IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jorsoc/v58y2007i3d10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602157.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analysis and design of returns policies from a supplier's perspective

Author

Listed:
  • H Wang

    (University of Salford)

  • W Wang

    (University of Salford)

  • K A H Kobaccy

    (University of Salford)

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of designing a returns policy in a supply chain from a supplier's perspective. The supply chain considered here is assumed to have one supplier and one retailer who serves a random demand of a product with a short life cycle. The retailer can return all the unsold products to the supplier with a partial refund. We found that if the retailer behaviour is rational, that is, ordering the optimal quantity to maximize its expected profit, then both retailer and supplier could benefit from the returns policy. Furthermore, we established that the optimal buyback price is independent of the mean of the random demand, but the variance of the demand has a significant impact on setting the optimal buyback price. The higher the variance the higher the optimal buyback price and the larger the profit gain of both parties. Numerical studies are employed to help understand the benefits of returns policies for the supplier, the retailer, and the whole supply chain.

Suggested Citation

  • H Wang & W Wang & K A H Kobaccy, 2007. "Analysis and design of returns policies from a supplier's perspective," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(3), pages 391-401, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:58:y:2007:i:3:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602157
    DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602157
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602157?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hamilton Emmons & Stephen M. Gilbert, 1998. "Note. The Role of Returns Policies in Pricing and Inventory Decisions for Catalogue Goods," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(2), pages 276-283, February.
    2. Barry Alan Pasternack, 1985. "Optimal Pricing and Return Policies for Perishable Commodities," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(2), pages 166-176.
    3. Andy A. Tsay, 1999. "The Quantity Flexibility Contract and Supplier-Customer Incentives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(10), pages 1339-1358, October.
    4. Scott Webster & Z. Kevin Weng, 2000. "A Risk-free Perishable Item Returns Policy," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 100-106, July.
    5. Martin A. Lariviere & Evan L. Porteus, 2001. "Selling to the Newsvendor: An Analysis of Price-Only Contracts," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 3(4), pages 293-305, May.
    6. Lau, Hon-Shiang & Lau, Amy Hing-Ling, 1999. "Manufacturer's pricing strategy and return policy for a single-period commodity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 291-304, July.
    7. Suresh Sethi & Houmin Yan & Hanqin Zhang, 2005. "Analysis of a Duopoly Supply Chain and its Application in Electricity Spot Markets," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 239-259, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lauren Skinner Beitelspacher & Thomas L. Baker & Adam Rapp & Dhruv Grewal, 2018. "Understanding the long-term implications of retailer returns in business-to-business relationships," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 252-272, March.
    2. J-M Chen & H-L Cheng & I-C Lin, 2011. "On channel coordination under price-dependent revenue-sharing: can eBay's fee structure coordinate the channel?," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(11), pages 1992-2001, November.
    3. Wei Pan & Ying Guo & Wenji Zhang & Lei Jin & Shujie Liao, 2018. "Order policy for emergency medicine with return uncertainty in a closed-loop supply chain," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-24, October.
    4. Ülkü, M. Ali & Gürler, Ülkü, 2018. "The impact of abusing return policies: A newsvendor model with opportunistic consumers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 124-133.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Linh, Cao To & Hong, Yushin, 2009. "Channel coordination through a revenue sharing contract in a two-period newsboy problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(3), pages 822-829, November.
    2. Ohmura, Shota & Matsuo, Hirofumi, 2016. "The effect of risk aversion on distribution channel contracts: Implications for return policies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 29-40.
    3. Terry A. Taylor, 2002. "Supply Chain Coordination Under Channel Rebates with Sales Effort Effects," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(8), pages 992-1007, August.
    4. Frank Youhua Chen & Candace Arai Yano, 2010. "Improving Supply Chain Performance and Managing Risk Under Weather-Related Demand Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(8), pages 1380-1397, August.
    5. Yao, Z. & Leung, Stephen C.H. & Lai, K.K., 2008. "Analysis of the impact of price-sensitivity factors on the returns policy in coordinating supply chain," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 275-282, May.
    6. Hua, Zhongsheng & Li, Sijie, 2008. "Impacts of demand uncertainty on retailer's dominance and manufacturer-retailer supply chain cooperation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 697-714, October.
    7. Wang, Yulan & Zipkin, Paul, 2009. "Agents' incentives under buy-back contracts in a two-stage supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 525-539, August.
    8. Jörnsten, Kurt & Lise Nonås, Sigrid & Sandal, Leif & Ubøe, Jan, 2012. "Transfer of risk in the newsvendor model with discrete demand," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 404-414.
    9. Daniel Granot & Shuya Yin, 2005. "On the effectiveness of returns policies in the price‐dependent newsvendor model," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(8), pages 765-779, December.
    10. Hwan Lee, Chang & Rhee, Byong-Duk, 2010. "Coordination contracts in the presence of positive inventory financing costs," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 331-339, April.
    11. Li, Guo & Li, Lin & Sethi, Suresh P. & Guan, Xu, 2019. "Return strategy and pricing in a dual-channel supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 153-164.
    12. Wang, Charles X. & Benaroch, Michel, 2004. "Supply chain coordination in buyer centric B2B electronic markets," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 113-124, November.
    13. Yingxue Zhao & Tsan-Ming Choi & T. C. E. Cheng & Shouyang Wang, 2017. "Mean-risk analysis of wholesale price contracts with stochastic price-dependent demand," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 257(1), pages 491-518, October.
    14. Hu, Fei & Lim, Cheng-Chew & Lu, Zudi, 2013. "Coordination of supply chains with a flexible ordering policy under yield and demand uncertainty," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 686-693.
    15. Chen, Jing, 2011. "Returns with wholesale-price-discount contract in a newsvendor problem," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 104-111, March.
    16. Jeong, In-Jae & Jorge Leon, V., 2012. "A serial supply chain of newsvendor problem with safety stocks under complete and partial information sharing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 412-419.
    17. Zou, Xuxia & Pokharel, Shaligram & Piplani, Rajesh, 2008. "A two-period supply contract model for a decentralized assembly system," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 257-274, May.
    18. Chen, Kebing & Xiao, Tiaojun, 2011. "Ordering policy and coordination of a supply chain with two-period demand uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 215(2), pages 347-357, December.
    19. Daozhi Zhao & Zhibao Li, 2018. "The impact of manufacturer’s encroachment and nonlinear production cost on retailer’s information sharing decisions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 264(1), pages 499-539, May.
    20. Choi, Tsan-Ming & Li, Duan & Yan, Houmin, 2008. "Mean-variance analysis of a single supplier and retailer supply chain under a returns policy," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(1), pages 356-376, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:58:y:2007:i:3:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602157. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.