Open Access

Annalena Ludwig, Peter Bug

• Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore why men do not rent luxury fashion to explain why the demand for luxury fashion rental services for men is so low and to contribute to science by collecting high-quality data for the research fields gender differences in barriers to renting fashion, barriers to participating in renting luxury fashion in general and to increase the amount of data on men consumption behavior in the field of fashion and luxury fashion research. Furthermore, this study aims not only to make a theoretical contribution, but also to provide practical implications for the luxury fashion rental industry. Design/methodology/approach To answer the research question, qualitative semi-structured interviews with seven men were conducted, who are interested in fashion and spend at least 10% of their monthly net income on luxury fashion per month. Through a deductively-inductively category-based qualitative content analysis of the interviews supported by the software MAXQDA, not only were the reasons found why many men refuse to rent luxury fashion, but also characteristics were discovered that make luxury fashion rental services more attractive to men, as well as two fashion segments and a product category in which men can imagine renting fashion or luxury fashion under certain circumstances. Findings Men reject the concept of renting primarily because of the nonexistence of ownership, which has to do with loss of emotional value, loss of functional value, fear of social rejection, and identity concerns; other reasons include lack of individualism, lack of habit and their own subjective standards. Except for two outliers, the remaining men surveyed could imagine using a luxury rental service under certain conditions. The most frequently mentioned features were omnichannel approach, transparency of the entire rental process provided by reviews and feedback about both the borrower and the lender, information about the cleaning process, and proof of authenticity. Also mentioned was the maintenance of exclusivity and the fact that rental services should be offered directly by the company. In the convenience category, the purchase option and insurance were mentioned most often. In addition, some men could imagine renting event-related clothing, very trendy and expensive luxury clothing, and luxury watches. However, none of the respondents would give up owning clothes and primarily use the LFRS. Value/Practical Implications So that marketers do not have to go through trial and error to figure out which of these characteristics works best for which male target group, the work developed five types that can be targeted with selected characteristics and their marketing, and thus perhaps persuaded to participate in the LFRS. The social type needs the feature of maintenance of exclusivity, the emotional type needs the purchase option and an omnichannel experience, the flexibility type needs the same day delivery and free exchange possibilities, the cost-benefit type needs analytical tools to maximize his rental income or to calculate whether it is cheaper to buy or rent this particular item for this particular period of time, the rule-governed type needs an added value in addition to renting such as a top service.