Product-Service Systems: A customer engagement perspective in the fashion industry

Abstract

The current fast fashion model fostering high consumption causes consequential damages to the planet and society, facts that highlight the need to curtail its growth throughout more sustainable solutions. Among these solutions is engaging fashion customers in Product-Service Systems (PSSs), which are oriented towards dematerializing fashion consumption by offering bundles of products and services. Drawing from the social exchange theory, this research sheds light on the benefits customers seek to engage with various coexisting product-oriented and use-oriented PSSs in the fashion industry. A quantitative study among 477 customers in Belgium reveals that customer engagement with PSSs in the fashion industry is a function of the benefits that customers expect to reach (economic, pragmatic, cognitive, personal, hedonic, and societal expectations) and their demographic characteristics (gender and age). Depending on the expected benefits and demographic characteristics, customers were found to engage with different types of PSSs. Accordingly, fashion companies should leverage customers’ expected benefits and demographics when developing PSSs and communicating about these PSSs.