Consumer Segments and Behavioral Patterns

This scholarly article shows a rather extensive survey of consumer purchases of clothing from 4 countries and involving over 4600 survey respondents. View the full text of the article or download the pdf file.

Discussion

Conclusions

Clothing consumption's high environmental impact raises concerns at each phase of a clothing item's life cycle, the severity of which is determined largely by which and how many clothing items consumers purchase and how often, as well as the frequency of item use and the nature of their maintenance and disposal. However, although developing tailored strategies that successfully address consumer decisions across all phases of clothes consumption is a key element in achieving more sustainable clothing consumption, previous research has only fragmentally examined how consumers behave in relation to each phase. This current analysis has thus examined the consumer clothing behavior of large, diverse consumer samples in four Western countries to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of consumer clothing consumption across four important clothing markets. In doing so, it supplemented the extensive data on self-reported consumer behavior with the environmental concerns generated by each clothing life cycle phase. To address consumer heterogeneity, it divided consumers into five distinct segments based on extent of consumption and price point of product purchased. This segmentation enabled a better understanding of clothing consumption and the development of change interventions for targeting specific behaviors. Basing the segmentation on actual consumption produced five consumer groups offering important insights into both distinctions and similarities in consumer purchasing, use and maintenance, and disposal behavior.

Among the most notable findings are the relatively low clothing consumption-rate by almost half the respondents and their strong preference for budget brand clothing. For the low clothing consumers in Segment 1, shifting behavior toward low cost acquisition alternatives is likely to be a more effective approach than trying to further reduce consumption, whereas both approaches - consuming differently and consuming less - are promising for the high volume and high spending consumers in Segments 4 and 5. Segment 2 consumers, on the other hand, who engage in low consumption but higher spending, could be addressed by strategies that promote consuming differently, whereas strategies to raise awareness of the need to consume less could best serve the high volume, budget brand consumers in Segment 3. The design and implementation of any strategy, however, should take into account that no one message can suit all consumer groups; to be successful, interventions must be adapted to each segments' consumption patterns. The pattern identification and consumer profiling reported here constitutes a first step in this direction, one that provides an important platform for future research aimed at even more comprehensive understanding of clothing consumption. Nonetheless, because simply identifying different behaviors is insufficient to engendering actual behavior change, more research is needed to understand such in-depth aspects as the motivations underlying these actions.

This study is of course not without its limitations, not least the potential for a social desirability or method bias to which all studies of self-reported behavior are subject. A social desirability bias would lead to an over- or underestimation of behavior for all categories, while consumer inability to accurately recall actions in the given time period on a general abstract level would produce different accountings of behavior. The latter is particularly relevant for respondent recall of such past behavior as how many items they purchased in the previous three months, the amount of money spent, and the number of t-shirts and jeans they currently own. In this context, cross-validations of measurements such as surveys and observation experiments or real-time data collection could be a promising way to increase validity and reliability. Another limitation is the cross-sectionality of the study, which may not sufficiently capture the great variation in consumer behavior, especially in such a fast-moving context as the fashion industry. When the study aim is to better understand consumer behavior to enable the design of effective behavioral change interventions, assessing consumption pattern stability and tracing its development is crucial. Finally, although Western countries have some of the largest clothing markets, studying them to the exclusion of highly populated, growing economies such as Brazil, China, and India ignores purchasing, maintenance, and disposal behaviors that may diverge greatly from the Western behavior patterns reported here. Hence, extending the current analysis to developing nations would be an important avenue for future research.

Despite these shortcomings, the present study contributes important and extensive empirical knowledge that can prompt rethinking of previous assumptions about such aspects as clothes purchasing behavior or the relation between age and clothing consumption. Surprisingly, however, we identify no significant age-based differences between our five segments. In fact, the similar age distribution in our medium-budget Segment 3 refutes the commonly accepted notion of the young fast fashion consumer. Although one reason may be that very young consumers (under 18) are not included in the sample, Segment 3's budget purchases are not necessarily made at traditional fast fashion retailers but may take place at nontraditional clothes vendors such as supermarkets. Hence, although the current data provide many interesting insights, they also raise at least as many questions for future investigation. One potential research avenue would be to further explore the segments' demographics or make more detailed comparisons of the different countries. Another important "next step" would be to supplement the findings reported here with psychological insights to provide clearer explanation of the segmental behavior differences based on their psychological underpinnings and to identify which behavioral antecedents could be targeted most effectively in future interventions. Likewise, an assessment of the actual environmental impact of the various consumer segments could support the development of effective behavioral interventions promoting truly environmentally friendly clothing consumption.