Consumer return policies in presence of a P2P market

Retailers selling products with valuation uncertainty often offer return policies to consumers to stimulate demand. However, some products that do not meet consumers’ expectations cannot be returned to the retailers either because of retailers’ strict restrictions on returns or because of short trial period. With the development of e-commerce, consumers who cannot return their products to retailers can resell them directly to others through electronic peer-to-peer (P2P) second-hand goods markets. This paper examines the effect of the presence of a P2P market on a retailer’s optimal return policy when the consumers are strategic and uncertain about their valuations. As a benchmark, we first examine the retailer’s optimal return policy when there is only a retailer-run resale market. Then, we analyze the retailer’s optimal return policy in presence of both the retailer-run resale market and the P2P market. Theoretical and numerical results show that, first, the presence of the P2P market is detrimental to the retailer in most cases. The presence of the P2P market is beneficial to the retailer only when the unit purchasing cost is very high, the consumers’ acceptance of products in the P2P market is relatively high and the transaction cost in the P2P market is relatively low; second, the consumer surplus is improved by the presence of P2P market; third, when the retailer-run resale market is the only second-hand products market, returned products are sold out; while in presence of the P2P market, the retailer will hold some inventory when the unit purchasing cost is very low; fourth, the selling price of new products is increased and the selling price of second-hand products in the retailer-run resale market is decreased with the emergence of the P2P market while the refund amount is increased in most cases.