Abstract: The integration of online and offline channels has become a major trend in the new retail environment. The dual-channel e-commerce platforms, such as Walmart, Jingdong, can provide consumers with cross-channel services, allowing them to purchase, pick-up and return goods anytime, anywhere. Cross-channel return service is one of the most widely used services. While cross-channel return service can not only improve consumer satisfaction but also expand market share, not all platforms offer the service. This is because platforms must weigh various factors when making return policy choices, such as potentially higher return costs, the impact on competition between a platform and a seller, and the change in commission revenue. For third-party sellers, adopting cross-channel return services may increase consumers’ willingness to pay, but also entails paying additional service fees to the platform. Considering the interaction between a dual-channel platform and a third-party seller, we study the condition under which the platform can benefit from providing cross-channel return service to the competing sellers, and point out how they can achieve a win-win cooperation by incentivizing the sellers to accept this service. This work proposes management insights for the platforms empowering return services.
We consider a dual-channel platform retailer, which has online and offline self-operated channels, and also opens its online channel to consignment goods from sellers of substitute products. Three game models are developed for the platform and the seller under the following return scenarios: the platform does not provide cross-channel return services, the platform provides and opens cross-channel return services but the sellers do not adopt it, and the platform opens cross-channel return services and the sellers adopt it. The subgame perfect Nash equilibria are obtained by using backward induction. By comparing the equilibrium profits of the platform and the seller under the strategy profile, we study the condition under which the seller applies the platform’s cross-channel return service, the equilibrium return strategies for the platform and the competing seller, and their coordination mechanism. We also analyze the impact of offline return processing cost and cross-selling revenue on the competing parties’ return strategies.
The results show that whether the third-party seller adopts cross-channel return service depends on offline return processing cost and cross-selling revenue, and the third-party seller will have no incentive to adopt cross-channel returns service when cross-selling revenue is low and the platform’s offline return processing cost is high. Furthermore, the platform doesn’t always benefit from opening cross-channel returns service; when offline return processing cost and cross-selling revenue are low, cross-channel return service will benefit the seller at the expense of the platform, so the platform doesn’t offer this service. When the platform offers cross-channel return service, the platform and the seller can achieve a win-win situation from the cross-channel return service only if the cross-selling revenue is high. When the advantage of offline operation is insufficient, that is, cross-selling revenue is low and offline return processing cost is high, the seller will be reluctant to adopt it even if the platform provides cross-channel return service, and at this point the platform charging high service fees has an incentive to design a coordinating mechanism to change the return policy equilibria, so that the seller can reach a cooperation with the platform for the implementation of cross-channel return service. This leads to the management insight that when the operational advantages of the platform’s offline return service are low, the platform can stimulate the seller to adopt cross-channel return service by offering subsidies to the third-party seller, lowering service fees, and other coordinating mechanisms, so as to increase its profit.

Key words: cross-channel return, dual-channel platform, competition and cooperation, return policy, coordination mechanism

摘要： 考虑一个拥有线下渠道的平台零售商能够为线上消费者提供跨渠道退货(即线上购买线下退货)服务,研究平台何时为竞争卖家提供该服务是有利的,何时能够通过激励卖家接受服务实现合作双赢,并分析线下退货处理成本和交叉销售收益对平台与卖家竞合策略的影响。研究发现:平台并不总能从开放跨渠道退货服务中获益,当线下退货处理成本与交叉销售收益均较低时,跨渠道退货服务使卖家获利而平台利润受损,平台不会提供该服务。当平台提供该服务时,只有在交叉销售收益较高的情况下,平台与卖家才能从实施跨渠道退货中获得双赢。当线下运营优势不足,即交叉销售收益较低且线下退货成本较高时,即使平台提供跨渠道退货服务卖家也不愿意采用,而此时平台可以通过收取高额服务费改变退货均衡,使得卖家与平台达成合作实施跨渠道退货,改善供应链整体利润。

关键词: 跨渠道退货, 双渠道平台, 竞争合作, 退货策略, 协调机制