Sustainable information in shoe purchase decisions: Relevance of data based on source

Abstract

The aim of this work was to analyse consumers' attitudes to economic, environmental, and social information on shoe labels, in particular on sustainable consumption, and also to examine the importance of the source of the information. Three steps were followed to develop an appropriate method of extracting, analysing, and interpreting the information contained in the questionnaire used in the survey: an Exploratory Factorial Analysis (EFA) to evaluate the reliability and dimensionality of the questionnaire; a Cluster Analysis (CA) and an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to test the ability of the questionnaire to identify different customer categories and the main purchase characteristics included in the questionnaire to characterize each homogeneous group; and a tree classification method using the Chi-Squared Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) to characterize the hypothetical scenario of the purchase selection. The results show that consumers, especially those aged between 21 and 30, are concerned about elements related to economic, environmental, and social dimensions on shoe labels. The most important variable in the purchase process was the presence of Environmental Management Systems (e.g., ISO 14001, EMAS). These results could help to optimize the information on shoe labels and would add value by including variables other than environment and price.