AI as a Shopping Companion: Mechanisms Shaping Product Basket and Returns

Call for Papers

AI as a Shopping Companion: Mechanisms Shaping Product Basket and Returns

Journal: International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Manuscript Submission Deadline: 01 November 2026
Final Acceptance Date: 15 April 2027

The International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management invites submissions for its Special Issue on AI as a Shopping Companion: Mechanisms Shaping Product Basket and Returns.

About the Special Issue

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming an active shopping companion throughout the customer journey—from product discovery and evaluation to basket building, checkout, customer service, and product returns. Unlike traditional recommender systems, conversational AI and language-model-based assistants can interact with consumers, adapt recommendations, explain choices, and directly influence how preferences and purchasing decisions are formed.

This Special Issue seeks to advance understanding of how AI shopping companions affect strategically important retail outcomes such as basket conversion, assortment exploration, basket composition, decision quality, customer satisfaction, and product returns. It particularly welcomes research examining psychological, informational, behavioural, technological, and governance mechanisms shaping consumer interactions with AI-enabled shopping assistance.

Topics of Interest

Submissions may include, but are not limited to:

• AI companions and basket conversion

• Psychological and informational mechanisms influencing AI-assisted purchases

• Trust, perceived agency, and disclosure in conversational AI

• AI-driven assortment exploration and basket composition

• Variety seeking, complementarity, substitution, and price sensitivity

• Conversational features such as framing, explanations, tone, and memory

• AI-assisted decision quality and post-purchase satisfaction

• Consumer regret, decision deferral, and dependence on AI assistance

• AI companions and product returns

• Informational mismatch, fit errors, overbuying, and opportunistic return behaviours

• AI shopping assistance across online and omnichannel retail

• Explainability and user control in AI shopping systems

• Pro-social nudges and responsible AI design

• AI companions and consumer vulnerability

• Digital literacy and distributional effects of AI assistance

• Transparency, accountability, fairness, and governance of AI shopping companions

Preferred Article Types

The Special Issue welcomes:

• Conceptual Papers

• Methodological Studies

• Qualitative Research

• Quantitative Research

• Empirical Studies

• Interdisciplinary Research

Submission Information

• Submission Opens: 01 May 2026

• Manuscript Submission Deadline: 01 November 2026

• Final Acceptance Date: 15 April 2027

• Manuscripts must be submitted through ScholarOne Manuscripts.

• Authors should select the appropriate Special Issue title during submission.

• All submissions must strictly follow the journal's official Author Guidelines.

• Manuscripts must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere.

Guest Editors

• Francesca Serravalle

• Charles Hofacker

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