关键词: 策略型消费者, 无缺陷退货, 理性预期均衡, 最优订货量

Abstract: The markdown pricing mechanism is usually used in the fashion industry and some other industries with short-lived products. Experienced consumers may choose to buy the products at a discounted price. This strategic behavior increases the uncertainty of demand. In the meanwhile, product durabilityis among the most important factors for retailers to consider, which affects the intertemporal choice of consumers. With non-defective returns being common, creating a good return experience is treated by some retailers as an effective way to compete in consumer service, such as money-back guarantee, which allows consumers to return unsatisfactory products for a full refund. Money-back guarantee may enhance consumers’ purchase intentions and ultimately willingness to pay, but whether money-back guarantee can reduce consumer strategic behavior needs to be studied. Two kinds of uncertainty are considered: the uncertainty of product utility (consumers get the utility only when they buy products), as well as the uncertainty of availability (consumers who choose to wait may face the risk of out of stock). Behavioral models with rational expectations (RE) equilibrium are presented to describe the behavior of strategic consumers, which is widely used in related research. First, the benchmark without money-back guarantee is established and the retailer’s reference pricing range and optimal ordering decisions are obtained, and the influence of durability on the retail price is analyzed.Then the situation is analyzed that retailerprovidesmoney-back guarantee in the first stage, some new conclusions are reached. It is demonstrated that: The weaker the durability of the product, the higher the price that the retailer can set.The more consumers ofhigh type, the higher the retailer's pricing. The lower the discount rate of the product, the more consumers will buy in the second stage.In the case with money-back guarantee, the lower the cost of consumer's return, the higher the retailer's pricing.In the two modes, the product pricing is negatively related to its durability.When the product is very fashionable, it is not allowed to return, which is more advantageous. With the improvement of product durability, the advantage of allowing return is gradually obvious, and the lower the return cost is, the stronger the advantage of allowing return is.Furthermore the profits under the two cases are compared, when ordering the equal quantity,the behavior of strategic consumers will reduce the retailer's expected profit in some circumstances. In the face of the myopic consumers or strategic consumers, money-back guarantee can improve the retailer's profit,and can alleviate the negative impact of strategic consumers.The behavior of strategic consumers is described reasonably, considering the influence of product durability parameters, the widely existing consumer return behavior and the retailer's different subsidy policies,trying to provide guidance for the retailer’s pricing and ordering decisions on the basis of complex consumer behavior.

Key words: strategic consumers, non-defective returns, rational expectationsequilibrium (REE), optimal order quantity