Purpose

This paper aims to investigate whether the consumers who return a product and those who end up keeping a product after experiencing post-purchase dissonance (PPD) possess distinct underlying characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach

Field survey study consisting of two separate surveys conducted with consumers of New York City and neighboring areas of New York and New Jersey.

Findings

Product returners and keepers exhibited disparate demographic profiles regarding gender and household income, along with ethnicity to some extent. The two groups also exhibited different predispositions with regard to confidence in the purchase decision and expectations about their purchase. Finally, returners and keepers were engaged in divergent thoughts, feelings and activities to cope with PPD.

Practical implications

The findings of this study offer marketing practitioners new knowledge and insight into understanding product returners and keepers and will assist them in developing strategies to reduce and manage increasing product returns by consumers more effectively.

Originality/value

This study is the first to present empirical evidence that product returners and keepers have distinct profiles of demographic characteristics and predispositions toward purchase. The study also has found divergent PPD coping strategies used by the two types of consumers, which exposes an obsolete understanding of PPD in the marketing literature.

中文翻译：

---

产品退货人和保管人的对比资料

目的

本文旨在调查退货的消费者以及在经历了购买后失调（PPD）之后最终保留商品的消费者是否具有独特的潜在特征。

设计/方法/方法

实地调查研究包括对纽约市以及纽约和新泽西州附近地区的消费者进行的两次单独调查。

发现

产品返还者和饲养者在性别和家庭收入以及种族程度上都表现出不同的人口统计学特征。两组在对购买决定的信心和对购买的期望方面表现出不同的倾向。最后，返回者和饲养者进行了各种各样的想法，感受和活动来应对PPD。

实际影响

这项研究的结果为市场营销从业人员提供了新的知识和见识，帮助他们了解产品退货人和保管人，并将帮助他们制定策略来更有效地减少和管理消费者增加的产品退货。

创意/价值

这项研究是首次提供经验证据，表明产品退货人和保管人具有不同的人口统计特征和购买倾向。该研究还发现，两种类型的消费者使用不同的PPD应对策略，这在市场营销文献中暴露了对PPD的过时理解。