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Research reveals alarming results on the prevalence of the dishonest consumer behaviour known as deshopping. Deshopping is the “deliberate return of goods for reasons other than actual faults in the product, in its pure form premeditated prior to and during the consumption experience”. In effect this means buying something with no intention of keeping it. The authors consider the implications of deshopping and retailers’ prevention of deshopping, exploring the research undertaken to date and the methodology for further research.

The last ten years have seen a gradual withdrawal of retail facilities from many local areas and the consequent growth of “shopping deserts” resulting in social and health disbenefits. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential for e‐shopping to fill the vacuum and to assist disadvantaged shoppers.

The paper uses prior published research to comment on the extent to which e‐retailing may be the shopping solution of the future?

The internet has limited potential to compensate for shopping deserts, as consumers who do not have a good range of physical shops within walking distance also tend to lack access to the internet.

The paper is based solely on prior research. The authors recommend action research that may hopefully help excluded shoppers to become more included by addressing the problems of access to e‐shopping.

Government, service providers and e‐retailers may consider interventions such as subsidised internet access, training and the provision of e‐cash.

The paper links research from diverse fields relating to shopping deserts, the digital divide, health, wellbeing, social and experiential aspects of (e‐)shopping.

Deshopping is the return of products, after they have fulfilled the purpose for which they were borrowed. Previous research indicates that deshopping is a prevalent and growing consumer behaviour. This paper seeks to examine deshopping from a retail perspective. It is a case study of interviews conducted with a mass‐market retailer, to investigate their awareness and management of this behaviour.

This paper is a case study of nine interviews conducted with different levels of staff at a mass‐market retailer in their flagship London store, to investigate their awareness and management of deshopping.

The findings demonstrate the beliefs, attitudes and emotions of the different levels of employees towards deshopping and demonstrate their attempts to manage deshopping and combat the negative affects of this on customer service.

The limitation of this research is that it is only conducted with one high‐street retailer. However, it is important to highlight that this is a large women's wear retailer which is highly representative of other retailers within the sector. There is little detail given regarding the retailer itself or their fundamentals of the actual customer service policy; this is due to the confidentiality agreement between the researcher and retailer. It is important to acknowledge the sensitivity of this type of research to retailers who are reluctant to have this information publicised. It is also important to acknowledge that many retailers have not made any attempts to manage this behaviour by restricting their returns policy. So, this research case study is conducted with a retailer that is actively introducing change to manage this behaviour.

The research concludes with the implications of deshopping and its management and makes recommendations on how to reduce deshopping whilst maintaining customer service for the genuine consumer.

This is the first case study with a mass‐market retailer, highlighting their approaches towards managing deshopping whilst trying to maintain customer service.

Previous research indicates that deshopping is a prevalent and growing consumer behaviour. This paper sets out to examine deshopping from a consumer perspective, and to apply the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to demonstrate how this behaviour can be managed and prevented with the help of an accompanied (de)shop. It also seeks to place deshopping within a legal and ethical context, in relation to the established literature in this field.

This paper tests the TPB variables in a qualitative way by conducting in‐depth interviews with deshoppers, who had completed a quantitative questionnaire. The results further support and enhance the quantitative TPB results collected previously with 535 consumers. An accompanied (de)shop is also reviewed, as this qualitative research technique, enables an enhanced understanding and evidence of the deshopping process, which has not been demonstrated previously. The findings demonstrate support for these qualitative research tool, which enable a deeper understanding of the deshopping process and its management.

The findings demonstrate important use of the TPB as a qualitative research technique. The model is also expanded and redesigned by adding extra variables as a result of this research. The accompanied (de)shop findings demonstrate support for this qualitative research tool, which also enables a deeper understanding of the deshopping process and its management.

The research concludes with the implications of deshopping for the industry and makes recommendations regarding how to reduce deshopping, as well as recommending the qualitative research techniques to be utilised by future researchers.

