The Korean Fashion and Textile Research Journal

[ Article ]

Fashion&Textile Research Journal - Vol. 18, No. 6, pp.833-843

ISSN: 1229-2060 (Print) 2287-5743 (Online)

Print publication date Dec 2016

Received 16 Aug 2016 Revised 15 Nov 2016 Accepted 03 Dec 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5805/SFTI.2016.18.6.833

The Influence of Shopping Orientation on Difficulty Discarding and Disposal Behavior of Fashion Products

Hyun-Hee Park¹⁾ ; Tae-Gue Choo¹⁾ ; Yang-Suk Ku²⁾^{, †}

1)Dept. of Fashion Design, Kyungpook National University; Sangju, Korea
2)Dept. of Clothing & Textiles, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea

Correspondence to: ^†Yang-Suk Ku Tel. +82-53-950-6223, Fax. +82-53-950-6219 E-mail: yskoo@knu.ac.kr

© 2016 (by) the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Due to the rapid expansion of fashion, consumers easily purchase fashion products, the period of wearing apparel is shortened, and the occurrence of clothes piling up in the closet is increasing. In order to induce and suggest rational consumption and disposal actions, research focused on the factors influencing difficulty discarding and disposal behavior toward a fashion product is needed. Thus, this study considered fashion-shopping orientation as a variable affecting difficulty discarding and disposal behavior toward fashion products. A total of 325 questionnaires were collected, and 11 were discarded due to partial responses or missing data. Finally, a total of 314 survey questionnaires were analyzed. Frequency, exploratory factor, reliability, and multiple regression analyses were employed for data analysis using SPSS 23.0. The study results were as follows. First, hedonic and economic shopping orientation positively affected difficulty discarding a fashion product, whereas rational shopping orientation negatively affected difficulty discarding a fashion product. Second, hedonic, economic, and conspicuous shopping orientation positively affected reuse behavior among disposal behavior toward a fashion product. Third, trend-seeking and convenient shopping orientation positively influenced handover behavior. Fourth, economic and conspicuous shopping orientation positively affected separation discard behavior. The results of this study provide various guidelines for manufacturers and retailers of fashion products.

Keywords:

fashion-shopping orientation, difficulty discarding, compulsive hoarding, disposal behavior

1. Introduction

Fast fashion retailers such as H&M, Zara, and Uniqlo are introducing new lines every 2~3 weeks at very low prices (Bianchi & Birtwistle, 2012; McAfee et al., 2004). As a result, many consumers expect constant change, so new products have to be available frequently (Bruce & Daly, 2006). With this trend, the number of fashion items possessed by each consumer has increased dramatically. However, many consumers open closets full of clothes every morning and complain that they have nothing to wear (Woodward, 2007). This means that, although consumers do not use the fashion products anymore, they do not dispose of them and continuously keep or leave them as they are. Consumers are unable to discard such fashion products for diverse reasons. For example, consumers think a product might be used some day although it is not used now, or there is no time to get rid of it, or it contains memories, and so on (Baumgartner, 2012). It is a phenomenon that is contrary to an efficient, virtuous cycle of clothing. In order to induce and suggest rational consumption and disposal actions, research focused on the factors influencing difficulty discarding and disposal behavior toward a fashion product is needed. However, little empirical research has addressed these relations.

Although consumers’ disposal behavior toward a fashion product has been studied in the aspect of environmental consciousness and social responsible consciousness (Jung, 1994; Kang, 1989; Kong, 2012), few studies have approached this problem using consumption- related variables. This study considered fashion-shopping orientation as a variable affecting difficulty discarding and disposal behavior toward fashion products.

In previous studies, fashion-shopping orientation was treated as a significant variable influencing purchase and consumption behavior toward fashion products (Choi, 2015; Ju & Lee, 2015; Kim & Rhee, 2004; Lee & Hwang, 2015; Shim & Kotsiopulos, 1993). Consumption behavior includes pre- and post-purchase behavior, and disposal behavior is a post-purchase behavior (Jacoby et al., 1977). Although the initial studies about consumption behavior included only purchase and use behavior, recent studies have extended the range of consumption behavior and have included disposal behavior (Bianchi & Birtwistle, 2010; Jacoby et al., 1977; Winakor, 1969). While understanding acquisition and usage behavior is indeed an important step in understanding overall consumption, it is only part of the picture. A thorough investigation and understanding of disposal behavior is paramount to a complete understanding of the entire consumption process. Thus, this study suggests that fashion-shopping orientation will be a useful psychological variable affecting post-purchase behavior, such as difficultly discarding and disposal behavior toward a fashion product as well as purchase behavior.

