The Role of Post-Purchase Emotional Dissonance on Product Return Intentions

Objective – Retailers often impose strict returning policies to control product returns without understanding the consumers' returned intention in the first place. Past research has shown that product return policies have little effect on product returns. As such, the aim of this research is to identify the underlying factors of emotional dissonance, which focus on high product involvement, consumer opportunism and switching barriers, and as well as its effect on product return intentions.Methodology/Technique – A total of 250 respondents who is smartphone users and aged between 17 and 35 were invited to participate in the self-administered online questionnaire with a total of 24 items included to measure the construct.Findings – The finding reveals that high product involvement has no significant effect on emotional dissonance and product return intentions. Whereas, switching barriers has significant effect on emotional dissonance, but no significant effect on product return intentions. Consumer opportunisms have a significant effect on emotional dissonance, thus forming product return intentions.Novelty – This study is important in assisting the retailers in managing their customer relationships better, whereby consumers deem the connection with the purchased product as part of the buying experience with the retailers