The researchers analyzed data from about 1.8 million ecommerce customer orders. The average delivery time for an order was about five days. With an important exception, the rate of item returns for items delivered in a shorter time was significantly higher than the rate for items delivered in a longer time. The exception: When delivery was substantially delayed, rate of item returns climbed.
Two explanations for this exception are that customers get irritated at the retailer when a delivery date promise is not met and that when delivery is substantially delayed, people find another source of supply.
The researchers’ explanation for the main effect of somewhat longer delivery time decreasing item return rates is in terms of cognitive dissonance, a phenomenon familiar to every introductory psychology student, often via its nickname “buyer’s remorse.” Often at some point in time after making a nonroutine purchase, the consumer doubts the wisdom of their decision. The highest probability for buyer’s remorse is shortly after the purchase, so this is when we’d expect item returns to be most likely. As time passes without an item return, the consumer begins rationalizing the purchase, generating for themselves reasons the purchase was not, in fact, deserving of remorse. We’d expect the rate of returns to drop. And this is what happened in the study when delivery time was longer rather than shorter. The cognitive dissonance explanation was supported by an informal follow-on study in which some customers were asked about reasons for their returns.
The researchers report the evidence from past studies that shoppers are attracted by promises of prompt delivery, and they recommend that retailers balance this factor against the advantages of lowering costly returns. Their filtering of the data collection is still another argument for using the study results as an impetus for your own exploration of what delivery times are most profitable for you. Data in this study were collected from only U.S.-based shoppers at one very large online retailer and excluded transactions in which it appeared the customer was ordering a large number of similar items because they weren’t sure which size would fit best, for instance.
If longer delivery time promises aren’t advisable, consider other research-based methods, such as putting a clock image on the order form, to reduce item returns.
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Delay Assumptions About Fast Shipping
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