Identifying the relationship of fashion-shopping orientation, difficulty discarding, and disposal behavior will provide a new opportunity to suggest alternatives for effective clothing management differentiated with previous studies.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Fashion-shopping orientation

The concept of shopping orientation has been defined slightly differently by many scholars. Howell (1979) refers to shopping orientation as a person's shopping lifestyle. This includes consumer's activities, interests, and opinions connected to shopping as a complicated phenomenon related to society, the economy, and a way of spending leisure time. Hawkins et al.(1989) defined shopping orientation as a shopper's style that valued a specific activity. Kim and Rhee (2004) suggested that shopping orientation includes activities, interest, and opinion related to shopping. In particular, fashion-shopping orientation is a general purchasing behavior form encompassing psychological and behavioral aspects that appear when purchasing fashion items (Choi, 2015; Kim & Rhee, 2004; Lee & Ku, 2011; Park & Na, 2003). It provided the additional insight for the customer behavior pattern and was treated as an important variable influencing fashion store patronage as well as fashion product and store choice (Moye & Kincade, 2003).

Most previous studies on fashion-shopping orientation identified factor structure of shopping orientation and typed consumers according to the shopping orientation factors before discovering the characteristics of each type. In addition, they investigated the relationships among shopping orientation and other variables. According to the study of Shim and Kotsiopulos (1993), information source, importance of store attributes, patronage behavior, lifestyle, and demographics differed depending on shopping orientation. Kim and Rhee (1994) insisted that high shopping-involved shoppers highly regarded product attributes, brand, and fashion; recreational shoppers highly regarded brand and fashion; and economic shoppers highly regarded product attributes. Soh and Park (2001) examined consumers' shopping orientations among those with experience buying imported clothing and those with no experience buying imported foreign clothes. Those with experience buying imported clothing enjoyed shopping, pursued famous brands, and showed high ostentation and favorability of foreign brand more than those with no experience. Ju and Lee (2015) explored the influences of shopping orientation and fashion innovativeness of mobile purchasing consumers on perceived mobile benefits. Recreation shopping orientation significantly influenced perceived enjoyment. Fashion-shopping orientation influenced perceived usefulness. Convenience shopping orientation significantly influenced perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment.

Lately, many studies have been conducted approaching fashion-shopping orientation from a global perspective. Choi (2015) investigated the clothing shopping orientation of Chinese female consumers and the characteristics of fashion consumption behaviors according to clothing orientation. As a result, clothing-shopping orientation was verified as an effective segmentation variable for Chinese middle-class female consumers and is expected to have practical implications for differentiated market strategies based on the specific characteristics of each group when Korean apparel companies enter the Chinese women's market. Lee and Hwang (2015) investigated the risk perception of overseas direct purchase felt by consumers depending on their shopping orientation.

2.2. Difficulty discarding

Compulsive hoarding can be used as an example of a theory that explains the “save” habit related to clothing. Compulsive hoarding, also known as hoarding disorder, is a pattern of behavior characterized by excessive acquisition and an inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that cover the living areas of the home and cause significant distress or impairment (Frost & Gross, 1993; Frost & Hartl, 1996).

Although the degrees of compulsive hoarding differ, compulsive hoarding does not appear only in certain people. People who make a hobby of collecting things or those who have ever put off tidying their possessions can experience and feel the same way (Jeon & Lee, 2013).

Compulsive hoarding is known as a symptom that has been more common in foreign countries and which recently emerged into a growing social problem in our country. According to statistics of the world's population, 2~5% people have the hoarding disorder (Grisham & Norberg, 2010).

