“Take it or leave it?â€: Evidence on cultural differences affecting return behaviour for Gen Z

Francesca Serravalle, Virginia Vannucci and Eleonora Pantano

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2022, vol. 66, issue C

Abstract: Both culture and age have a direct impact on consumers' shopping behaviour. Similarly, this paper explores consumers’ return behaviour in two different cultural contexts, China and Italy, characterized by low/high individualism vs. high/low collectivism. To this end, the research employs a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews collected in May and June 2020 for a sample of Generation Z consumers in China and Italy. Results show differences and similarities affecting consumers' willingness to return in the different stages of effective purchase behaviour. For instance, in the pre-purchase stage, Chinese consumers often show a limited interest in return policies since they usually prefer not to return and repurchase otherwhere the product to maximize their cost-benefit trade-off. In contrast, when retailers adopt return policies, Italian consumers are more interested in feeling protected against the risk of wrong purchases. Instead, both samples are very attentive in return and refund efficiency in the post-purchase stage, which are perceived as two discriminating factors in terms of repurchase from the same retailers.

Keywords: Return behaviour; Return service; Retailing; Cultural dimensions; Gen Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698922000352
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:66:y:2022:i:c:s0969698922000352

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.102942

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans

More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().