Consumers' intention to purchase remanufactured electronic products: An empirical study in China

Abstract

Remanufacturing has been characterized as a critical component of the circular economy and an engine of the closed loop supply chain process. However, few researches focus on consumers' intention to purchase remanufactured products. To enrich researches on this, we propose an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) by adding more explanative variables to investigate the affecting factors of consumers' purchase intention towards remanufactured electronic products. We collected data by conducting an online questionnaire survey and applied them to test our model. The empirical results indicate that purchase attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control, and product knowledge are antecedents to consumers' purchase intention of remanufactured electronic products. More specifically, perceived quality and perceived knowledge have a positive impact on purchase attitude. But perceived risk has a negative impact on both purchase attitude and purchase intention. Surprisingly, perceived quality and perceived benefits have a positive but insignificant influence on purchase intention, while perceived benefits have a negative and insignificant relationship with purchase attitude. The reason may lie in that consumers are worried a lot about the quality of remanufactured products and not willing to pay a premium for remanufactured products.