The Impact Of Web Technologies On Product Returns

With the development of information technology,e-commerce has become an increasingly common way of shopping.However,because online shopping lacks the experience of touching and smelling of products,returns are a common phenomenon in e-commerce.Product returns are typically seen as a headache for e-marketplace sellers.Product returns seriously damage the interests of merchants in e-marketplace.Therefore,many scholars have studied product returns in e-marketplace.In the existing web technology and page-view literature,web technologies and page views were considered individually,which could only offer a limited understanding of the drivers of product returns.Instead,we comprehensively considered the impact of web technologies and page views on product returns.This article mainly explores the factors that affect the online consumer return behavior from the perspective of web technologies and page views.According to Elaboration Likelihood Model and Expectation Confirmation Theory,we propose that e-marketplace sellers' usage of web technologies(e.g.,pricing-and product-oriented web technologies)will affect page views(e.g.,home page views and product page views)and in turn affect product returns.We test these hypotheses using a unique longitudinal dataset consisting of observations of 983 sellers over ten months in the largest e-marketplace in China.We use Stata software for data analysis.The results provide substantial support for our hypotheses,specifically with respect to mediation.At the same time,this research also has certain guiding significance for e-marketplace sellers to operation store.Sellers can reduce returns and increase profits through reasonable price strategies and web page design.