Click, Buy, Return – Using Clickstream Data to Uncover Behavioral Patterns in E-Commerce Product Returns

Can we predict product return behavior from online shopping behavior? Prior studies have used clickstream data to analyze online shopping behavior and its impact on purchase decisions. This exploratory study extends this notion to product returns. we analyze clickstream data, purchase and return information from a major European e-tailer for fashion goods and apply two-step cluster analysis and multiple stepwise discriminant analysis to assess the relationship between shopping and return behavior. Results confirm four segments: “browser” and “hunter” with significantly lower product return rates as well as “gatherer” and “dreamer” with significantly higher product return rates than the average customer.