The Value of Waiting: The Impact of Delivery Lead Time Within the Committed Timeframe on E-tail Product Returns

Abstract

This study explores the impact of short delivery lead time within a committed time frame on product returns. Four experiments and two secondary data sets showed that delivery lead time within a committed time frame increases perceived ownership. The boosted ownership perception results in fewer product returns when consumers' focus is on the purchased product rather than the money paid and when the product is of high price. It also increases product ratings when products are complex and cannot be easily judged by their appearance. Four experiments adopted the contexts of sale promotions during shopping festivals and showed that consumers were less willing to return a product in a pre-sale condition than in a flash-sale condition. This effect was mediated by perceived ownership and diminished when a "get your money back" reminder was provided or when the product had a high price. We extended the current findings using secondary data. We demonstrated that the effect of delivery lead time on product returns can be generalized to a livestream e-commerce context, and investigated how delivery lead time influences product ratings, revealing that pre-sale campaigns increased ratings for complex products but not for simple ones, while flash-sale campaigns had no such effect. These insights challenge the prevalent assumption of "the faster, the better", highlighting the need for a management approach to order fulfillment.

Keywords: delivery lead time, ownership, product returns, product ratings, pre-sale campaigns