More than one in four consumers — 27.7% — will walk away from a brand after a single garment fails to meet expectations, according to Samsara Eco's Circular-Conscious Consumer Report. Of those, 15.8% said they would never buy from the brand again, while 11.9% said they would defect to a competitor.

The commercial sting sits in what brands don't see. Only 5.9% of respondents said they would return the failed item, and just 2.3% would swap it for another product from the same brand. More than 64% said they would repair the garment or keep wearing it. Samsara Eco, an Australian circular materials company, said this means brands can lose customers without ever receiving the return data that would flag the underlying quality issue.

Where are the quality failures concentrated?

The survey points squarely at fabric-level defects, which places the risk with mills and finishing tiers as much as with cut-and-sew factories:

• Fabric thinning or holes: 62% of respondents cited it as their top frustration
• Split or unravelled seams: 55%
• Fabric pilling: 50%

Those are spec-sheet failures, not styling failures. For sourcing teams, thinning fabric and pilling trace back to yarn count, fabric weight and abrasion testing at the mill — checkpoints that quality assurance programmes can tighten before orders ship.

What proof of quality do buyers want?

The data suggests shoppers want product-level material transparency more than third-party labels. More than 80% of respondents said it matters to know what their clothing is made from. When asked which information would most boost confidence that an item was well made, material information plus evidence of performance over time drew a combined 63% of first-place responses.

Independent certification ranked last of five options, at 6.6%. That's a notable signal for brands weighing the cost of certification schemes against simpler, garment-level material disclosure.

Who do consumers blame?

Respondents put the responsibility for quality squarely on companies: 54% named brands, against 27% who cited government regulation. Fewer than 9% said consumers themselves bore primary responsibility for buying less and buying better.

Durability expectations are high. Almost 89% of respondents expect a garment to last at least 30 wears before it becomes unusable.

How are cost-of-living pressures reshaping demand?

The report also tracks a shift in buying behaviour that tightens the margin for poor quality. Some 88% of respondents said cost-of-living pressures had changed how they buy clothing. Within that group, 43% now buy second-hand, roughly one-third buy fewer items while expecting each to last longer, and 13.9% are trading down to cheaper options.

Samsara Eco general manager Dr Lars Kissau framed durability as a precondition for circularity rather than a marketing add-on. "Circularity means keeping materials in circulation at their highest possible value – not their lowest available use," he said. "That's why durability matters so much. A garment has to last to be worn again, resold, handed on. And when it genuinely can't be worn any longer, it should become clothing again, not something lesser. Downcycling only slows the linear model. It doesn't stop it."

What should sourcing teams take from this?

The survey ran online from 22 July to 23 August 2026 and drew 5,208 responses from members of Samsara Eco's Sam for Change community across 120 countries. The company itself flags the caveat: the group was self-selected and predominantly aged 18–24, so the findings reflect an engaged community rather than the wider population.

Even with that caveat, the pattern is hard to ignore. Most dissatisfied customers never file a return, so return-rate dashboards understate churn. The decision this forces is straightforward: spec durability testing — abrasion, seam strength, pilling — into supplier contracts and audits, and publish material content at product level before a competitor does it first.