Male eco‐fashion: a market reality

With the fashion industry striving for competitive advantage, eco‐fashions provide an opportunity to distinguish environmentally friendly products from other fashion products. However, the viability of these eco‐fashion brands is questionable. An exploratory study is conducted to explain men's differences, particularly, as clothing styles vary for men and women. The research examines if men's purchase intent would make a difference to the eco‐fashion industry. A random sample is collected to examine men's purchase intentions for eco‐clothing by product attributes, environmental concerns and sustainable behaviour. Partial least squares is used to empirically test the sample. A conceptual model is developed. It was found that there are four significant exogenous variables, environmental concern, sustainable pricing, sustainable behaviour and sustainable branding with a moderately strong, negatively signed coefficient path. Perceived consumer effectiveness and faith in others are not found to be significant moderators. This defined male segment makes several theoretical contributions as well as generating useful recommendations for marketing practitioners.     

Green intentions under the blue flag: Exploring differences in EU consumers’ willingness to pay more for environmentally‐friendly products

Recent research on consumer social responsibility highlights the need to examine psychological drivers of environmentally‐friendly consumption choices in a global context. This article investigates consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) more for environmentally‐friendly products across 28 European Union (EU) countries, using a sample of 21,514 consumers. A multigroup structural equation modeling analysis reveals significantly different patterns and relationships, in how (a) subjective knowledge about the product's environmental impact, (b) environmental product attitudes, and (c) the perceived importance of the products’ environmental impact influence consumers’ WTP more for environmentally‐friendly products across countries. The hypothesized model predicts WTP for 20 out of 28 countries and the findings show that a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach is inadequate in capturing the heterogeneity of EU consumers. Hosfstede's cultural dimensions of uncertainty tolerance and individualism explain differences in WTP for environmentally‐friendly products across EU countries. Business, marketing communications, and policy making implications are discussed.     

External Determinants and Financial Outcomes of an Eco‐friendly Orientation in Smaller Manufacturing Firms

With the significant growth of problems relating to the natural environment, an increasing number of firms are engaged in environmentally friendly activities. This paper reports the results of a study conducted among 153 small‐sized manufacturing units located in Cyprus, focusing on the external drivers and financial outcomes of their eco‐friendly orientation. The findings confirmed the instrumental role of environmental regulations, environmental public concern, competitive intensity, and market dynamism in harnessing an eco‐friendly orientation within the small firm. They also underline the critical role of this orientation in enhancing the firm's financial results, although this link was found to be stronger when the firm possesses adequate resources and capabilities committed to environmental activities. Our study contributes to the literature by putting together, in a theoretically anchored, integrative, and causal fashion, concepts and ideas that touch upon important aspects of small firms' environmental behavior that have been only tangentially studied in the past, namely the role of external forces in stimulating sensitivity to green issues, the dynamics of forming an ecological orientation within the organization, the positive link between eco‐friendly thinking and financial performance, and the importance of supporting ecological actions with appropriate organizational resources/capabilities. Critical implications for small business managers and public policymakers are also derived from the study findings.     

Negativity bias in consumer price response to ethical information

The increasing debate on corporate ethics raises the question of whether consumers are willing to reward and punish corporate behaviour based on its ethicality. In this context, this article investigates the direct effect on consumers' willingness to pay. Price response to product‐related ethical information is explored in an experiment dealing with social issues in sportswear and environmental issues in consumer electronics. It is shown that in both areas, consumers demonstrate an increased willingness to pay for ethically produced goods. However, the response is subject to a negativity bias. In contrast to prior research that used abstract stimulus measures, a ratio for quantifying this bias is suggested based on consumers' willingness to pay and their price expectations. This measure allows us to analyse a consumer's individual bias.     

Labelling wool products for animal welfare and environmental impact

The notable growth of the market in recent years indicates apparel consumers' interest in organic fibre products. Yet less is understood about how apparel consumers would respond to labelling for other credence attributes associated with animal‐fibre products, such as animal welfare or eco‐friendliness. An online survey of 507 US consumers was used to compare consumers' reactions with a variety of labelling schemes for wool product attributes, including animal‐friendly, organic and environmentally friendly production. Consumer segments were created based on frequency of label choice, and analysis of variance and multinomial logit regression were used to identify and characterize the demographics and psychographics of the consumer segments that found labelling for animal welfare or environmental concerns appealing. The study identified a segment of consumers (19% of the sample) who were motivated to purchase apparel products labelled for animal welfare. These animal‐focused consumers could be identified with relatively high accuracy from the demographic and psychographic variables in the model. The model variables, which included familiarity with organic products and self‐perceived knowledge about environmental damage related to apparel production, were not effective in identifying the environment‐focused apparel consumers. The results also demonstrated the ability of a general belief in animal rights to motivate the apparel consumers in the sample, suggesting that acting on a concern for animals could be a more powerful motivation for consumer behaviour than acting on a concern for the environment.     

