Explore U.S. fashion retailers' merchandising strategies for clothing made from recycled textile materials

Abstract

With consumers’ growing awareness of the environmental impact of textile waste, more and more U.S. fashion retailers have begun to carry clothing made from recycled textile materials. This study explored U.S. retailers’ unique merchandising strategy for recycled clothing based on a logistic regression analysis of 16,000 Stock keeping Units (SKUs) of apparel items sold in the U.S. retail market from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021. The results show that U.S. retailers were statistically less likely to carry recycled clothing in white color but more likely to use plain design style than regular new clothing. Also, U.S. retailers were statistically less likely to offer recycled clothing in Underwear, Dresses, Tops, Suits, Outwear, and Swimwear categories but more likely for Bottoms. Further, U.S. retailers were statistically more likely to price recycled clothing lower than the market average but more likely to target them for the luxury and premium market segments. The study’s findings create timely and critical new knowledge about the business aspects of fashion circularity. The results suggest that recycled clothing remains an overall niche market that has not reached its full potential. The findings also reveal the necessity of improving recycling technologies, diversifying the product offering, and changing consumers’ perception of the “inferior quality” or “low value-added” of recycled clothing. ☐ Keywords: Recycled clothing, U.S. retailers, merchandising strategies, fashion circularity