Green Social Media Influencers’ Characteristics Affect Sustainable Clothing Purchase Intentions Among Millennials: An Extended Source Credibility Framework

Abstract

The fashion and apparel industry has been growing tremendously due to fast fashion and it has caused detrimental effects on the environment, which make it the second dirty industry. Thus, to shape the favorable perception of the fashion apparel industry, businesses have tried to align the sustainability practices in their products and supply chains, including the use of green social media influencers (SMIs) to gauge the favorable image in the consumers’ eyes. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate Millennials' intentions to purchase sustainable clothing which are impacted by the green SMI characteristics, namely attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise which derived from the source credibility framework and extended the two characteristics, interactivity and credibility to further expand the framework. Purposive sampling was applied to gather data from a self-administered questionnaire. The data was provided by valid 384 respondents who have followed green SMI and were currently residing in Malaysia. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was then used to analyze the data via the Regression analysis. The results indicated that the attractiveness, credibility, and expertise of green SMIs were the predictors of purchase intentions. However, the trustworthiness and interactivity of the green SMIs were not significant predictors. This study urged the sustainable fashion industry/ business to carefully select green SMIs who are credible and experts in environmental knowledge to avoid the greenwashing and skepticism effects. Conclusion, implication, and future research pathways were discussed.