According to the China Internet Network Information Center, by the end of June 2016, the number of Internet users in China reached 710 million, of which the number of online shopping users reached 448 million. Online shopping has become one of the main consumption ways in China. However, with the tremendous boost in online shopping, the phenomenon of high returns is particularly prominent. Some promotional policies further aggravate the high-frequency returns. A survey from Guangzhou Consumers Commission reported that 63.9% of the consumers returned the goods bought during "double 11", among which, only 18.87% of the returns was due to the quality, and 81.13% was non-defective returns. Online retailers face the challenges of high returns, especially the significant non-defective returns, which constantly lower the profitability of enterprise. Focusing on the reverse logistics freight caused by consumers' returns, this paper mainly compares three policies:consumer paying the return freight; retailer paying the return freight; consumer and retailer paying the return freight together. We study the online retailer's optimal price and profitability under different policies and highlight the influence of non-defective returns on the retailer's decision. The results show that in order to achieve maximum profit, the online retailer will choose different policies according to the proportion of non-defective returns. Specifically, when the proportion of non-defective returns is low, consumer paying the return freight is reasonable. When the proportion of non-defective returns is high, retailer paying the return freight is better. When the proportion of non-defective returns is moderate, the return freight should be shared by the consumer and retailer together. It is worth noting that the purpose of a return policy is to stimulate the demand growth, but sometimes a return policy maybe stimulate more returns rather than more demands. In that case, consumer paying the return freight will be the only choice for the online retailer to avoid irrational returns.
ZHAO Xiao-min, HU Shu-hui
. Online Retailers' Return Freight Policy in the E-Commerce Context[J]. Chinese Journal of Management Science, 2019
, 27(1)
: 53
-62
.
DOI: 10.16381/j.cnki.issn1003-207x.2019.01.006
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