Researching customer attitude-behaviour gaps amongst Millennial and Gen-Z shoppers
Research and insights
Services
Thought leadership
Content creation
Challenge
Millenial and Gen-Z fashion customers value sustainable and ethical clothing more than any other groups. But research suggests that attitude doesn’t necessarily translate into everyday purchasing decisions.
For example, 53% of consumers believe it is important to buy from brands with ethical labor policies, but only 23% ever investigate policies themselves (It Takes Two, Zalando).
Recognising an opportunity to influence positive change in the fashion industry, we were challenged by Zalando to research the customer attitude-behavior gap and understand the actions fashion brands can take to help close it.
Solution
Our research was conducted using blended methods including ethnographic study, quantitative surveys and peer review.
We conducted a deep ethnographic study with 12 Zalando customers from Germany, Sweden and the UK - spending time with them we got to understand their shopping habits and values. We also deep dived into their motivations for wanting to shop more sustainably and some of the barriers that often prevent them from doing so.
Testing our insights from ethnographic study we conducted a quantitative survey with 2,500 Zalando consumers based across Germany, Sweden, the UK, Italy and France.
Our third stage was collaborating with fellow industry experts and organisations to test the recommendations outlined in the report. We engaged with H&M, adidas, Filippa K, Global Fashion Agenda, Sustainable Apparel Coalition, McKinsey, London College of Fashion.
In light of our analysis, and with support from our peer-review partners, we made 10 recommendations that support fashion brands to close the attitude-behaviour gap - encouraging customers to make informed purchasing decisions.
The first four recommendations are foundational principles, which may be useful to industry participants taking their first steps on the sustainability journey. The final six are accelerators, designed to ensure that fashion brands are able to consistently deliver on their ambitions.
You can read our ten recommendations in this short article.
In addition to the development of the report and production of a launch film to create interest and excitement for it’s forthcoming release, we also worked with Zalando to turn the report recommendations into actionable programmes and initiatives that could be scaled across the business.
Most notably we helped Zalando to scale their existing pre-owned offer to reach more customers in new markets. Pre-owned fashion is now available for customers in 14 markets.
AGENCY: GIVEN
© Tom Goddard 2024