The Two-Sided Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Online Apparel Renting

Hyejune Park () and Min-Young Lee
Additional contact information
Hyejune Park: Department of Design and Merchandising, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74074, USA
Min-Young Lee: Department of Merchandising, Apparel and Textiles, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-16

Abstract: The global outbreak of COVID-19 has been affecting consumer behavior in a significant way. The collaborative consumption businesses, such as online rental services, is one of those sectors that have been immensely disrupted by the pandemic because many ‘sharing’ services require high touch and human contact. The purpose of this study is to develop and test a comprehensive model of consumers’ acceptance of online apparel renting (OAR) that can also take account of the pandemic’s effect. To this end, a two-phase, mixed-method study was conducted to identify the specific determinants of OAR (Study 1) and to empirically test the model of OAR acceptance with the pandemic-related moderating variables (Study 2). This study identifies a series of consumer drivers of OAR including affordable access, shopping convenience, try before you buy, never wear same dress twice, and special occasion. It also demonstrates the significant moderating effects of two pandemic-related factors including perceived vulnerability to disease and desire for simplification. The findings provide practical managerial suggestions to OAR retailers and theoretical implications for future studies.

Keywords: online apparel renting; collaborative consumption; COVID-19; pandemic; vulnerability; desire for simplification; technology acceptance model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16771/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16771/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:24:p:16771-:d:1003242

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().