Salzman (1973) described hoarding as an attempt to exert control over one's environment and to “perfectly” control threat. In addition to these speculations, several case reports of hoarding have described the behavior in more detail (Greenberg, 1987; Leonard et al., 1990). By and large, these accounts linked hoarding to obsessive compulsive disorder. However, little attention was given to defining the phenomenon or developing ways of measuring it.

Jeon and Lee (2013) focused on identifying the psychological causes leading to compulsive hoarding by normal consumers and investigated sunk cost, anticipated regret, and the effect of personal propensity as the factors influencing compulsive hoarding. First, it was confirmed that sunk cost influenced both compulsive hoarding and anticipated regret. Second, the moderating effect of preference for consistency was significant while possession attachment was not. Third, anticipated regret played a mediating role regarding the effect of sunk cost on compulsive hoarding completely. Thus, this study suggests a comprehensive explanation for the difficulty experienced by consumers in discarding rather than keeping unused products by examining post-acquisition phases that had been neglected in previous studies and clarifying psychological factors leading to compulsive hoarding.

On the other hand, there have been diverse trials to measure this compulsive hoarding. The measure developed by Frost et al. (2004) was used in diverse cultures to diagnose and measure compulsive hoarding (Frost & Hristova, 2011). It includes three subdimensions: acquiring, clutter, and difficulty discarding.

Difficulty discarding possessions is a core feature of hoarding disorder and is a behavior that has been described in many psychiatric disorders, including obsessive compulsive personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, dementia, depression, compulsive buying, and mental retardation (Frost et al., 2000; Hwang et al., 1998; Mueller et al., 2007; Pertusa et al., 2010; Steketee et al., 2003). Recent studies have used a difficulty discarding subscale of the SI-R (Saving Inventory-Revised, the most widely used self-report measure of hoarding) to examine the phenomenology of hoarding behaviors in specific samples.

2.3. Disposal behavior toward a fashion product

Consumer behavior research so far has been focused on purchasing behavior; research on retention and disposal behaviors is lacking. Disposal behavior emerged as an important aspect of consumption behavior in studies by Jacoby (1976) and Nicosia and Mayer (1976). Nicosia and Mayer (1976) suggested that consumption activities can be defined as storing, using, maintaining, repairing, and disposing of the purchased product. Burke et al. (1978) defined disposal behavior as the activities households apply to products when the products lose the function of their original purpose. Winakor (1969) suggested that disposal behavior is the last step of clothing consumption and that the usage rate and period before disposal are influenced by diverse personal traits and external stimuli such as consumers' age, activities, and goals; the value, quality, and quantity of their clothing; and fashion.

Looking at the studies on type and influencing factors of disposal behavior, Harrel and McConocha (1992) classified disposal behavior as altruistic behavior, such as giving away and donation, and non-altruistic behavior, such as keeping and throwing away. In the study by Chang and Park (1997), socially responsible disposal behavior was divided into economic disposal and altruistic disposal, and then the relationship between the socially responsible clothing consumption attitude and demographic variables was investigated. The analysis showed that consumers with relatively lower education normally displayed economical dispositions while consumers with higher education levels displayed altruistic dispositions. Additionally, elder and married consumers had greater tendency to display altruistic dispositions. Morgan and Birtwistle (2009) classified disposal behavior in the following categories: selling via online and offline stores, giving to charity shops, putting in recycling bins, giving to family members or friends, and reusing in the home; giving to charity shops was the most common method of clothing disposal. Kim and Cho (2000) classified the clothing disposal behavior of unmarried woman workers into altruistic and economic recycling disposal behavior. Altruistic recycling disposal behavior was higher in the office-going and leaving clothing group than in the group of people with separate uniforms as working dress; it also was higher in the group of those experienced in environmental education and in the group of those of high subjective social strata. In the study by Kong (2012), clothing disposal behavior was divided into reuse disposal (barter with those around me, donate to relatives/acquaintances, garage sale, donate to school or religious group) and nonuse disposal (putting in clothing bin, keeping, throwing away with garbage), and the study confirmed that there were negative relations between socially responsible consciousness and nonuse disposal behavior. Kwon (2014) insisted that clothing disposal was directly influenced by purchasing new clothing, and clothing disposal intention was enhanced by eliciting the emotion of boredom with clothing in possession. VeVerka (1974) suggested that consumers consider the disposal of clothing in their possession when the current utilization value is lower than the current cost or when the holding cost surpasses the clothing disposal cost. Domina and Koch (1999) said that consumers tend to dispose the clothes for which they paid a high price or with high value through giving, donation, and resale.