Moderating effects of consumer empowerment on the relationship between involvement in eco‐friendly food and eco‐friendly food behaviour

This study investigates the moderating effect of consumer empowerment on the relationship between involvement in and purchase behaviour towards eco‐friendly food. It uses the generalized linear model, with data from the 2017 Research on Food Consumption. The results showed that gender is related only to involvement in eco‐friendly food and this involvement is higher for women than for men. Moreover, involvement in eco‐friendly food, purchase empowerment, engagement empowerment and frequency of buying eco‐friendly food increase as age increases, with the highest increases observed at ages 40–49 and 50–59; the score for those older than these age groups was much lower, resembling an inverted U shape. Groups with high education and income levels presented high scores for involvement in eco‐friendly food, purchase empowerment, engagement empowerment and frequency of buying eco‐friendly food. Regarding the effects of involvement in eco‐friendly food, purchase empowerment and engagement empowerment on the frequency of buying eco‐friendly food, the main effects of involvement in eco‐friendly food and purchase empowerment as well as the interactive effects between involvement in eco‐friendly food and engagement empowerment were statistically significant.     

Does sustainability really matter to consumers? Assessing the importance of online shop and apparel product attributes

Although there is a shift in consumers' consumption behavior towards more sustainable patterns across a variety of different contexts, sustainable apparel has still not become a mainstream trend despite the textile industry's excessive usage of valuable resources. Albeit extant research found different potential barriers elucidating why consumers hesitate to purchase such apparel, it remains unclear whether sustainability really matters to consumers in a clothing context and further, which aspects are of relevance during consumers' purchase decision. We thus conducted two studies with four best-worst scaling experiments in which 4,350 online shoppers assessed the importance of both conventional and sustainable apparel attributes, as well as sustainable apparel attributes only, and the willingness to pay for sustainable product attributes. We further inquired the importance of conventional as well as sustainable online shop attributes. Our findings indicate that conventional apparel attributes such as fit and comfort, price-performance ratio, and quality are of higher relevance to consumers than sustainable attributes. The most important sustainable apparel attributes are the garment's durability, fair wages and working conditions, as well as an environmentally friendly production process. Consumers also indicated to prefer the latter three attributes to a 20% discount. Moreover, consumers demand less as well as sustainable packaging, free returns, and discount campaigns. Our findings reveal a gender gap regarding green consumerism with female respondents assessing most sustainable attributes as more important than male respondents do.     

Consumer preferences for sustainable production methods in apple purchasing behaviour: a non‐hypothetical choice experiment

Increasing concern for potential risks on human health related to the overuse of chemicals in farming has promoted the research of alternative production methods. This paper contributes to the current literature by presenting a non‐hypothetical choice experiment study that investigates apple consumers' preferences for alternative production systems moving from a conventional to organic production, passing through an integrated pest management and an innovative technique that uses biocontrol agents. Other investigated attributes are appearance, origin and low greenhouse gas emission practices. The non‐hypothetical choice experiment was carried out in supermarkets by asking respondents to pay out of their own pocket for the chosen product. Most of interviewed people stated to have cut‐off values in mind when purchasing apples and their choices have been modelled according to the Swait soft cut‐off approach. Non‐compensatory model estimations confirm previous evidence that ignoring thresholds in data sets that contain them leads to significant errors in terms of willingness to pay. Results suggest that respondents, besides preferring organic production, seem to not perceive the potential benefits of other sustainable production methods.     

Comparison of localized and foreign restaurant brands for consumer behavior prediction

This study used two comparison studies to examine the potential brand perception of localized and foreign restaurants to predict consumer behavior. A total of 680 participants (e.g., 318 foreign restaurant customers and 362 localized restaurant customers) were included to discover and confirm the causal relationships among the quality of food and meals, environmental evaluation, willingness to pay more, and recommendations. Our study of foreign restaurant brands (Study 1) found that food and meals may indirectly affect the willingness to pay more and recommendations through providing a friendly environment. The destination's moderating role is also confirmed. Additionally, our study of localized restaurant customers (Study 2) identified the mediating roles of risk evaluation and willingness to pay more, which link the relationship between food and meals and recommendation behavior. Furthermore, destination trust was found to strengthen the relationship between risk evaluation and willingness to pay more.     

