The drivers of product return in the information age

The importance of product return has risen in the last two decades as firms face an increased pricing pressure and more stringent environmental regulations. Anecdotal evidence and a few scholarly studies document the importance of product return, but as yet no scale to measure the use of product return practices has emerged. This study using the data from 125 North American manufacturing companies develops a scale for product return practices and tests the influences of several factors on the product return practices. These factors include information quality, manufacturing technology, Just-In-Time (JIT) production, delivery process, cost leadership strategy and supply chain dynamism. The statistical analysis shows that these factors have a significant positive influence on the use of product return practices. Discussion of our findings and future research opportunities are also addressed.