Looking at these previous studies, fashion-shopping orientation is influenced by lifestyle and value and is fluid depending on social change. It is treated as the major factor of fashion product consumption and purchasing behavior since it can be a market segmentation criterion as the important variable in fashion product and store choice (Choi, 2015). However, in prior studies, shopping orientation was utilized as a major variable to predict consumption attitude and purchasing behavior toward fashion products, and few studies have examined the relation with post-purchase behavior such as difficulty discarding and disposal behavior. In addition, disposal behavior was divided into slightly different factors according to researchers' perspectives, and diverse factors influencing these disposal behaviors have been studied. However, the relation between shopping orientation and disposal behavior has not been studied. Thus, this study extends previous studies related to shopping orientation and examines the influence of shopping orientation on difficulty discarding and disposal behavior. The results of this study will provide practical implications related to efficient clothing management.

Through review of previous research, the following research questions were established.

RQ 1: Identify the factor structure of fashion-shopping orientation.
RQ 2: Identify the factor structure of disposal behavior toward fashion products.
RQ 3: Investigate the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on difficulty discarding.
RQ 4: Investigate the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on disposal behavior.

3. Method

3.1. Data collection and analysis

A survey method was used to investigate the influence of shopping orientation and difficulty discarding a fashion product. To reduce non-responses, the researchers fully explained to the respondents about the purpose of study and the way of filling in the questionnaire. The survey was conducted from March 2~16, 2016. Purposive sampling provided a sample representative of the population and targeted group (Teddlie & Yu, 2007). In this study, we conducted the survey for university students. Because university students are the main target of fast fashion, and their consumption and disposal behavior of fashion products has changed a lot compared with past university students. Data was collected, via the survey method, from university students in Daegu and Gyeonsangbukdo, South Korea.

A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed. Finally, 314 questionnaires were used for analysis after excluding incomplete responses.

The sample characteristics were as follows. Of the respondents, 43.8% were male, and 56.2% were female while 36.6% were juniors, 32.5% were sophomores, 29.3% were seniors, and 1.6% were freshman. Of these respondents, 36.3% earned $300 to $400 for their monthly pocket money, 25.2% earned $200 to $300, and 15.3% earned $400 to $500.

Frequency, factor, reliability, and multiple regression analyses were employed for the analysis of data using SPSS 23.0.

3.2. Measures

Fashion-shopping orientation was measured using 35 items adapted from previous studies (Ji, 2013; Kim & Ha, 2011; Kim et al., 2009; Lee, 2010; Park & Kim, 2008). Difficulty discarding fashion product was measured using 6 items adapted from prior studies (Frost et al., 2004; Hyeon, 2014; Jeon & Lee, 2013). Disposal behavior toward fashion products was measured using 8 items adapted from previous studies (Kong, 2012; Lee & Choi, 2002). All variables were measured using a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7).

4. Results & Discussion

4.1. Reliability and validity test

Coefficient α scores were calculated for each construct to show internal consistency. The results are revealed on the right sides of Tables 1 and 2. The Cronbach’s α values ranged from 0.643 to 0.932. The Cronbach’s α values above 0.60 are considered acceptable (Nunnally, 1978). All values showed that internal consistency reliability of each construct was adequate. Exploratory factor analysis with principal component analysis and varimax rotation was used to check the convergent and discriminant validity of the scales item. The number of factors was decided by the criteria of eigen value above 1.0 and factor loading above 0.4. All factor loading scores were greater than 0.40, indicating a highly stable loading structure.

Table 1.

Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis of fashion product shopping orientation

Table 2.

Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis of difficulty discarding and disposal behavior

As shown in Table 1, fashion-shopping orientation had an eight-factor solution, altogether explaining 69.41% of total variance. These eight factors were named based on the items that loaded the highest for each factor. Factor 1 had five statements and accounted for 23.567% of the common variance. Since all the statements loaded in this factor measured a motive to be able to enjoy shopping, this factor was conceptually labeled as the hedonic shopping orientation. Factor 2 had six statements and accounted for 13.070% of common variance. This factor was labeled as the economic shopping orientation since all statements were characterized by the search for sales, cheap prices, and discount coupons, and so on, during fashion-shopping. Factor 3 had four statements and accounted for 7.717% of common variance. This factor was labeled as the conspicuous shopping orientation because all statements were related to the fame of brands, designers, and companies when buying fashion products. Factor 4 had four statements and accounted for 6.118% of common variance. This factor was labeled as the trend-seeking shopping orientation since all statements were characterized by the purchase of up-to-date, new, fashionable fashion products. Factor 5 had five statements and accounted for 5.684% of common variance. This factor described a reasonable and intelligent shopping orientation and was labeled as the rational shopping orientation. Factor 6 had four statements and accounted for 4.841% of common variance. This factor showed high importance of quick and easy shopping within a limited time and was therefore labeled as the convenient shopping orientation. Factor 7 had four statements and accounted for 4.314% of common variance. This factor was labeled as the brand and store loyalty orientation since it was characterized by continuous purchases of a brand and visits to a store. Factor 8 had three statements and accounted for 4.099% of common variance. This factor was labeled as the internet pursuit orientation because it was characterized by the preference for internet shopping.

As shown in Table 2, difficulty discarding had a one-factor solution, explaining 69.051% of total variance. Disposal behavior had a three-factor solution, altogether explaining 67.417% of total variance. These three factors were named based on the items that loaded the highest for each factor. Factor 1 had three statements and accounted for 40.903% of the common variance. This factor was characterized by the reforming, reselling, and fixing, among other things, when getting rid of clothes and was labeled as “reuse.” Factor 2 had three statements and accounted for 13.474% of the common variance. This factor was labeled as “hand over” since it was related to giving clothes to other people and organizations. Factor 3 had two statements and accounted for 13.040% of the common variance. This factor was labeled as “separation discarding” since it described the discarding of clothes after separating useful things.

Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to analyze the correlations between factors. It was judged that the factors had discriminant validity since the correlation coefficients of all factors were below 0.5 (Chaiy, 2007).

Table 3.

Correlation analysis

4.2. Research question test

The VIF(Variance Inflation Factor) measures the impact of collinearity among the variables in a regression model. Values of VIF that exceed 10 are often regarded as indicating multicollinearity. In addition, VIF is just the reciprocal of tolerance statistics. Some suggest that a tolerance value less than 0.1 should be investigated further. If a low tolerance value is accompanied by large standard errors and non-significance, multicollinearity may be an issue (Koo, 2013). As shown in Table 4~7, VIF is lower than 10 and tolerance is larger than 0.1. Thus, it was judged that the multicollinearity problem could be ignored.

Table 4.

Influence of shopping orientation on difficulty discarding

Table 5.

Influence of shopping orientation on reuse behavior

Table 6.

Influence of shopping orientation on hand-over behavior

Table 7.

Influence of shopping orientation on separation discard behavior

After confirming the reliability and validity of each variable, multiple regression analysis was conducted to verify the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on difficulty discarding and disposal behavior toward fashion products. The results of multiregression test are revealed in Tables 4~7.

First, the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on difficulty discarding was tested; the F-value was 5.466, and the influence was significant at the level of 0.01. As for the analysis result of subdimensions, hedonic shopping orientation (β=.252, p<.001) and economic shopping orientation (β=.209, p<.01) positively affected difficulty discarding, and rational shopping orientation (β=-.166, p<.05) negatively impacted difficulty discarding. It was revealed that other shopping orientation factors did not affect difficulty discarding (refer to Table 4).

Next, the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on disposal behavior toward fashion products was tested.

First, the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on reuse behavior among disposal behavior was tested. As a result, the F-value was 5.189, and the influence was significant at the level of .001. Specifically, hedonic shopping orientation (β=.188, p<.01), economic shopping orientation (β=.179, p<.01), and conspicuous shopping orientation (β=.149, p<.05) positively affected reuse disposal behavior (refer to Table 5).

