Reverse logistics networks for remanufactured consumer products consistently achieve lower market penetration than would be predicted by price, quality and warranty attributes alone. We conceptualize part of this adoption gap as tacit buyer resistance rooted in contamination psychology, the intuitive belief that negative essences transfer through contact with objects. We position contamination as one mechanism among multiple demand- and supply-side forces shaping the gap, and develop its implications for the design of business-to-consumer (B2C) reverse logistics networks.
We adopt a theory-adaptation approach, recontextualizing insights from the psychology of disgust and contamination within the domain of consumer reverse logistics. The framework synthesizes evidence from controlled experimental studies of contamination responses in consumer markets, survey and mental-model research on remanufacturing adoption, and recent reviews of the closed-loop supply chain literature. Building on this synthesis, we derive five propositions and develop a two-tier network architecture that distinguishes contamination-sensitive from contamination-insensitive product streams.
Contamination sensitivity varies systematically with product characteristics. High-disgust categories (personal-care appliances, next-to-skin textiles, food-contact goods) produce strong contamination responses to remanufactured offerings, whereas low-disgust categories (smartphones, tablets, commodity electronics) elicit weaker ones. The intensity of these effects is moderated by source history, component criticality and brand visibility. Information provision alone appears insufficient to mitigate contamination concerns, and quality reassurance may in some cases amplify rather than attenuate them.
The paper positions contamination psychology as a tacit behavioral constraint on the design of reverse logistics networks for remanufactured consumer products. It specifies how contamination effects vary across product categories and develops, to our knowledge, the first framework linking visceral emotional responses to reverse logistics network architecture decisions.