Consumers’ preferences,attitudes and willingness to pay for bio-textile in wood fibers

The bio-textile products made from certified wood fibers are an important product innovation able to diversify the wood product portfolio of enterprises and to increase environmental sustainability. In this paper, we estimate Italian consumers' willingness to pay for three bio-textile products made from certified wood (socks, T-shirt and shirt). Data were collected face-to-face to a sample of 696 consumers through Contingent Valuation. The results from the Cameron and Huppert model show a significant premium price, ranging from 64% to 128% depending on the products, and that respondents with a higher environmental concern are more willing to pay for bio-textile products. Nevertheless, the price turned out to be a key determinant, evidencing how it can constitute a barrier to a more sustainable consumer behaviour. These results are important for the European wood-based industries’ businesses, currently based on stagnant market of traditional wood products, since they indicate there is room for a profitable diversification in bio-textile products. An increased market of bio-textile products can contribute to reduce the fossil fuel dependency of the European Union economy.     

Do We Follow the Leader or the Masses? Antecedents of the Willingness to Pay Extra for Eco‐Products

This paper reports on an experiment that tests for the existence of peer effects in consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for sustainable products. More specifically, we investigate whether the premium for an eco‐labeled laundry detergent is sensitive to receiving information about the premium paid by other members of one's social group. The information manipulations in the experiment test for two distinct types of social influence, i.e., conformist and payoff‐biased transmission. We find strong empirical evidence for a conformist transmission. Participants informed about the positive premium paid by the majority of their peers reported a higher premium than individuals not receiving any information. This result shows that previous studies on the WTP for sustainable products, which explain premiums by attitudinal measures and sociodemographic traits, unwarrantedly provide an under‐socialized account. The inclusion of social influence variables significantly increases the explanatory power of the model.     

Measuring consumer's willingness to pay for organic and Fair Trade products

Previous research has extensively studied consumer's environmental and social concerns. However, measuring the value of the environmental or social dimension of a product remains a challenge. This paper proposes to partially fill this gap by measuring the double ‘Fair Trade and organic’ labels' value using an experimental method – the Becker‐DeGroot‐Marschak's mechanism. Two ‘organic and Fair Trade’ and two conventional chocolate products were tested on a sample of 102 consumers. Results show that organic and Fair Trade labels increase consumers' willingness to pay, and allow the identification of three consumers clusters. The first cluster represents people insensitive to the label. For the second cluster, the ‘organic and Fair Trade’ labels' influence on the improving image of the products is positive and important. And finally, for the third cluster, the valuation of the ‘organic and Fair Trade’ label is determined by the product's taste. Our research contributes to a better understanding of consumers' valuation of Fair Trade and organic labels, leading to our conclusions, which offer managerial implications with respect to this market (importance of taste and usefulness of double labels).     

Quest for the eco‐apparel market: a study of mothers' willingness to purchase organic cotton clothing for their children

The purpose of this study was to examine what consumer characteristics are related to willingness to purchase and selection of children's organic cotton clothing (OCC). A survey was conducted on mothers of pre‐schoolers to collect data on mothers' environmental characteristics, involvement with OCC and children's clothing, children's clothing purchasing behaviour and willingness to purchase OCC. A buying scenario experiment was used to examine whether price and other product characteristics influenced the participants' selection of OCC. It was found that a mother's environmental concerns, environmental purchasing behaviour and recycling behaviour significantly affected their involvement in OCC, which further significantly determined mother's willingness to purchase OCC. However, mothers were not willing to pay a premium for purchasing children's OCC. A majority (59.5%) of the mothers who selected OCC in the buying scenario indicated fabric softness was the main reason for their selection. Preparing environmental education materials for consumers and producing OCC with high quality and good performance would help improve the acceptance of OCC in the market.     

Ethical product premiums: antecedents and extent of consumers' willingness to pay

Corporate social responsibility is now high on the strategic agendas of major retailers, as consumers demonstrate growing ethical awareness and concern. However, evidence regarding consumers' willingness to pay the price premiums often associated with ethical products is inconclusive. Studies have adopted various survey-based and experimental methods, focusing upon different product categories, each with particular ethical issues. This study included a Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) exploratory investigation then a mail survey of 1000 consumers, indicating willingness to pay ethical premiums across 6 categories. Demographics proved to be poor predictors, although education explained some variance in willingness to pay. Ethical motivations, measured within the framework of the Decisional Balance Scale, proved stronger antecedents, providing guidelines for the communication of ethical attributes. Implications for retailers and opportunities for researchers are discussed.     