Second, the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on handover behavior among disposal behavior was tested. As a result, the F-value was 3.772, and the influence was significant at the level of .001. Specifically, trend seeking shopping orientation (β=.184, p<.01) and convenient shopping orientation (β=.133, p<.05) positively affected hand-over disposal behavior (refer to Table 6).

Third, the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on separation discard among disposal behavior was tested. As a result, the F-value was 2.130, and the influence was significant at the level of .05. Specifically, economic shopping orientation (β=.139, p<.05), and conspicuous shopping orientation (β=.177, p<.01) positively affected separation discard disposal behavior (refer to Table 7).

5. Conclusion

Until now, fashion-shopping orientation was dealt with in the context of purchase of fashion products. However, today's fashion environment is changing fast. Due to the rapid expansion of fashion, consumers easily purchase fashion products, the period of wearing apparel is shortened, and the occurrence of clothes piling up in the closet is increasing. Thus, it is predicted that fashion-shopping orientation will influence post-purchase consumption behavior, disposal behavior, and purchase behavior of fashion products. Thus, this study investigated the influence of shopping orientation on difficulty discarding and disposal behavior.

The results and implications are as follows.

First, as a result of the influence of shopping orientation on difficulty discarding, the stronger the hedonic and economic shopping orientation were, the higher the difficulty discarding fashion products was while, the stronger rational shopping orientation was, the lower the difficulty discarding of fashion product was.

The consumers with hedonic shopping orientation utilize shopping as a tool to refresh their mood (Kim & Rhee, 2000), have high impulse buying tendency, and strongly respond to fashion shows and displays (Kang, 1999). Thus, it is judged that, due to sunk cost effect, consumers are able to hold on to fashion products purchased through impulse buying although they do not use them anymore.

In addition, it is judged that consumers with high economic shopping orientation focus on economic aspects and are accustomed to economizing, and they have a high degree of difficulty discarding. At the same time, it is judged that the consumers with strong rational shopping orientation will purchase necessary fashion products and clean up unnecessary fashion products since make planned purchases.

Second, as a result of testing the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on disposal behavior, it appeared that hedonic, economic, and conspicuous shopping orientations positively affected reuse behavior.

It is judged that consumers with strong hedonic shopping orientation receive fun and pleasure through reuse behavior such as reforming, fixing, and so on, since hedonic shopping orientation means fun, excitement, and satisfaction gained in the process of fashion product consumption (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982). Consumers with high conspicuous shopping orientation chase fashion and have a strong propensity to express their differentiated beauty and personality through their own symbolic product or brand. Thus, when they dispose of their fashion products, they are interested in reform in various types and usage of fashion products. Economic shopping orientation is a concept that particularly highlights the cost aspect. The stronger consumers’ economic shopping orientation was, the more actively they reused fashion products, especially selling on the internet and to secondhand shops.

Third, as a result of testing the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on hand-over behavior among disposal behavior, it appeared that convenient and fashion-shopping orientations positively affected hand-over behavior. Convenient shopping orientation is an inclination to pursue more comfortable and efficient shopping. Thus, it is judged that consumers with strong convenient shopping orientation believe hand-over behavior, such as giving to relatives and acquaintances or donating to charity, is more convenient and efficient than making an effort to reuse and discard. Trend-seeking fashion orientation is a tendency to purchase fashionable products. It is judged that consumers with trend-seeking shopping orientation are interested in the latest new fashion products and do not want to make efforts for reuse or separation discard. Therefore, they prefer to simply hand over to others.

Fourth, as a result of testing the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on separation discard among disposal behavior, it appeared that economic and conspicuous shopping orientations positively affected separation discard. It is judged that consumers with strong economic shopping orientation prefer to separation discard among disposal behaviors since they view value for cost as important. They throw away the fashion products after separating buttons, zippers, pure wool, and so no, from them. It is judged that consumers with strong conspicuous shopping orientation prefer to separation discard - that is, to discard fashion products after separating important parts since they pursue the symbolic value of fashion products.

The significance and implications of this study are as follows. First, this study was the first study confirming that fashion-shopping orientation was a significant variable influencing difficulty discarding and disposal behavior toward fashion products as well as variables influencing purchase behavior.

