The impacts of return policy on consumer\'s intention to purchase and online evaluation in social commerce

• 1、School of Economics and Business Administration，Chongqing University，Chongqing 400044

Abstract：With the rapid development of social commerce, the impact of the return policy formulated by online retailers on consumer behavior becomes more and more obvious. Based on signaling theory, equity theory, relationship strength theory and motivation crowding theory, this paper developed a theoretical model to explain how return policy and social recommendation types affect consumers\' purchase intention and willingness to evaluate in social commerce, and the model was tested empirically by experimental methods. The results show that:(1) Loose return policy makes consumers perceive higher product quality and transaction fairness, resulting in higher consumers\' purchase intention and willingness to evaluate in social commerce; (2) Compared with the products that friends share, when consumers buy the products which are recommended by retailers, the return policy has a stronger effect on the perceived quality and perceived fairness. And the looser the return policy is, the higher the perceived quality and perceived fairness. (3) At the same time, regardless of loose or strict return policy, the perceived quality and perceived fairness based on friends sharing are higher than the result from retailer-recommended purchases. Finally, this paper discusses the theoretical contributions and practical suggestions of the research as well as the future research directions.

Keywords： marketing management return policy perceived quality perceived fairness purchase intention willingness to evaluate online