7. Materialism Effect on Apparel Collaborative Consumption Platform Usage: A Research Proposal

Collaborative consumption (CC) has become a buzzword during the past few years. In fashion and apparel industry context, CC accentuates product usage rather than ownership, through sharing usage of underutilized or unwanted products by renting, swapping, trading, and lending. As the definition of CC suggests, the exchange of apparel is expected to happen between private individuals. However, the fashion and apparel retail industry is seeing a phenomenon where an increasing number of retailers are developing business models to provide a platform that facilitates renting or sharing of clothing items between consumers and/or the retailer. As this business is booming, it is becoming more important for retailers to understand apparel CC customer consumption behavior, what motivates customers to adopt such models, and more importantly what stops them from using such services. In this chapter, we are focusing on understanding what stops customers at collectivist cultures from using such services. We are focusing on materialism as a potential value that might hinder customer’s willingness to adopt CC.