Operational and Economical Perspectives on Consumer Returns
Authors:   , Samatlı-Paç Gülay , Shen Wenjing 
Published: July 2021

Customer return policies are one of common after sale services offered by a retailer in order to boost sales, improve customer satisfaction and diminish customer fit uncertainty. With such a service, the retailer accepts the return of a product after the sale has occurred, if it does not satisfy the customers expectations. This study investigates consumer returns from three different perspectives. First, we start with a single period inventory planning problem of multi-variants in which customers have a right to return products in case of dissatisfaction. We assume that returns can be as-good-as-new condition after a minor restocking process and they are resalable in the same selling period. At the time of purchasing, a customer may choose to substitute her choice with another variant of the item, if the former is sold out. This, so called substitution, and resalable returns are important parameters in assortment planning that might affect the total profit dramatically. Under this setting, we aim to illustrate the effect of return and substitution on the optimal order quantities of variants and the total expected profit. We show that the total profit decreases as the probability of returns or the probability of resalable returns increases. In addition, the probability of substitution, return, or resalable return has a negative effect on inventory level of variants. Second, we analyze a retailers return policy problem when the market consists of loss-averse customers who are more sensitive to losses than gains instead of being risk-neutral customers. We examine the situation in which a seller makes price and quantity decisions for a single item and also designs an appropriate returns policy in order to maximize his profit. We analyze the case where the seller offers either a full-refund or a partial-refund policy if he decides to accept returns or chooses not to accept any returns. With the full-refund policy, the seller reimburses the consumer the full price of the product if it does not fit the customers preferences. With a partial-refund policy, the seller offers a refund which is strictly less than the purchase price. We assume that customers are strategic customers aiming to maximize their utilities of the product. With this model, we aim to analyze the impact of loss aversion on the sellers price and order quantity decisions. We show that the seller keeps fewer inventories as customers get more loss-averse and loss-aversion has a negative effect on the expected unit profit. Thus, the total profit decreases as loss-aversion. Finally, we present a model that investigates the effects of return policies on each of the two sellers pricing decisions when these sellers engage in market size competition. Our model simultaneously addresses a consumers purchase decision and the competing sellers price decisions, along with their respective return policies. We assume that two competing sellers which do not have a capacity problem only decide their prices and return policies. The sellers may independently offer no-refund, full-refund of the price of the product, or a partial-refund. The market share of each party depends on his and the rivals price and return policy; customer valuations of the product and the degree of competition between the sellers. Before purchasing, a consumer cannot evaluate the products utility which is a decreasing function of the price set by the seller from which she chooses to purchase it and the disutility of purchase and/or return which is related to the physical distance between the consumer and the sellers location. The return policy of a seller may also affect a consumers decision via her expected utility. Thus, pricing and return policy decisions play an important role in the division of the total market. We show that the full-refund policy yields a higher purchasing price compare to the no-refund or partial-refund policy. However, it only performs better in terms of profit when the product has a small salvage value and a partial-refund policy is not an option for the retailer. When the retailer offers the partial-refund policy, it always dominates the other refund policies. In addition, we show that the full-refund policy provides the highest consumer surplus since customers do not face any risk of misfit. On the other hand, the full-refund policy is socially efficient only when the salvage value is high. For low salvage values, the partial-refund policy yields a higher level of social welfare.