This is the first paper to place deshopping in a legal framework which highlights the legal loopholes in a retailer's returns policy and the implications of new directives which will influence retailers' abilities to refuse a return. This paper is also the first to explore deshopping within an ethical framework that has created new knowledge on the unethical consumer in relation to deshopping behaviour. This study also incorporates an accompanied (de)shop methodology; this form of research has never been undertaken in relation to deshopping activity and has generated completely new knowledge of what is happening when the actual behaviour is taking place.

Shopping motivation is one of the key constructs of research on shopping behavior and exhibits a high relevance for formulating retail marketing strategies. Previous studies of shopping behavior as well as research in the areas of psychology and organizational behavior point towards a need to investigate the hierarchical nature of shopping motivation. The present study intends to take the first steps towards the development of a hierarchical theory of shopping motivation.

Means‐end chain theory is adopted to explore the hierarchical nature of shopping motivation. A total of 40 in‐depths interviews with apparel shoppers were conducted using the laddering technique. Results are depicted in three hierarchical value maps.

Evidence is provided relating to the social, experiential, and utilitarian aspects of shopping as represented by four dominant motivational patterns referring to the issues of shopping pleasure, frictionless shopping, value seeking, and quality seeking. Concrete retail attributes are presented which allow retailers to correspond to these motivations.

The paper identifies the need to introduce a hierarchical perspective to provide an increased understanding of consumers' shopping motivation. First, empirical evidence is provided regarding how consumers' cognitive structures relating to the benefits of shopping are hierarchically organized.

To study the impact of the corporate store image on customer satisfaction and store loyalty in grocery retailing. Corporate (store) image is defined as the combined effect of how the retailer as a brand, manufacturer brands, and store brands are perceived. The reason for including store brands and manufacturer brands in this definition is that the image and equity of retailer brands depends on the product brands they carry and the equity of those product brands.

A mail survey to consumers, 1,000 usable answers. The test of the proposed model was based on a simple path model that related the latent variables to the dependent manifest variable store loyalty.

Most important for customer satisfaction is the store as a brand. Retailers must be good at retailing. Customers are satisfied when the store is neat and pleasant and when they feel that the store understands their needs. Only certain customer segments are interested in store brands. Satisfied customers are loyal.

A limitation is the way store loyalty was measured, i.e. as an estimate of how much the respondent's household spent in the main store. Another limitation is the fact that the study is based on “manufacturer brands” and “store brands,” rather than specifically mentioned real brands.

The growth rate for store brands in grocery retailing is twice as high as for manufacturer brands. Wisely launched, store brands may be profitable to retailers. However, although gross margins are much higher for store brands than for manufacturer brands, net margins are equal. It is therefore important to find out how important store brands are in a customer perspective. After all, retailers prosper when they have satisfied and loyal customers.

The paper is based on a more holistic definition of corporate store image than prior studies, which should give a more accurate picture of the relative importance of the store as a brand, and manufacturer as well as store brands.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shopping mall environment impacts on hedonic and utilitarian shopping experiences, and approach behaviour of fashion leaders and followers.

Fashion shoppers' response and behaviour has been modelled in an invariant multigroup latent structural path analysis. Paths were initially constrained and then released as required. More than 300 usable questionnaires were acquired from a mall intercept in a regional urban middleclass shopping centre. Participants were probed on their attitude about fashion, perception of the shopping mall, present mood, shopping value and approach behaviour toward the mall.

The mall environment directly influences fashion leaders' hedonic shopping experience and approach behaviour. Fashion followers' hedonic shopping experience may be mood driven, while that of fashion leaders' is triggered by higher involvement cognitive processing.

This study was carried out in one fashion‐oriented urban mall in Montreal, and should be replicated to other locations and markets. A larger sample would allow the inclusion of additional constructs.

Mall owners and developers might appeal to fashion leaders through offering services that will speed up their shopping trip, using high‐tech methods to convey fashion information and by branding the mall. Fashion followers and laggards are likely to respond to experience‐oriented strategies that make their shopping trip more pleasurable.

Although fashion consumer groups have been studied from various perspectives, no research was found that investigates the integrated shopping experience of fashion shoppers in a shopping mall setting. This study fills the void.