Archetypes of Second-hand Luxury Fashion - A qualitative study of second-hand luxury fashion consumption

Sammanfattning: Thesis purpose: the purpose of this research is to understand how and if different motives simultaneously influence consumers’ decision to acquire second-hand luxury fashion online. Through this, we want to find different consumer archetypes in second-hand luxury fashion. This study aims to contribute with both theoretical and managerial implications to the second-hand luxury research field. Methodology: this study is based on a philosophy of social constructionism. A qualitative study has been conducted with an abductive scientific approach. Theoretical perspective: to reach the aim of this study, this study focused on reviewing the areas of literature that were of value to the research purpose. The literature review and theoretical background concerns the definition of luxury, the perceived value of luxury and different perspectives and elements of second-hand consumption. Empirical data: the empirical data was collected by conducting twelve semi-structured in-depth interviews. Conclusion: by investigating how different motives simultaneously influence the consumer’s decision to acquire second-hand luxury fashion, we identified four different consumer archetypes. By relating the empirical data to previous research on the topic, we found distinctive characteristics and different constellations of motives for each one of the archetypes.