Clothing Rental: the new era of sharing economy in ethical fashion.

Abstract

The sustainability issues that have taken place in the global commercial landscape over the last few decades have contributed to deeply affect fashion companies, leading to the emergence of a new economic phenomenon – the Sharing Economy. As a consequence, new business models based on SE principles, as the Clothing Rental, have been developed during the last decade to respond to these challenges. The scope of this research is to fill a gap in the existing literature on ethical fashion, providing a comprehensive understanding of the emerging phenomenon of Clothing Rental through both a theoretical and practical framework useful for companies interested in entering the market. The main question that this thesis aims to answer is whether individuals are interested or not in passing from a material consumption based on ownership to a use-based consumption and which are the main drivers and barriers consumers face in this context. In particular, it will try to understand how specific personality traits and demographic variables influence the clothing rental behavior. To this purpose, an online survey will be conducted in order to gain useful insights about the shift in behavior that consumers must adopt to adhere to rental consumption. The answers will then be analyzed through the statistical analysis software SmartPLS, in order to evaluate the validity and reliability of the model at the basis of the research. Finally, an in-depth interpretation of the findings will be provided.