Assessing the Impact of Sustainability News Clips on Fast-Fashion Brands Purchase Intention

Sustainability has become a growing concern in the fashion industry over the last few decades. The fashion industry is regarded as one of the most polluting industries. This chapter attempts to provide an analysis of the consumer’s perception towards their fast-fashion choices in Australia. The specific objectives are to find the impact of environment/sustainability news on the perceived quality, buying intention and consumer’s emotions about three fast-fashion brands. An experimental research method was adopted to conduct this empirical research. The total duration of the experiment was two weeks. The respondents were asked to answer a survey about their perception of quality and buying intention, before and after being exposed to the sustainability news. A total of 25 participants (60% male and 40% female) were submitted to a series of negative news – about the negative impact of fast fashion on the environment. While conducting the experiment, respondents’ autonomic body reactions using galvanic skin response and the participant’s facial expressions were monitored through the biometric platform iMotions. The three major takeaways from this empirical study are: Consumer’s buying intention decreases substantially when they are made aware of the negative impact of the fashion industry on environment; perceived quality of fashion clothes might fall when consumers are made aware of the negative impact of the fashion industry on environment; and awareness about fashion sustainability do not have much impact on core human emotion related to their fashion product choices. These findings have important implications for fashion-industry practitioners, especially for fast-fashion brands. The obvious finding to emerge from this current study is that environmental concerns and perceptions are important elements in explaining consumer sustainable fashion products purchase intentions. The study also has impactful implications for promoting experimental research methods.