“Buy, wear, return, repeat”: Investigating Chinese consumers' attitude and intentions to engage in wardrobing

Abstract

Social factors are the major antecedents to attitude and intention to engage in wardrobing among Chinese luxury-fashion consumers within an e-commerce context.Fraudulent product returns (wardrobing) are most common within the e-commerce retail luxury-fashion sector. Western retail luxury-fashion consumers attribute their attitude and wardrobing intentions to various personality and social factors, while the motivations of Chinese consumers to engage in wardrobing is mainly linked to key social factors like experience and knowledge of return policy. From a practical and managerial perspective, the fundamental role of cultural differences emerging from our findings compared to previous studies offers retail executives a greater understanding of product return strategy.

Research on E-Commerce Platforms’ Return Policies Considering Consumers Abusing Return Policies

“…Opportunistic consumer abuse of return policies includes opportunistic returns and fraudulent returns [5,40]. Opportunistic returns are instances where consumers intentionally rent products for short-term use.…”

“…Chang and Guo [3] examined the impact of ethical efforts by online retailers and consumer personalities on fraudulent returns. Phau [40] investigated the attitudes and intentions of Chinese consumers regarding wardrobing and found that they are primarily related to key social factors such as experience and knowledge of return policies. Beyond these empirical studies, several scholars have explored the impact of consumer opportunistic practices on retailer operations.…”