Online consumers are not able to assess the physical product in the prepurchase process. This poses a problem for the consumers, and further affects their purchase behavior. The popularity of sustainability and transparency may provide an opportunity to lessen this kind of uncertainty. The literature review suggests that the country of manufacture and sweatshop free information, as two extrinsic information cues, may has the potential to affect a consumer's perceived quality, perceived value and purchase intention in online shopping context. This study aims to determine how the information regarding country of manufacture and sweatshop free influences consumers' perception of quality, value and patronage intention regarding different price apparel products in the online shopping context. For this study, a 2*2*2 (country of manufacture * sweatshop free * price) experiment was designed and each participant was exposed to one of eight profiles in random order. OLS regression results indicate that country of manufacture don't relate to any of the perceived quality, perceived value and purchase intention. To the contrary, price has a statistical significant effect on all the dependent variables. The sweatshop free label is positively related to the perceived quality and purchase intention, but doesn't affect perceived value. The interaction effect (C*P*S) affects consumers' perceived quality only. Implications, limitations, and scope of further research are also discussed.

With fast fashion growing rapidly, insight onto consumers perception of the value for the country of origin in this sector of the retail industry is a topic that needs to be delved into deeper. While there are studies over the impact of country of origin and fast fashion separately, the correlation between these two dimensions has yet to be reviewed. The purpose of this study is to identify consumers perception of the overall value of fast fashion merchandise based on country of origin. Through a questionnaire, participants were asked open and closed-ended questions about specific factors of value based on country of origin in apparel products. These factors included perceived innovativeness, willingness to buy, perceived price, country familiarity, and quality. Through Amazon Mechanical Turk, participants were recruited to take this virtual survey. Because of the popularity of fast fashion with Millennial's and their growing purchasing power, the outcomes of this study are tailored to this generation. The implications of this study can be used throughout the retail and fashion industries. When decisions of outsourcing or in-sourcing products are being made, understanding how the country of origin impacts their perception of value will provide critical information companies and brands in all retail sectors can use.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Sociology - Consumption and Advertising, Dublin Institute of Technology, course: International Business, language: English, abstract: This research project explores the consumer awareness of fast fashion amongst Irish consumers aged between eighteen and twentyfive. The aim of this research is to explore the level of awareness consumers have regarding fast fashion. Additionally, it intends to explore what the term “Fast fashion” means to young Irish consumers. Furthermore, this research aims to provide information on consumer perceptions of fashion retailers. Moreover, the research also intends to highlight whether those perceptions play a role in the buyer decision process. The key findings suggest that consumers fail to associate the ethical and environmental concerns that are synonymous with the fast fashion industry. Moreover, the research also exposed a failure that there is a disconnect between the term fast fashion and the manufacturing methods. Fast fashion and sweatshop labour are not mutually exclusive terms yet fast fashion as a term does not seem to carry the burden of its manufacturing origin. It was found that consumers have intentions of shopping more ethically and sustainably. However, there appears to be several misconceptions in what is currently considered ethical fashion among consumers which would affect the consumers ability to make an informed purchase decision. Cognitive dissonance being the act of consumers distancing themselves from purchase decisions that contradict their morals to avoid the feeling of discomfort was evident in this study. This research also found that the practice of greenwashing was present in fast fashion retailers advertising which does not portray the true environmental and social impacts of a product to the consumer.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the structural relationships among perceived quality, perceived sacrifices, and perceived risks of product and service as antecedents of the value of Internet apparel shopping, as well as satisfaction and behavioral outcomes as consequences of the value of Internet apparel shopping. To examine the relationships among these variables, the quality-value-satisfaction (QVS) model (Cronin, Brady & Hult, 2000) was adopted and expanded to fit the Internet apparel retailing environment. This study employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches to examine the phenomenon of Internet apparel shopping. For scale development, two focus interviews were conducted using female college-aged consumers. For the model testing, an experimental design with two treatment levels of service quality was employed. Two mock Internet apparel retail sites were created. Pretest and manipulation checks of the two treatments were conducted. At two large Midwestern universities 361 female students were randomly assigned to one of two treatments and provided usable responses after browsing one of the two websites for ten minutes. The results of a series of confirmatory factor analyses revealed that three scales--perceived apparel quality, perceived Internet retailer's service quality, and perceived value of Internet apparel shopping--had three correlated factors with moderate to very good model fit indices and good reliability; however, these scales contained some areas for improvement through scale refinements. The findings from causal model analyses showed that four proposed models had moderate to very good model fit indices. In all except one model, treatment effects were significant. Perceived apparel sacrifice and apparel risk did not significantly impact perceived value. Perceived service risk was a successful mediating variable between perceived service quality and perceived value. Findings showed that perceived apparel quality, perceived service quality and perceived service sacrifice were significant determinants of the perceived value of Internet apparel shopping. In addition, perceived value was an influential factor affecting consumer satisfaction and future behavioral outcomes. Specifically, perceived value and perceived Internet retailer's service quality were the strongest predictors of future behavioral outcomes which were intention to purchase, search, revisit, recommend, and say positive things about the site to others.

Sewing Hope offers the first account of a bold challenge to apparel-industry sweatshops. The Alta Gracia factory in the Dominican Republic is the anti-sweatshop. It boasts a living wage three times the legal minimum, high health and safety standards, and a legitimate union—all verified by an independent monitor. It is the only apparel factory in the global south to meet these criteria. The Alta Gracia business model represents an alternative to the industry’s “race to the bottom” with its inherent poverty wages and unsafe factory conditions. Workers’ stories reveal how adding $0.90 to a sweatshirt’s production price can change lives: from getting a life-saving operation to reuniting families; from obtaining first-ever bank loans to getting running water; from purchasing children's school uniforms to taking night classes. Sewing Hope invites readers into the apparel industry’s sweatshops and the Alta Gracia factory. Learn how the anti-sweatshop started, how it overcame challenges, and how the impact of its business model could transform the global industry.

In this study, Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum investigate the return of sweatshops to the apparel industry, especially in Los Angeles. The "new" sweatshops, they say, need to be understood in terms of the decline in the American welfare state and its strong unions and the rise in global and flexible production.

The only comprehensive historical analysis of the globalization of the U.S. apparel industry, this book focuses on the reemergence of sweatshops in the United States and the growth of new ones abroad. Ellen Israel Rosen, who has spent more than a decade investigating the problems of America's domestic apparel workers, now probes the shifts in trade policy and global economics that have spawned momentous changes in the international apparel and textile trade. Making Sweatshops asks whether the process of globalization can be promoted in ways that blend industrialization and economic development in both poor and rich countries with concerns for social and economic justice—especially for the women who toil in the industry's low-wage sites around the world. Rosen looks closely at the role trade policy has played in globalization in this industry. She traces the history of current policies toward the textile and apparel trade to cold war politics and the reconstruction of the Pacific Rim economies after World War II. Her narrative takes us through the rise of protectionism and the subsequent dismantling of trade protection during the Reagan era to the passage of NAFTA and the continued push for trade accords through the WTO. Going beyond purely economic factors, this valuable study elaborates the full historical and political context in which the globalization of textiles and apparel has taken place. Rosen takes a critical look at the promises of prosperity, both in the U.S. and in developing countries, made by advocates for the global expansion of these industries. She offers evidence to suggest that this process may inevitably create new and more extreme forms of poverty.