Effects of Demography on Opportunistic Product Return Behaviors in E-Commerce

College student consumers are an increasingly important segment for marketers and scholars, particularly with the advent of online shopping. This research aims at exploring the effect of college students\u27 decision-making styles on online purchase and return behavior. An online questionnaire survey was conducted on 1100 college students at the University of Central Florida to understand how respondents\u27 return behavior changed with various scenarios and demographic factors. Analysis shows that scenarios involving late arrivals are the highest drivers of returns, while guilt and post- purchase regrets drove far fewer returns. Statistically significant differences in return behavior were found between demographic groups. Notably, this research identified the conditions under which these patterns in return behavior hold true, uncovering clusters of respondents who behave in characteristically similar or different ways. By understanding the factors that drive college students to return online purchases, companies can more efficiently and profitably serve this growing segment of consumers

Fabrication of a Gold Nanostar - Embedded Porous Poly(dimethylsiloxan) Platform for Sensing Applications

Porous poly(dimethylsiloxan) (PDMS) membranes have been fabricated by using sodium bicarbonate powder and polystyrene microspheres to generate the pores. Large gold nanostars (AuNSs) have been synthesized by a one-pot surfactant-free method by using gold seeds, and the stars have been embedded into the porous material by immersing the samples in the nanostars’ (NSs) aqueous solution. Sensitivity tests performed with samples prepared with the two porogens demonstrated the very high sensitivity toward the surrounding environment of gold nanostars embedded into the polymer. The sensitivity is found to be in the range of 400-550 nm/RIU, compared to approximately only 100 nm/ refractive index unit (RIU) for PDMS with embedded nanospheres. Absorbance spectra of nanostars embedded in the polymer are simulated by using the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method. A good agreement is found between the calculated and experimental spectra