Second, shopping orientation can be used as the classification variable to establish efficient a clothing management strategy since it affects difficulty discarding. It is possible to actually understand clothing resources through a process of organizing our closet. Sometimes, we find valuable fashion items that we did not notice by arranging fashion products. It helps us do efficient clothing management and keep a pleasant clothing management environment. In this study, the result showed that the consumers with strong hedonic and economic shopping orientation had higher degrees of difficulty discarding unused fashion products. Thus, these consumers need to be educated about the benefits which could be gained through clothing arranging processes and/or clothing amount fit to personal clothing space to them. Actual condition survey of clothing management for the consumers with strong rational shopping orientation would provide useful information of clothing management, since rational shopping orientation negatively affects difficulty discarding.

Third, diverse methods of clothing management according to the consumers’ shopping orientation could be suggested. Educators and retailers can leverage the findings of this study in suggesting to young consumers for the disposition method of their unused products. That is, it will be helpful to practical clothing management to educate diverse reuse methods to the consumers with strong hedonic, economic, and conspicuous shopping orientation. For example, how to transform adult clothing into children’s clothes or aprons etc., how to transform by adding a bit of detail on the clothing to match the fashion trends, and alteration of use through the innovative design variation would be suggested. In particular, it will be effective to suggest the way to reuse separate-discarded clothing resources to the consumers with economic and conspicuous shopping orientation. It will be helpful to provide the lists of clothing donation organizations and stores since recommending hand-over to the consumers with strong trend-seeking and convenient shopping orientation was more effective than reuse and separation- discard.

This study intended to determine the influence of fashion-shopping orientation on difficulty discarding and disposal behavior. However, study contents and study method had limitations for generalization of study results. For example, they may include methodological restrictions, the problem of purification of measurement variables, and lack of analysis method rigidity.

In the future, the study of the specific way to induce a reasonable fashion product storage and disposal behavior should be performed by extracting a study model for the relationship between storage and disposal behavior toward fashion products and conducting strict causal analysis including other psychological variables besides fashion-shopping orientation such as materialism and social responsible clothing consumption attitude.

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Construct	Factor	Items	Factor loading	Eigen value (variance)	Cronbach’s α
Fashion shopping orientation	Hedonic	I feel better if I am shopping when I am nervous and have anxiety.	.867	8.249 (23.567)	.932
		Shopping is the best way to spend my spare time.	.861
		I shop to get rid of daily life stress.	.833
		Buying clothes itself gives me pleasure.	.813
		I like shopping.	.785
	Economic	I purchase the product on sale.	.815	4.575 (13.070)	.841
		I mainly buy the sale product or planning product.	.813
		First, I look at the sale products, and then, I look at the other items.	.758
		I visit off-price stores or use discount coupons.	.705
		I invest a lot of time to buy cheap products.	.685
		I have a tendency to purchase comparatively low-priced products.	.457
	Conspicuous	I tend to purchase the fashion products of famous brands and designers.	.857	2.701 (7.717)	.850
		Although a fashion product is somewhat expensive, I will buy it because it was manufactured by a famous company.	.832
		I tend to purchase fashion products that are purchased by people with more money than me.	.824
		I mainly buy the product that appears to have better quality.	.673
	Trend-seeking	I select fashionable designs after looking at up-to-date fashion carefully.	.850	2.141 (6.118)	.885
		I tend to buy trending fashion items.	.820
		I buy fashionable products after searching fashion trends and information through the internet.	.812
		I have a lot of interest in new fashion trends.	.688
	Rational	I check the clothes that I have before buying new clothes.	.714	1.989 (5.684)	.786
		To figure out the price in advance is helpful to buy fashion products later.	.707
		I tend to budget in advance to buy fashion products.	.702
		I investigate the style and price and compare at several fashion stores.	.637
		I invest a lot of time to buy good-quality and low-price fashion products.	.609
	Convenient	I use the most convenient store when I buy clothes.	.807	1.695 (4.841)	.801
		I mainly utilize the one-stop shopping store, which has diverse items and brands.	.788
		I shop in a place conveniently situated for timesaving.	.754
		I enjoy shopping at a store that has a lot of convenient facilities and relaxing spaces.	.674
	Brand/store loyalty	I buy the brand continuously if I like a brand.	.873	1.510 (4.314)	.839
		I have a brand that I repeatedly purchase.	.811
		If I discover a store that I like, I continuously use that store.	.728
		When I buy clothes, I mainly use a regular store.	.672
	Internet pursuit	Internet shopping is good because I can buy clothes at any time.	.868	1.435 (4.099)	.808
		When I buy fashion products, I prefer internet shopping to crowded offline stores.	.848
		When I shop on the internet, I like sites where searching is convenient.	.700

