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Communication effectsCredibilitCommunication effectsCredibilitySustainable productsSignalling,Filtration effectAttitude-behaviour gap
The matter of CSR and sustainable products has gained an increased amount of interest in recent years as "green products" are becoming a trend with more "eco"-alternatives in the assortment of many retailers. However, among the increasing number of socially oriented customers, it seems that although they claim an increased demand for these kind of products, its easier to "talk the talk" that to actually "walk the walk". This is due to a discrepancy between attitude and behavior, called the attitude-behavior gap. The purpose of this paper is to examine how to overcome this gap by using three different studies to get a nuanced and reality-based view of the problem. The focus within these different studies is on the potential effects inside the store and how information provided has an effect on perceived credibility and purchase intention. The results show that customers need information while in the store and that this affects the perceived credibility and purchase intention for these kind of products, however to various extents. This, since it seems that the information value provided by different types of communication channels within the store, meaning staff or written materials, have various impacts on these communication effects. The main result from this study is then the implication that knowledgeable staff in store has a great potential to impact the consumer decision making-process when it comes to sustainable products. We therefore suggest that more fashion retailers starts putting more emphasis on communicating within the store and starts educating their employees to increase their sales of sustainable products- and not making the store the long lost and forgotten channel.