Consumers' valuation of food quality labels: the case of the European geographic indication and organic farming labels

This paper assesses consumers' preferences and willingness to pay for European Union geographical indication quality labels [Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indications (PGI)], organic farming label and other product quality cues. Using a choice experiment, random parameter logit model and olive oil as product of interest, results suggest that respondents are willing to pay the highest premium price for a product with a PDO label, followed by organic farming label, a quality cue describing the product as extra‐virgin olive oil and then a PGI label.     

Using Commitments to Drive Consistency: Enhancing the Effectiveness of Cause‐related Marketing Communications

Research has consistently found that, despite a high degree of expressed concern about the environment, few individuals are willing to follow‐up this concern with behavioural actions in support of the environment, particularly when these actions require the individuals to absorb some costs. Using the theoretical framework of commitment–consistency theory, two studies were conducted in order to examine the effect of a small, active commitment to an environmental cause on consumer preference for an advertised product that supported that cause. The empirical results show strong support for the fact that persuading consumers to make an active commitment to a cause can serve as an important prerequisite for behavioural consistency (in terms of the willingness to buy a product). Further, the paper adds to the evidence on self‐perception theory as an underlying mechanism for the effectiveness of the technique. It is also found that, although commitment increases willingness to buy a product related to the cause, the effect works only when the cost associated with supporting the cause is minimal. The implications for marketing communications theory and practice are discussed.     

Willingness to act and environmentally conscious consumer behaviour: can prosocial status perceptions help overcome the gap?

Green marketing has not shown expected results in recent years in terms of real changes in behaviours, products and market structures as had been anticipated. Consumer behaviour plays an important role in making these changes happen, and drivers of environmentally conscious consumer behaviour still need to be examined. Concepts of ‘concern’, ‘information about environmental impact’ and ‘willingness to act’ are seen as the key predictors of environmentally conscious consumer behaviours. Although green marketing has been able to address genuinely concerned consumers, additional insights are needed regarding how to appeal to more mainstream consumers. Thus, this paper proposes an extended model of environmentally conscious consumer behaviour in which the gap between willingness to act and actual environmentally friendly consumption is addressed by the moderating role of ‘prosocial status’ perceptions. In the model, ‘concern’ is positively related to ‘willingness’ and both ‘willingness’ and ‘information’ are positively related to ‘behaviour’, while ‘prosocial status’ perceptions moderate ‘behaviour’. The model was verified using a quota sample of 319 general population respondents from a Central European country. According to data, ‘prosocial status’ perceptions increase the positive association between ‘willingness’ and ‘behaviour’ and could be incorporated into green products and advertising to signal personality traits like kindness and intelligence. One possible implication for marketers is that women have a higher average representation in groups of people with high prosocial status perceptions.     

Consumer concern,knowledge and attitude towards counterfeit apparel products

The purpose of this paper was to explore the relationship of three variables (concern with apparel industry issues, knowledge about counterfeiting and attitude towards counterfeit apparel products) with consumer willingness towards paying a premium for non‐counterfeit goods. The intent of the research was to develop a theoretically based foundation from which educators and apparel industry leaders can develop policy regarding counterfeit goods. Will consumer concern and knowledge influence the behavioural intent of paying more for non‐counterfeit goods? We surveyed 244 undergraduate students within a fashion and apparel programme at a large Midwestern university. In this study, willingness to pay more for non‐counterfeit goods increased directly with greater concern, knowledge and attitude towards counterfeit apparel goods.     

Female consumers as agents of change for transforming the environmental sustainability landscape

Faith in others (FIO; governments and businesses) can be seen as society's predisposition to handle environmental problems. The article examines whether women, who undertake a large majority of household purchases, can influence change in consumption practices so as to contribute to sustainability initiatives. Understanding women's character in this manner is informative, it helps us to consider how a women's role as a household purchasing agent is an important nexus to environmental sustainability. The study found that FIO has an influence on women's purchasing decisions. The study provides additional support to strengthen women's role in environmental matters. Not all women were found to be sustainability‐minded. In the challenges faced by women with respect to their influence, evidence from this research suggests that if women have more faith in governments and businesses it would make them more eco‐savvy to act as agents of change for transforming the environmental sustainability landscape.