Handelshøyskolen BI
This report examines new business opportunities in sustainable fashion by analyzing the role of rental business models in shaping consumer attitudes toward clothing rental. The report summarizes the findings from a collaborative research project titled “Fjong 2025 – Your green, smart, endless wardrobe”. Fjong was a Norwegian start-up and rental platform that operated in Northern Europe between 2017 and 2024. The findings are based on primary data from questionnaires with a representative sample of former and potential Fjong customers in Norway and Germany and focus group interviews, as well as interviews with professional rental providers.
The report extends research on consumer attitudes and motivations for sustainable fashion through textile-sharing solutions. Our findings point to the importance of the consumers’ quality assessment of clothing offered through such rental models. In particular, the report identifies the perceived benefits of greater variety, flexibility, and wardrobe-on-demand features as key leverage points for increased clothing rental. Economic savings emerge as a secondary driver, while sustainability is largely perceived as an ancillary – although important – sub-feature of clothing rental.
We analyze internal and external factors, including consumer purchase intentions, rental models, and platform services, that influence fashion rental behavior. We build on recent research indicating that subjective and group-level norms, such as perceptions of the social status and appropriateness of second-hand or rented garments, remain a critical barrier to scaling novel textile-sharing solutions.
While we find that clothing rental does not entail increased social risk, survey respondents indicate that the perceived benefits of more sustainable consumption in response to environmental concerns do not outweigh perceptions of inferior garment quality, specifically regarding the odor and wear of rented garments. We suggest that, for textile-sharing solutions to achieve broader market penetration, the textile-sharing services and platforms that enable them must first address mainstream consumer concerns.
The study provides advice to current and future textile-sharing providers: rental services should establish clear evaluative criteria and heuristics to help consumers effectively assess the convenience, quality, and value of their services, positioning sustainability as an added benefit rather than at the core of their value propositions.
In conclusion, we suggest directions for future research, particularly from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior. We argue for reframing the drivers of rental service adoption and situate our findings within the broader research program on access-based and environmentally conscious consumption. The report provides access to a complete database of survey responses, with the potential for comparative analysis of consumer attitudes toward sustainable marketing and business model innovation.
