Commercial Product Returns

Abstract

The increasing use of online shopping has escalated product returns and consequently the importance of their management. In parallel, the increasing scholarly interest on the subject is reflected in the number of publications. In such fast-growing research fields, mapping the whole research activity is useful in highlighting research areas that could provide a better knowledge accumulation in the field. With this aim, this chapter conducts co-citation and co-word analysis to identify future research directions. According to results, there is a need for future research to investigate 1) the consumer reaction when the service level received conflicts with the retailer environment (un)friendly operations, 2) the impacts of retailer return policies on their reverse logistics management, 3) the implementation difficulties of handling omni-channel returns in different organizational structures, and 4) the effectiveness of technological tools and applications used to avoid returns. This chapter also discusses the implications of COVID-19 on the commercial product returns research.