Utilitarian Personality In Shopping

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Contrary to what we found in the literature review, the utilitarian purpose seemed to be a very prevalent motivation when we asked consumers why they shopped for second-hand clothing. As stated in the findings, all participants saw utilitarian value in shopping in second-hand stores for clothes. Moreover, four of the respondents mentioned a factor that fell under the utilitarian motivation as their primary motivator. Several also stated that it was a question if they needed anything. On the other hand, the question of need could also be seen as a barrier to purchase if need is not existent. Most of them said that they had enough clothing already and did not need any more. Consequently, the motivation of ‘need’ is both a utilitarian motivation…show more content…
From our respondents who mentioned this factor what came out strongly was the social image factor which was tightly linked with the originality factor from hedonic motivations. Here consumers wanted unique clothing because they themselves did not want to appear the same as everyone else which was similar to what Roux (2006) suggested. At the same time we might also point out that none of the respondents who mentioned this factor had clothing that could be considered extreme. Instead, just like when consumers buy new clothing, the reasons why they bought second-hand was because it related to fashion and expressing some of their style and personality (Azvedo et al.…show more content…
At the same time what is interesting to mention is the time and money aspect. While they prioritized their money, they were still willing to spend time in a second-hand store and look for clothing. On the other hand, one of the consumers who was not a second-hand clothing consumer bought new clothing because he would rather spend his time on something else than shopping for clothes. Here these personal values make second-hand shopping congruent with who they are, and so the ideal self is expressed in the method of purchase and what that means to them (Roux,

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