When Out-of-Stock Products DO Backfire: Managing Disclosure Time and Justification Wording

We investigate how stock-outs influence decision satisfaction and repatronage intentions for online purchase situations and how these responses vary with disclosure time and justification wording. We manipulate the disclosure time of the products’ unavailability (ex ante vs. ex post) and the justification given to consumers (firm-related vs. firm-unrelated). We find that, overall, stock-outs produce negative reactions, but that the main effects of timing and wording can sum up: ex ante, firm-related communication effectively offsets the damage caused by stock-outs. Retailers should employ real-time tracking to promptly inform consumers of product availability, and accept the responsibility for any outages.

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► Stock-outs lower customers’ decision satisfaction and repatronage intentions.
► Decision satisfaction and repatronage intention are higher with timely information.
► Decision satisfaction and repatronage intention are higher with firm-related explanations.
► Ex-ante, firm-related communications offset the damage done by stock-outs.