Problem definition: Fashion retailers are increasingly implementing take-back programs to reduce textile waste and prevent used clothing from being landfilled. To increase participation, retailers must decide how much and what type of information to provide to consumers, how to collect the used clothing, and how much of a financial reward to offer. However, the effectiveness of different types of information, convenience, and reward levels on consumer participation is not well understood, and participation rates in take-back programs remain low. Methodology/results: We examine the effect of different information levels (i.e., none, generic, and different types of specific information) and convenience levels on the reward required by consumers to return their used clothing through four experiments involving over 5,200 subjects. Across all experiments, we find that providing generic information that collected items will be diverted from the landfill significantly decreases the reward required by consumers to return their used clothing. However, we find that providing information about a specific circular economy strategy does not necessarily help. When the collected clothing will be recycled (either as open-loop or as closed-loop), consumers’ required reward is not significantly different from when the clothing will just be diverted from the landfill. Moreover, we find that when collected clothing will be resold, consumers’ required reward is significantly higher. We show that the negative response to resale is due to the consumers’ aversion to the retailer explicitly profiting from the returned clothing. We also find that making the return process more convenient lowers the reward required by consumers. Managerial implications: Our results offer several managerial insights. We find that information can be an effective lever to increase consumers’ participation in take-back programs, but only if used judiciously. If a retailer intends to resell collected clothing, it may consider offering a higher reward or making the return process more convenient. Even though a more convenient return process may be more costly for the retailer, those additional costs may be offset by the lower reward required by the consumers. Funding: A. Sáez de Tejada Cuenca’s research was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [ref. SFJC1900I042215XV0]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2023.0561 .

Problem definition E-tailers face a dilemma in addressing the bracketing behaviour, where consumers purchase multiple versions of a product to try at home and return the unsatisfactory ones. While this practice reduces product fit uncertainty, it also results in a surge of returns. Academic/practical relevance Despite this dilemma, how to manage bracketing remains largely under-explored in academic research, particularly in leveraging monetary leniency. Methodology We develop a game-theoretic framework, where the monopoly e-tailer incorporates consumers’ best purchase and return responses into its pricing and return service fee decisions. Results Surprisingly, despite the high reverse logistics cost, the e-tailer can still benefit from bracketing. Managing bracketing involves tailoring pricing and return strategies to product and consumer attributes. Some of these strategies run counter to traditional operations. Specifically, even if the reverse logistics cost is zero, it may still be optimal to charge for returns to extract profit from bracketing or deter bracketing. In addition, the reverse logistics cost should sometimes be incorporated into the price and not, as often, into the return fee, even if it hurts all the consumers. Finally, mitigating fit uncertainty, despite appearing beneficial, could reduce the e-tailer’s overall profit, even if it is costless. Managerial implications Our results offer actionable insights for managing bracketing. First, e-tailers banning bracketing across the board (e.g., Amazon) or applying the same return strategy for most products (e.g., Uniqlo) should develop customised strategies, targeting bracketers, non-bracketers, or both, while offering a partial or full refund and allowing or disallowing returns. Second, e-tailers encouraging bracketing through lenient return policies (e.g., Zappos) could render this practice explicit through mechanisms such as try-on schemes, while strategically employing return fees or pricing to internalise the associated costs. Finally, e-tailers striving to reduce fit uncertainty (e.g., Lululemon) should remain cautious about this practice.