Bargain hunting weighs on consumer conscience

One doesn’t have to hunt high and low on any high street or the internet to find them: T-shirts for three, four or maybe five euros. But many consumers do not snap up bargains as readily as before. Reports about often inhumane working conditions in Asia’s apparel factories have shaken

quite a few consumers.

Almost nine out of ten consumers said fair working conditions in the garment industry were “very important” or “quite important” for them when polled by YouGov on behalf of dpa. Almost every third participant said he or she would not buy a T-shirt, a jacket or a dress that was known to have been made under inhumane working conditions. 49 percent answered “rather not” when they were asked if they would buy such a product.

But how is a consumer to know if the smart jeans or the cool sweatshirt have been made under atrocious working conditions or not? An obvious approach would be to ask the retailer for the manufacturing details but only few consumers actually do that. In a survey published by the German association for textile retail a few months ago, only 7 percent of the retailers surveyed said that consumer queries about working conditions had increased significantly.

29 percent of consumers think a T-shirt should cost at least five euros

Many consumers take the price of a product to be the most reliable indicator for good or bad working conditions. More than half of those surveyed thought that a T-shirt should cost at least 10 euros; 29 percent considered 5 euros a decent price.

Holger Brackemann, survey manager at Stiftung Warentest, a German consumer organization, dampens hopes and states: "The price alone is no immediate indicator for working conditions during the production process. Because for fashion products, production costs only account for a small portion of the retail price. There are also expenses for advertising, custom duties, middlemen and the retailer’s profit margin. “There certainly is a price point below which one cannot produce under fair conditions any more. But where exactly that is, is hard to gage,” says Brackemann.

That leaves quality seals as a solution but their usefulness is limited. Kirsten Clodius of the Christian Initiative Romero, who studies the working conditions of textile workers intensively, says: “At the moment there is no quality seal that gives extensive information about the working conditions during the production stage."

GOTS probably comes closest, a seal indicating the ecological and socially responsible textile production, which provides reliable information about appropriate working conditions during the production process. At least this is what Johann Roesch estimates, textile expert for German workers’ union Verdi who has many years of experience. But chances are slim to find it in the “normal” textile trade; Roesch admits that GOTS is not widely used.

The industry expert feels that the influence at consumer level is limited – the competition too cut-throat and the industry too obscure. But he adds: “When the price is very low, chances are high that it is the workers who have to pay the price."

It is easier for those consumers who couldn’t care less about production. Especially among young people, their number is not small - every fourth person surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24 said that working conditions did not have much of an impact when shopping. (dpa)