Key drivers in the behavior of potential consumers of remanufactured products: a study on laptops in Spain

Many companies have begun to implement end-of-use strategies (remanufacturing, recycling, and reuse) in response to worldwide concern about environmental issues. Simultaneously, academic research on remanufacturing has turned to focus on the analysis of activities from a supply perspective, i.e., collection of end-of-use products, reverse logistics, disassembly, assembly, etc. Very little attention has been paid, however, to the demand side of remanufactured products, in particular, to the consumer profile of these products or to determining their most effective marketing strategies. Companies interested and involved in fostering the demand for remanufactured products need to be aware of the importance of knowledge of their potential consumers in order to most suitably manage their remanufacturing and marketing activities. Given this context, the principal objective of the present work was to make a first approach to determining basics characteristics of the profile of potential consumers of remanufactured products. To this end, an empirical analysis was conducted of the key variables underlying the purchase intentions of potential consumers in order to gain insight into the key drivers of that behavior. The instrument used was a questionnaire elaborated for application to potential consumers of a specific product (laptops) in two Spanish universities. The results revealed the drivers that explain the self-declared purchase intention of a remanufactured laptop, and provide managers of firms interested in implementing green initiatives in their supply chain with useful information for their consideration of closed-loop supply chains and for integrating marketing decisions concerning remanufactured products into the development of end-of-use strategies. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.