Why We Keep Things We Meant to Return
One purchase followed from the buying to the keeping, and what research on ownership and return rules says about each stage.
Answer to the question
Why do we keep things we meant to return?
Because value rises with the time an object is held, and holding it builds feelings of ownership. A long return window gives a small doubt no deadline, so the plan made on day one slips. By the last day, sending the item back feels like giving something up.
Key takeaways
- Strahilevitz and Loewenstein reported four studies in which the value people put on an object rose with the length of time they had owned it.
- In two mug experiments, longer physical contact before bidding led to higher bids, in an open auction and in a sealed-bid auction.
- Holding an object changed the price people put on it, while being told they owned it did not, and the holding effect ran through stronger feelings of ownership.
- Shorter return deadlines raised returns under some conditions, and the effect depended on how much effort a return seemed to need.
- The delay reading is ours: the studies test deadlines, effort and holding time, and none measures return procrastination directly.
A return window opens when a purchase ends, and the plan is plain: if it does not suit, it goes back.
Weeks later the item is still in the house, the receipt is in a drawer and the window has closed. Research on ownership and on return rules lets that purchase be followed stage by stage, from the buying to the keeping.
A Reversible Purchase Meets a Long Window
A purchase with a generous return policy feels safe, and that feeling is part of why people buy. Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational shows the other side of the arrangement. In a ticket lottery run among university students, the people who held tickets asked far more than the people without them would offer, and the two sets of prices did not overlap at all. Owners priced what they would lose, and buyers priced what they would give up. A shopper carrying a return slip stands between those two positions, which is our reading of why a reversible sale can still begin to feel like a possession.
A return policy is also a mix of two things, time and effort. Narayan Janakiraman and Lisa Ordóñez studied how each one, alone and together, shapes whether people send a product back or keep it. The effort side covers the physical work of a return and the mental work of deciding to make one. The time side is the length of the window, and it is the part that decides how long a doubt has to turn into action.
Shorter return deadlines can raise the number of items sent back under some conditions, which runs against the common assumption that a tight window discourages them. That is the finding Janakiraman and Ordóñez report in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. They draw on construal level theory and argue that perceived effort carries the influence of a policy on what people do. When a deadline was described as the time between store visits, overall returns rose, except when the perceived effort of returning was high. In that case the rise did not appear.
Read beside the idea of delay, the pattern is easy to follow. A long window removes the pressure to act, so a small doubt on the second day has no reason to become a trip to the shop on the third. A short window puts a date on the task. The paper tests deadlines and effort and does not measure procrastination directly, and the delay reading is therefore ours; the result itself is narrower: the length of the window and the effort of the return both change what people do.
Where sending an item back needs a form, a label and a journey, the friction is the same kind that The Sludge That Keeps You Subscribed traces in cancellations, and the buyer who meant to take something back finds that the plan has a cost the purchase did not mention.
Time and effort also act together. In the paper, the rise in returns tied to the between-visit framing did not appear when perceived effort was high, so a policy cannot be judged by its window alone. A window that comes with a label, a box and a trip is a different policy from the same window with a collection at the door, and the second asks much less of a buyer who is already unsure.
Days at Home Add Value
While the doubt waits, the item sits in the house, and holding it changes how it is priced. Michal Strahilevitz and George Loewenstein reported four studies showing that the value people put on an object rises with the length of time they have owned it. For objects no longer in a person's hands, earlier ownership raised value as well, and the rise was tied to how long the object had been owned before it was lost.
Handling alone can do part of this work. James Wolf, Hal Arkes and Waleed Muhanna ran two versions of the mug experiment in which people held coffee mugs for different lengths of time before bidding for them with real money. Longer physical contact led to higher bids in an open auction and in a sealed-bid auction.
Possession counts for more than the paperwork. Jochen Reb and Terry Connolly separated what participants were told about who owned an object from whether they physically held it. Holding the object changed the price people put on it, and being told they owned it did not. The holding effect ran through stronger feelings of ownership, and it appeared to lead people to count the object as part of their reference point. A purchase kept at home during the window is held in exactly that sense, even though the sale can still be undone. Why Owning It Makes It Worth More follows the mug experiments that began this line of work.
Keeping What We Meant to Return
By the last day of the window, the item has been held for weeks, handled many times and counted as part of the household. Returning it no longer undoes a purchase. It gives up something that sits inside the reference point, and giving something up weighs more than gaining it, the pattern Loss Aversion and the Bet You Turn Down describes. The plan made on day one was written by a person who did not yet hold the item, and the choice on the last day is made by a person who does.
None of this marks the shopper as careless. The same process that makes an item hard to give up makes a well-chosen purchase feel like part of the home, and the studies describe how valuation moves with holding time, not whether keeping an item was wise.
Read as suggestions and not as tested advice, the studies point to four moves for a purchase that might go back.
- Decide within a day or two whether the item stays, before holding builds attachment.
- Put the errand on the calendar as a dated task, since a long window gives doubt no deadline.
- Prepare the parcel at once, because perceived effort shaped what people did.
- Handle the item as little as possible while the decision is open.
Common questions
Why do we keep things we meant to return?
Value rises with the length of time an object is held, and holding it brings stronger feelings of ownership. By the end of a return window, sending the item back feels like giving something up.
Do longer return windows mean fewer returns?
Not always. In studies of deadlines and effort, shorter deadlines raised returns under some conditions, and the effect depended on how much effort a return seemed to need.
Does it matter if the item is unboxed?
Handling matters. In two mug experiments, longer physical contact led to higher bids, and in a separate study holding an object changed its price while being told it was owned did not.
How can sending an item back be made likelier?
The research suggests early decisions, dated plans and a parcel prepared at once, though these are readings of the studies and not tested advice.
Sources
Ariely, D. Predictably Irrational. Seed book; vault hub Books/Predictably Irrational.
Janakiraman, N., & Ordóñez, L. (2012). “Effect of effort and deadlines on consumer product returns.” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(2), 260-271. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.05.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2011.05.002
Strahilevitz, M. A., & Loewenstein, G. (1998). “The effect of ownership history on the valuation of objects.” Journal of Consumer Research, 25(3), 276-289. doi:10.1086/209539 https://doi.org/10.1086/209539
Wolf, J. R., Arkes, H. R., & Muhanna, W. A. (2008). “The power of touch: An examination of the effect of duration of physical contact on the valuation of objects.” Judgment and Decision Making, 3(6), 476-482. doi:10.1017/s193029750000005x https://doi.org/10.1017/s193029750000005x
Reb, J., & Connolly, T. (2007). “Possession, feelings of ownership and the endowment effect.” Judgment and Decision Making, 2(2), 107-114. doi:10.1017/s1930297500000085 https://doi.org/10.1017/s1930297500000085