Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

Valued as a $28 billion industry in 2021, the second-hand clothing industry, or thrifting industry, has been exploding (2020 Fashion Resale Market and Trend Report, 2020). This has been aided by a myriad of technological advancements, social movements, and economic factors. The goal of this thesis is to uncover consumer behaviors leading to this growth across behavioral, emotional, perceptual, and belief factors. Additionally, this thesis aims to provide strategic implications for marketing professionals, create recommendations for brands to successfully enter this industry and target consumers. In this study, a Qualtrics survey was distributed to students at Arizona State University. The results were analyzed through Microsoft Excel. The results showed that in order to be successful in this industry, brands should: emphasize sustainability in marketing, increase brand awareness, highlight feelings of pride in products, uniqueness, and affordability, mitigate feelings of poverty, low quality, and lack of variety, understand the perceptual differences in shopping versus thrifting, and take advantage of branded fashion.

Social media has shifted the fashion industry to a new norm of fast fashion. This study examines the impact of social media marketing tactics utilized by the fashion industry, to determine the long-lasting effects on the environment. Primarily, research was conducted through a literature review to analyze the history of the fashion industry, as well as the shift to fast fashion, which encompasses microtrends, overproduction, overconsumption, and product utilization. Later, the literature review analyzes the environmental impact pertaining to each part of the product life cycle. Finally, two surveys were created and distributed to Arizona State University students in the W.P. Carey School of Business to further understand consumer behavior, opinions, and prominent purchase factors present in their decisions. The data interpretation from both surveys correlates to the research findings in the literature review, connecting the idea of low consumer value for ethical sustainability in purchasing habits, in addition to the level that student purchase habits are influenced by social media in respondents aged 18-24. This research provides the basis for needed legislation and corporate initiative, to alleviate the environment from the hazardous consequences of the fast fashion market.

This paper examines how marketing has been used as a tool to promote awareness among consumers about environmental issues and to encourage them to make sustainable choices. Marketing campaigns have been instrumental in the widespread adoption of sustainable practices such as recycling, second-hand shopping, and reducing personal waste. As consumers become more conscious of their choices, companies use green marketing to capitalize on these social trends. While many companies do have the intent to sell a truly sustainable product to fulfill customer needs, others simply use the label to profit, without putting forth a sustainable product. This practice is referred to as “greenwashing.” The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has put forth regulatory guidelines to combat this issue, but does not seem to have the necessary resources to penalize companies who do not follow the regulations. In fact, there are many guidelines that are optional for companies to follow, but not mandatory, making it difficult to spot false claims. We conducted two surveys of over 300 college students to assess their perceptions of sustainability and how it influences their everyday choices. We asked questions about perceived sustainability of various brands, some of which with known sustainability campaigns, and others without. We found that many students hold similar perceptions of sustainability and saw interesting trends in how sustainability affects their day-to-day purchase habits.