Mining Chinese Consumer Minds: Motivations for Selling Unwanted Fashion Items in Online Resale Marketplaces

Abstract

With the development of China’s fashion resale market, sustainable consumption patterns have gradually become popular in China. Although the prospects of China’s fashion resale market are recognized, more and more consumers are also actively participating in the circular consumption model. Consumers have multiple identities in participating in resale, and can be sellers or buyers. However, the sales intention of Chinese consumers to participate in resale as sellers is still unclear. We need to understand what value Chinese consumers are looking for in resale as sellers. The focus of this exploratory study is to understand the intention of Chinese consumers to sell unwanted fashion items as sellers to determine the key attributes that affect customer value and participation. This study applies consumer value theory to explore consumers’ sales intentions and potential themes. This empirical study collected a sample of 1217 seller resale reviews from social media platforms, using LDA text mining, textual point of view extraction, and co-occurrence plotting for data analysis. Nine potential themes were drawn. The results show that lifestyle change is the primary reason why most consumers participate in resale. The perception of their self-concept prompts Chinese consumers to participate in resale. This article provides theoretical and practical significance.