Renting than Buying Apparel: An Empirical Study of U.S. Consumers

Apparel rental services as one of the most common collaborative consumption modes has been gaining popularity among the U.S. consumers in recent years. However, our knowledge on this changing consumer behaviors are limited. To address the gap in the literature, this study aimed to identify the factors significantly influencing the U.S. consumers’ intent to use apparel rental services. Online survey was used to collect the primary data. 338 eligible responses were gathered for data analysis and hypothesis testing. Attitude, subjective norms, perceived consumer effectiveness, environmental knowledge, perceived personal relevance, and past environmental behavior significantly affect U.S. consumers’ intention to use apparel renting services. There are no significant differences between ages, genders, education levels, and income levels in regard to their intention to rent apparel. The proposed research model exhibits a very good explanatory power, accounting for 74.7% of variance in U.S. consumers’ intention to use apparel renting services.