The Effect Of Online Retailer’s No Defect Return Policy On Consumer Purchase Intention And Return Possibility

With the rapid development of network economy, more and more consumers begin to purchase goods online, online shopping has become an important channel for consumers. At the same time, online shopping has such feature: shopping decisions and consumer experience are separated, which resulting in a large number of return problems caused by trade disputes, restricting the rapid development of online retailing. Therefore, study and analysis the impact of online retailers return policy on consumers, has become the focus of academia attention in recent years.Based on the theory of signal and the endowment effect, the paper constructed a concept model to explore the effect that return policy influences consumer purchase intention and return possibility. The paper thoroughly explored the impact of different combination of return policy and the three dimensions of return policy(time, effort, money) on consumer purchase intention and return possibility. The paper also considered about the role of consumer individual risk preference. This study regard consumer individual risk preference as a moderator variable, using 2(time: restricted vs. lenient) x 2(effort: restricted vs. lenient) x 2(money: restricted vs. lenient) experiment, designing 8 different experimental situations, to examine the effect of return policy leniency on consumer’s perceived return policy quality, perceived return policy believability, purchase intention and return possibility. This study verified the research model of the main effects, the regulating effects and intermediary effect.The results indicate that return policy leniency can increase consumer purchase intention. The three dimensions of return policy have different influences on purchase intention and return possibility that money and effort leniency increase purchase, while time leniency reduces returns. The article verifies the regulating effects of consumer individual risk preference between return policy and perceived return policy quality. Finally, the article discusses the theoretical contributions and management implications of the research.