
Social networks are new channels for travelers to obtain or share travel information, which has important impacts on their travel decision-making behavior. This study provides second-hand retailors and managers with valuable insights into developing successful marketing tactics to attract customers and improve the second-hand industry’s performance in China.

As for the second-hand clothing market, “unregulated industry” (10.29%), “fake identification” (8.09%), and “sanitation concern” (5.88%) are the three most mentioned problems in China. Concerns about poverty association and the sanitation conditions of second-hand clothing are the main purchase barriers for the investigated Chinese young consumers. Moreover, past overseas shopping experiences are found to be a significant booster to second-hand clothing consumption. Instead, their purchase is primarily motivated by treasure-hunting fun. Results show that the vast majority (96%) of the investigated consumers are young people born in the 1990s and 2000s, and they are neither significantly driven by economic nor environmental protection motivations. Specifically, the study conducted a semi-structured online survey with 127 consumers of three second-hand clothing stores in China.


In this regard, this study analyzed the motivations and barriers to Chinese consumers’ purchase of second-hand clothes as well as their perceived problems with this industry. However, research regarding this topic is scarce in China, which has also witnessed the rapid growth of the second-hand market in recent years. Second-hand clothing consumption has grown in popularity in recent decades and has also attracted extensive worldwide efforts to investigate the dynamics behind consumers’ purchase behaviours.
