关键词: 退款保证, 竞争供应链, 顾客退货, 在线零售商

Abstract: In order to study the impact of refund on competitive supply chain, this paper focuses on the supply chain composed of quality differentiated manufacturers and online retailer. The utility function of quality differentiated products is constructed from the perspective of customer return behavior and the two-stage game model with or without money back guarantee is established respectively.On this basis, the impact of money back guarantee on the product demand of the pricing strategy of both parties and the profit of each enterprise is analyzed. The results show that, the optimal wholesale prices and optimal retail prices of the high quality product are higher than those of the low quality product. The higher high quality product's price leads to the change of demand. Whether or not a money-back guarantee is offered, the difference in profit between competing manufacturers depends on the cost of producing high-quality products. Money-back guarantees encourage more consumers to buy lower-quality products, thus increasing the demand for lower-quality products and decreasing the demand for higher-quality products. Moreover, from the perspective of profit maximization, the impact of money-back guarantee on the profit of each manufacturer depends on the salvage value of returned products, while online retailer can make more profits only when the loss of returned products is low.

Key words: money back guarantee, competitive supply chain, customer returns, online retailer