This study explores the context of buy-online-and-return-in-store (BORS) policy from an environmental perspective and conducts a comprehensive analysis through the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Adding environmental awareness and awareness of consequences provides a new perspective on how sustainable practices can be enhanced through an omni-channel retail strategy. Survey responses from 405 participants were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results show that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are key determinants of practical BORS policy. The study found that environmental awareness significantly influenced BORS adoption directly and indirectly by enhancing perceived behavioral control, whereas consequence awareness primarily affected adoption by shaping consumer attitudes. Compared with consumers who choose to return online, consumers who prefer in-store returns show higher environmental awareness, highlighting the environmental advantages of BORS. In addition, the BORS policy improves overall shopping satisfaction by integrating the convenient process of online purchases and offline returns, allowing consumers to switch freely between different channels. These findings provide valuable insights for retailers and policymakers seeking to promote sustainable consumer behavior to effectively promote the importance of sustainable retail practices.

Purpose: This study examined the impact of environmental factors on consumers’ intention to use buy online in-store returns (BORS) services. Specifically, it investigates how integrating environmental knowledge and consequence awareness into the theory of planned behavior (TPB) influences consumers’ intention to adopt BORS services. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using statistical methods to explore the relationships between attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, environmental factors and intention to use BORS services. Findings: The findings indicate that attitude, subjective norm and environmental knowledge significantly increase consumers’ intention to use BORS services. Additionally, the interaction of attitude and environmental knowledge further enhances consumers’ intention to use BORS services. Originality/value: This study contributes to the limited literature on the drivers of consumers’ adoption of BORS services by integrating environmental factors with TPB. It provides new insights into how targeted environmental education and promotion activities can influence consumers’ behavior toward sustainable practices, providing valuable strategies for retailers to support sustainable development goals.

Purpose: This study examines whether humanitarian social-media messaging by logistics service providers is associated with supportive consumer intentions in China through an emotion-response-support pathway. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 584 respondents in Guangdong and Gansu, China. The study used a mixed-exposure online survey featuring humanitarian social-media message executions presented in graphic and video formats. Respondents then completed the focal evaluation with reference to the execution they found more salient or impressive. Covariance-based structural equation modelling was used to test the focal affective-to-response-support pathway. Accordingly, execution-related contrasts are reported as supplementary response-based comparisons rather than as randomised causal tests. Findings: More positive emotion was positively associated with humanitarian issue response, which in turn was positively associated with willingness to pay, word of mouth and electronic word of mouth for logistics services. In the pooled screened-sample model, all focal structural paths were positive and statistically significant. Originality/value: The study contributes to logistics service marketing by conceptualising humanitarian social-media messaging as a claim-based, public-facing service cue in an intangible service context and by modelling humanitarian issue response as the receiver-side response mechanism linking message-elicited affect to supportive intentions.