Renting than Buying Apparel: U.S. Consumer Collaborative Consumption for Sustainability

Abstract

Apparel rental service is a business model that is becoming increasingly popular in recent years as consumers become more conscious of their environmental impact and look for ways to reduce waste and save money. However, our knowledge on this changing consumer behavior is scant. To address the gap in the literature, this study aimed to identify the determinants driving U.S. consumers’ intention to use apparel rental services. Building on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), a research model was proposed. The primary data were gathered by an online survey of U.S. consumers through Qualtrics. A total of 338 eligible responses were obtained for data analysis and hypothesis testing. The results show that attitude, subjective norms, perceived consumer effectiveness, environmental knowledge, perceived personal relevance, and past environmental behavior significantly influence U.S. consumers’ intention to adopt apparel rental services. In addition, attitude plays a partial mediating role in the effects of environmental knowledge and perceived personal relevance on U.S. consumers’ intent to use apparel rental services. The demographic variables including age, gender, education level, and income level do not significantly influence U.S. consumer intention to rent apparel. The proposed research model exhibits a high explanatory power, collectively accounting for 74.7% of the variance in U.S. consumers’ intention to adopt apparel rental services.