As Good as New: A Study on Sri Lanka Consumers’ Secondhand Fashion Consumption

One of the worst pollutants in the world is the fashion industry. Landfills receive enormous amounts of post-consumer trash each year. However, as current customers’ awareness of environmental issues grows, they are increasingly drawn to wearing used clothing. However, the concept of secondhand fashion consumption clearly lacks awareness in the Sri Lankan context. This aligns with the 12th SDG sustainable development goals (SDGs)-Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. The qualitative study incorporates the theoretical notion of the means-end chain model. It demonstrates five consideration values of secondhand consumers: price-consciousness, emotional bond consciousness, comfortability consciousness, quality and brand consciousness, and social and environmental consciousness. Additionally, we demonstrate non-secondhand fashion consumers’ consideration values of social status consciousness, hygienic consciousness, comfortability consciousness, quality and brand consciousness, and self-expressive consciousness. Ten hypotheses were developed based on the findings. Hypotheses were investigated using a survey questionnaire in study two. The data were analysed using multiple regression analysis in SPSS. The findings indicated that consumer purchase and word-of-mouth intentions grew as emotional bonds increased. So, consumers with high emotional bonds have the highest purchase and word-of-mouth intentions. Further, consumer purchase intention increased as hygienic factors grew. This research sheds some light on the growing knowledge of secondhand consumption by identifying the impact of Sri Lankan consumer values on their purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention of secondhand fashion products. This research also has practical implications by highlighting a few opportunities and constraints related to the secondhand fashion retail sector in Sri Lankan fashion retail.