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Thrift store is life! It is just washing and passing forward
Introduction
The quote above from one of our interviewees expresses well the spirit of an increasing consumption of second-hand products. As evidence of this, in recent years alone, the resale industry has generated billions of dollars in the USA (NARTS: The Association of Resale Professionals, 2018). Cervellon et al. (2012) point out that the vintage fashion trend has spurred consumption of used clothing over the last 10 years. This trend has also been occurring in Brazil, where the number of thrift stores increased by 22 percent in 2015. The rise is a consequence of a more conscious consumer market and less prejudice against second-hand items (Dino, 2017). In addition, street fairs organized by consumers and thrift stores have become more and more popular in several cities around the country. These outdoor events, which often feature music and food trucks, attract thousands of people on weekends (Fofonka, 2018) and, as a consequence, increased consumption of second-hand fashion has caught the attention of researchers (Gopalakrishnan and Matthews, 2018).
The increase of online thrift shops and social media communities, which sell products to individuals of all social classes, reinforces this trend. Consumers from higher social classes buy these products because they want exclusive items, whereas lower social class customers have a financial motivation (Turunen and Leipämaa-Leskinen, 2015).
The second-hand fashion business model is a way of reducing resource use and waste, and has customers as primary partners and suppliers (Gopalakrishnan and Matthews, 2018). In a context of circular economy (CE), it is important to understand the role of consumers in second-hand fashion consumption. Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) define CE as a regenerative system in which the flow of resources and waste are minimized by loops of material and energy, and one way to achieve this is through reuse. Second-hand products – and more specifically, used fashion products – are reused items with the consumers as both buyers and sellers. Several studies have investigated the context of buying second-hand products (Bardhi and Arnould, 2005; Cervellon et al., 2012) and the motivations of second-hand fashion shopping (Ferraro et al., 2016; Guiot and Roux, 2010; Xu et al., 2014). Furthermore, the second-hand fashion business model and collaborative...