Optimal Policies for Recovering the Value of Consumer Returns

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Crocker, Keith J.; Letizia, Paolo
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• DOI: 10.1111/poms.12028
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1667-1680
• 关键词: consumer returns; returns policy; preponement; hidden action; Hidden information

摘要

This study characterizes the class of Pareto optimal returns policies between a manufacturer and a retailer who receives consumer returns. The manufacturer may take a costly hidden action that reduces the expected number of products returned by consumers, which when realized is hidden information known only to the retailer. When faced with consumer returns, the retailer must decide whether to send the product back to the manufacturer, who harvests a low salvage value, or to engage in costly refurbishment that permits the returned product to be resold to consumers. We find that the optimal returns policies may be implemented through the payment by the manufacturer of a full refund to the retailer of the wholesale price for any returns as well as a bonus paid to the retailer that is decreasing in the number of returns to the manufacturer.