Selling remanufactured products: Does consumer environmental consciousness matter?

Abstract

Remanufacturing is a key activity to reach a closed loop supply chain and is effective only if consumers understand what a remanufactured product is and why it is important for the environment. From the perspective of signaling theory, this study investigates factors that are important to leverage remanufactured sales, brand equity and price, using an experimental design. It also uses structural equation modeling to analyze the importance of consumers’ environmental consciousness in their intentions to purchase remanufactured products. The study concludes that brand equity is an important factor to leverage remanufactured sales, but it is intrinsically associated with price setting. Consumer environmental consciousness has no impact on remanufactured sales, highlighting the importance of the economic side to consumer purchasing decisions. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd