PurposeThis study aims to examine how and when trainers' muscle mass impacts service purchase of personal fitness training, drawing upon signaling theory. Specifically, the authors investigated (1) the mediating role of perceived competence in the relationship between trainers' muscle mass (highly vs moderately muscular) and customers' service registration intention and (2) the moderating role of customer expertise in this mediating mechanism.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conceptualized trainers' muscle mass, developed its experimental stimuli and validated them through the two pretests (total n = 387). Using the validated stimuli, the authors conducted the two experiments (total n = 802). In both experiments, the authors recruited participants via MTurk using the convenience sampling method and employed a single-factor between-subject design based on random assignment.FindingsFindings supported the authors’ proporsed model. Consumers perceived highly (vs moderately) muscular trainers as more competent, which in turn engendered greater service registration intention. This effect emerged for expert consumers but not for novice consumers.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first attempts to empirically test the influence of trainers' muscle mass on consumer acquisition in the context of personal fitness training. It also expands the sport marketing literature to the consumer psychology and behavior fields addressing the characteristics of sport-service providers. The findings also provide fitness organizations with managerial insights into how to effectively leverage trainers' physical appearance as a marketing tool.

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Considering that returning a purchased product involves time costs to consumers, we posit that making a time cue salient will influence their likelihood of returning a product. Four studies reveal that consumers primed with time cues are less willing to return a product. Specifically, presenting time cues can reduce product returns by amplifying consumers' perception of time pressure and alleviating their psychological discomfort. Furthermore, private self‐awareness is found to moderate the time‐cue effect through perceived discomfort. The results are replicated even when time pressure and psychological discomfort are directly manipulated, supporting the causal account. This study contributes to the literature on consumer product returns by proposing the time‐cue effect and its psychological mechanisms and helps retailers manage product returns using various time cues.

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