Customer satisfaction in ready-to-wear retailing and gaining customer commitment through product returns service

Circumstances of competition in the retail industry have got more difficult due to advancing technology and increasing speed of communication and transportation. Customers are offered plenty of alternatives with more reasonable prices. Businesses that aim to continue their existence and increase their market power in an environment of growing competition strive to gain new customers as well as customer commitment and enhance this commitment. Therefore, endeavours to enhance customer commitment which is much less costly than the activities focused on gaining new customers become more important.As a consequence of intense competition, customers can find very reasonable products in plenty of stores. The important point is not customer satisfaction in terms of prices only when products are bought, but long term customer satisfaction which will turn into commitment. Retail businesses should keep abreast of changing customer expectations, take precautions which will meet these expectations and maintain customer satisfaction through post-sales customer satisfaction in order to gain customer commitment. Perceptions about post-sales customer satisfaction are particularly focused on product return and exchange in ready to wear retailing which has a significant place in the retail industry. Performance of a store during product return has an important effect on post-sales customer satisfaction.In this study, an applied research is done on turning increasing customer satisfaction into customer commitment through product return service. During the study, it is tried to find out how the characteristics of customer expectations, product return awareness and attitudes change according to demographical features. Then, it is tried to find out how perceptions of the customers who shop in the stores where the application was carried out and their perceptions and attitudes after product return differ according to demographical features.The research is prepared in three parts in order to define concepts and explanations to be used during the research period. In the first part, marketing concepts and retail businesses are elaborated. In the second part, post-sales customer satisfaction is elaborated as a significant activity which will provide customer satisfaction in addition to the customer concept, customer satisfaction and commitment. Post-sales services which provide post-sales customer satisfaction and specifically methods to be followed in the product return process are explained. In the third part, research oriented questionnaire data is analysed on SPSS.15 program and the results are interpreted.In the conclusion of the study, personal comments and suggestions are given in accordance with the results found. It is considered that the research will be beneficial for businesses in ready to wear retail industry to determine their product return strategies which will be used to understand their customers? expectations, gain new customers and maintain current customers.KEY WORDS: Retail, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Commitment, Post-Sales Customer Satisfaction, Product Return and Exchange.