Don't Wash Your Greens: A study on CSR communication in e-commerce shipping and return policies

Abstract: With the increase in e-commerce, the fashion industry has a far more significant impact on the environment than we could ever realise. E-tailers' free-of-charge returns are fueling today's high number of product returns, which account for one fourth of total e-commerce emissions. As consumers become more conscious of the environment, brands are starting to engage in and communicate about CSR. However, consumers today are also more critical of brands' CSR engagement and whether they are genuine and trustworthy, or perceived as greenwashing. This study aims to examine the effects of a sustainability message paired with a free versus debited shipping and return policy on consumer attitudes and behaviour, and how these effects differ depending on the brand and sustainability interest of the consumer. The study takes both a quantitative and a qualitative approach, where the latter aims to deepen the understanding of effects and patterns seen in the collected data. Findings show that a free shipping and return policy is more important for consumers as it is perceived as valuable rather than contradictory to the company's sustainability commitments and greenwashing. Therefore, it is concluded that service value has a stronger effect than perceived greenwashing on consumer attitudes and behaviour. Further, brand and sustainability interest does not significantly affect consumer attitudes and behaviour, however qualitative findings show that they are not unimportant for consumers and highlight that the experiment might not have been impactful enough to show significant effects. Our findings contribute to e-commerce management research and how to design efficient shipping and return policies for practitioners.