With living costs going through the roof, as many as 61% of consumers in the US and UK are likely to prioritise price over sustainability when shopping for fashion. In fact, 55% believe that sustainable fashion is often too expensive, and 57% want fashion to be more sustainable.
The highlights: Some of the major findings are listed below.
- Shoppers willing to wait longer for green deliveries: 54% of the survey respondents said they’d be happy to have slower deliveries for fashion purchases if it allowed companies to cut the number of truck/van journeys (reducing carbon emissions while also cutting retailers’ delivery costs).
- Repair services in demand: 58% of respondents indicated that they now try to keep clothes for longer to protect the environment, and 60% agree that one way fashion ecommerce brands could be more sustainable is to offer repair services. In fact, 42% said they have thrown away fashion items they would have liked to keep because they could not get them repaired.
- Cut product returns, but don’t charge: Around half (49%) of the respondents said that product returns are bad for the environment on the basis that they waste fuel, packaging and other resources. But charging shoppers for returns was rated the least popular way to address the problem according to the survey.
- Alternative tactics would help: make it easy for shoppers to query items online such as through live chats (64%); display user-generated content (UGC) images and videos of other customers wearing their purchases to show what they look like on real people (61%); and offer virtual try-on tools to help shoppers visualise how they would look in outfits (59%).
- There is a sizeable chunk (39% of survey respondents) who said they would consider paying more for sustainably made versions of the same clothes.
Sustainability lacks transparency: However, a lack of transparency surrounding sustainable fashion and mistrust about what brands say about it remain major stumbling blocks.
- More than half (55%) of the consumers said working out what fashion items are sustainably made is confusing.
- 57% of women and 50% of men said when they shop online, they don’t know how to identify if an item of clothing is sustainable or not.
- 54% of respondents said they don’t completely trust the claims some brands make about their commitment to sustainability anyway.
- 64% of consumers said one way that retailers can make online fashion shopping more sustainable is simply to provide clearer information to make it is easier to find products that are made in sustainable/environmentally friendly ways.
- 57% believed it would help if retailers could allow shoppers to personalise their online shopping experiences so that they are only shown sustainable/environmentally friendly fashions/clothes.
The survey: Commerce experience platform Nosto commissioned international market research consultancy Censuswide to conduct an online survey of 2,019 consumers (1,002 in the US and 1,017 in the UK, both samples national representative based on age, gender and region).
- The survey was conducted between 13 June and 16 June, 2022.
- Respondents were asked if they ‘Strongly agree’, ‘Somewhat agree’, ‘Neither agree nor disagree’, ‘Somewhat disagree’, ‘Strongly disagree’ with a list of statements.
- Almost throughout the findings, ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Somewhat agree’ answers have been added together when referring to results.
