clothes when asked about a specific product category rather than clothes in general, but the Segment 5 high consumers of casual/medium and premium brands indicated no higher share of second life for their unwanted clothes than the other segments.