The effects of product return effort and recreational shopper identity on future purchase intentions

Returning the product is an important part of the consumer decision-making process where the future relationship with the retailer can be negatively compromised. Although returning products influences consumer satisfaction, most studies have studied product returns from economic and logistical perspectives and a smaller number of studies addressing the psychological impact of returning products can be found. This study fills the void in the literature on apparel product returns and offers retailers insight into how negative feelings related to product returns are connected to their future purchase intentions from the retailer. In addition, the influence of the recreational shopper characteristic is studied within the context of product returns. Hypotheses were tested that examine the relationship among variable product return effort, recreational shopper identity, product dissonance, and purchase intentions. Data from 227 female participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) were analyzed. Findings support the hypothesized influence of product return effort and recreational shopper identity on product dissonance. However, the relationship between product dissonance and purchase intentions was not confirmed and a more complex relationship among the variables studied with purchase intentions is discussed.