Construct	Factor	Items	Factor loading	Eigen value (variance)	Cronbach’s α
Difficulty discarding		The task of throwing fashion products away is distressing.	.887	4.143 (69.051)	.910
		It is not easy to throw away fashion products I do not use anymore.	.873
		I have a tendency to save fashion products although I know I may never use them.	.851
		It is difficult to throw away the fashion products that I have.	.817
		I avoid trying to discard the fashion products that I have because it is too stressful.	.813
		I often make a decision about making a space to keep the fashion products that I do not use.	.737
Disposal behavior	Reuse	Wear again after fixing the size and design, etc.	.810	3.272 (40.903)	.704
		Use it after reforming for other purposes (working clothes, children’s clothes, etc.).	.771
		Sell it to a secondhand dealer or on the internet.	.667
	Hand over	Give it to acquaintances such as relatives or neighbors.	.843	1.078 (13.474)	.643
		Change garments or barter with surrounding people.	.683
		Donate to religious organizations, schools, and charities (orphanages, nurseries).	.588
	Separation discard	Discard after separating the things that can be reused such as pure wool.	.863	1.043 (13.040)	.695
	Separation discard	Discard after separating the useful components such as buttons and zippers, etc.	.783	1.043 (13.040)	.695

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)	(11)	(12)
p<.05 *p<.01
Rational (1)	1
Conspicuous (2)	.093	1
Hedonic (3)	.398^**	.309^**	1
Brand/store loyal (4)	.258^**	.244^**	.426^**	1
Convenient (5)	.202^**	.059	.050	.256^**	1
Internet pursuit (6)	.325^**	−.024	.164^**	.089	.265^**	1
Economic (7)	.420^**	−.092	.113^*	.103	.320^**	.343^**	1
Trend-seeking (8)	.347^**	.290^**	.484^**	.336^**	.213^**	.243^**	.187^**	1
Difficulty discarding (9)	.060	.117^*	.264^**	.117^*	.067	.085	.186^**	.225^**	1
Reuse (10)	.103	.205^**	.262^**	.128^*	.064	.104	.167^**	.231^**	.289^**	1
Hand over (11)	.072	.160^**	.165^**	.064	.154^**	.021	.095	.238^**	.086	.450^**	1
Separation discard (12)	.078	.155^**	.101	−.003	.039	.077	.127^*	.051	.128^*	.380^**	.375^**	1

Dependent variable	Independent variable (shopping orientation)	β	t	R²	F	Tolerance	VIF
p<.05 p<.01 **p<.001
Difficulty discarding	Hedonic	.252	3.628^***	.126	5.446^***	.607	1.646
	Economic	.209	3.278^**			.717	1.394
	Conspicuous	.048	.817			.839	1.193
	Trend-seeking	.113	1.718			.673	1.486
	Rational	−.166	−2.513^*			.664	1.507
	Convenient	−.003	−.050			.798	1.253
	Brand/store loyalty	−.013	−.209			.739	1.353
	Internet pursuit	.003	.045			.801	1.249

Dependent variable	Independent variable (shopping orientation)	β	t	R²	F	Tolerance	VIF
p<.05 p<.01 **p<.001
Reuse	Hedonic	.188	2.702^**	.123	5.189^***	.607	1.646
	Economic	.179	2.795^**			.717	1.394
	Conspicuous	.149	2.506^*			.839	1.193
	Trend-seeking	.098	1.480			.673	1.486
	Rational	−.098	−1.467			.664	1.507
	Convenient	−.017	−.277			.798	1.253
	Brand/store loyalty	−.013	−.205			.739	1.353
	Internet pursuit	.029	.479			.801	1.249