Consumer attitudes towards purchasing refurbished smartphones in developed and developing countries: social media analytics

Abstract In recent years, the amount of electronic waste has dramatically increased due to the short end-of-life (EOL) products, rapid expansion, and variety of electronic products; therefore, refurbishing these products is one of the practical and sustainable solutions to this issue. Customer reviews play a crucial role in determining purchasing behaviors and attitudes. To this end, a customer satisfaction model of online refurbished smartphone reviews was presented to investigate customer satisfaction dimensions (CSDs) toward refurbished smartphones by opinion mining and analyzing the data of customer reviews on Twitter from consumers of refurbished smartphones in developed and developing countries. For this purpose, we separated the refurbished reviews into two distinct categories: (i) direct evaluations of refurbished features by utilizing machine learning to identify features and determine how individuals feel about them, and (ii) indirect evaluations based on product remanufacturers' claims that refurbished and new products are comparable. The findings indicate that buyers of refurbished smartphones are most concerned with the product's features, such as its functionality, price, and guarantee conditions. In addition, we observed that while consumers in developed countries pay special attention to the environment, consumers in developing countries are more concerned with guarantees and pricing. These findings suggest economic factors as the main reason for smartphone purchases in developing countries for refurbished products. In contrast, due to greater economic prosperity in developed countries, environmental considerations were determined as the main reason for purchasing refurbished smartphones.