Petersburg University for the presentation of the course or graduation qualifying work developed by another person(s)». The purpose of the research was to investigate consumer product return behavior in relation to impulse buying in the online retail environment. To address this goal, several hypotheses were formulated based on the analysis of the existing literature.
Recently defined as “an individual's desire to suddenly own a product” (Bagdaiyan and Verma, 2014), impulse buying is a pervasive shopping tendency inherent in consumer culture and lifestyle. The boom in online shopping that swept the consumer societies of the United States and Europe has gradually reached developing countries as well. Despite the managerial importance of the issue, existing research has paid little attention to product return behavior in an e-commerce environment, as this is a relatively new research area and not much is known about it.
Most of the studies on this topic focused on the operational and supply chain aspects of product returns, analyzed how the product return policy affects the e-retailer's profitability, and how return policies can be optimized to provide cost efficient and timely returns. Finally, the third chapter focuses on data analysis and discussion of the study results.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Impulsive buying occurs when a consumer experiences a sudden, often strong and persistent urge to buy something immediately. Existing research findings showed that impulse buying behavior is closely related to impulsivity (Hoch and Loewenstein, 1991; Sharma et al., 2010). Online store browsing, positive emotions, and mood have also been shown to influence online impulsive buying behavior.
The literature on impulse buying in the online environment can be divided into two main research directions. Furthermore, when impulsive shoppers are offered a lenient return policy, they are likely to engage in impulse buying. Post-purchase negative emotions such as guilt or regret may encourage consumers with high impulsive buying characteristics to return e-commerce items.
Existing research findings show that credit card use is positively associated with compulsive purchasing behavior (Roberts and Jones, 2001), which is an intense form of impulsive buying. Compulsive buying is a chronic form of impulsive buying that arises as a coping mechanism in the situation of negative feelings. Building on these research results, we assume that impulsive buying is positively related to negative emotional reactions after the purchase.
Online shoppers with a high impulsive buying tendency may be dissatisfied with their purchasing decision because they feel guilty about their impulsive behavior.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The quantitative research strategy is considered to be appropriate for the purpose of the current study, which is the verification of the hypotheses. However, secondary data should be used with caution, as the relevance and reliability of this type of data can be questionable when taken out of context; the question of inconsistency with the actual research objectives and the problem under consideration may arise. Compared to Gen X consumers, who are still reluctant to embrace e-commerce due to the perceived risks associated with the online payment process and the inability to physically evaluate products before purchase, Millennials place great importance on convenience and speed of the process of purchase, as well as beyond. product range and access to information and knowledge such as product ratings and reviews from other consumers.
Second, Generation Y consumers today are young adults in their 20s and 30s who represent a significant portion of the population earning their degrees and building their successful careers. The items of the questionnaire evaluated the following variables of the study: credit card use, perceived leniency of return policy, impulsive purchase, post-purchase emotional reaction and product return behavior. In the preliminary part of the questionnaire, participants were asked if they had bought anything online over the previous six months.
Credit card holders were directed to the next section of the survey dedicated to credit card use. The rest of the respondents skipped this section and continued with the questions about online stores' return policy. The purpose of the main part of the questionnaire (sections two to six) was to assess the constructs studied.
The seventh part of the questionnaire collected information about post-purchase communication and incentives that online shoppers typically receive when purchasing from online stores. They studied the impact of credit card use on compulsive buying tendencies among college students in the United States. Perceived leniency of return policies was developed to fit the context of the current study.
The respondents were asked to assign the value of 1-disagree to 5-strongly agree to each of the statements. To evaluate consumers' product return behavior in the online retail environment, the scale developed by Chatvijit Cook and Yurchisin (Chatvijit Cook and Yurchisin, 2017) was adopted. Since the conceptual model of the current study contains mediation, we decided to follow the methodological approach developed by Baron and Kenny (1986).
DATA ANALYSIS
After CFA, another reliability test was conducted to verify credit card use and negative emotional reactions post-purchase (eliminating the items). The second dependent variable of the current study is the negative emotional reaction after the purchase. According to our conceptual model, credit card use and perceived return policy leniency function as predictors of negative post-purchase emotions.
We first run the regression to test the effect of credit card use and perceived return policy on the post-purchase negative emotional response. Multiple regression model established the statistically significant association of credit card use and perceived feedback policy leniency with the post-purchase negative reaction, F p. The next stage in mediation analysis was to test the effect of impulsive buying tendency on the negative reaction after purchase.
According to the third hypothesis, impulsive buying tendency may be positively related to post-purchase negative emotional reaction. The multiple regression was performed to predict the post-purchase negative emotional response from impulsive buying tendency and demographic variables such as gender and income. To verify the mediating effect of impulsive buying tendency on the post-purchase negative emotional reaction, a multiple regression was performed.
Finally, to investigate whether the relationship found in the study between propensity to make impulsive purchases and negative post-purchase emotional response is moderated by gift giving and post-purchase communication (Hypothesis 4). Hierarchical regression showed that the relationship between propensity to make impulsive purchases and negative post-purchase emotions is moderated by gifts from online retailers, i.e. From the regression analyses, we can see that impulse buying tendency is a predictor of repurchase.
There is evidence that gifts from online retailers weaken the link between impulsive buying tendencies and negative post-purchase emotions. According to the conceptual model of the present study, credit card use and perceived leniency of return policy act as predictors of product return behavior, while impulsive buying tendency and negative emotional response after purchase mediate this relationship. To find out whether the relationship between product return behavior (dependent variable) and perceived leniency of return policy and credit card usage (independent variables) is mediated by impulsive buying tendency and negative emotional response after purchase, it was conducted multiple regression.
H4 Post-purchase communication and gift giving moderates the relationship between impulse purchases and negative post-purchase emotional reactions. Gift giving was found to moderate the association between impulsive buying and negative emotional responses after the purchase. There is evidence that impulsive buying tendencies can in turn lead to negative emotional reactions after the purchase.
An Examination of the Relationship Between Unplanned Purchases and Post-Purchase Regret.” International Journal of Marketing Studies.
