MFIS, Kent State University, 2021, College of the Arts / School of Fashion

Fashion renting, a form of collaborative consumption, is an emerging sustainable business model that extends the product life cycle and minimizes waste garments. Fashion renting has been the topic of interest for multiple studies, and as a result, the current fashion discipline possesses a substantial understanding of the factors that encourage consumers to engage in fashion renting. A limitation, however, is that relatively little attention has been placed on consumers who do not engage in fashion renting. This is an important gap in research especially considering the fact that understanding non-users of products or services often lead to valuable and distinct implications. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate both the user and non-user groups of fashion renting services to obtain a better understanding of the phenomenon. Specifically, two separate focus group interviews for users and non-users are conducted. The interview results are then converted into a survey questionnaire and distributed via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Factor Analysis and MANOVA are conducted to explore whether different sets of factors drive consumers' decision to use or not use fashion renting services. The findings of this study provide meaningful results for fashion researchers as well as practitioners.

Committee: Jonghan Hyun, Ph.D. (Advisor); Jihyun Kim-Vick, Ph.D. (Committee Member); Aryn Karpinski, Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Business Administration; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Sustainability; Textile Research