考虑策略型消费者和退货的零售商定价和订货决策研究

The Retailer’s Decision Problem Considering Heterogeneous Strategic Consumers’ Non-defective Returns

考虑策略型消费者对产品估值的异质性和无缺陷退货行为,应用理性预期(RE)均衡构建了两期决策模型,引入产品的耐用性参数,得到了允许(不允许)无缺陷退货两种模式下零售商的定价区间和订货策略。研究发现,产品的耐用性越弱,零售商可制定的价格越高;高类型的消费者越多,零售商定价越高;产品折扣率越低,第二阶段购买的消费者越多;零售商允许消费者无缺陷退货时,消费者退货成本越低,零售商定价越高。在两种模式下,产品定价与其耐用性程度呈负相关,当产品具备高度潮流性特征时,不允许退货更占优势;随商品耐用性程度的提升,允许退货带来的优势逐渐明显,而且退货成本越低,允许退货优势越强;随产品耐用性参数增加,允许退货缓解策略型消费者消极影响的作用愈加明显,退货成本越高,缓解越有效。本文合理刻画了策略型消费者的行为,考虑了消费者跨期决策中产品耐用性的影响,同时考虑了现实中广泛存在的消费者无缺陷退货行为与零售商的退货补贴政策,从而为零售商的定价和订货退货决策提供了理论参考。

The markdown pricing mechanism is usually used in the fashion industry and some other industries with short-lived products.Experienced consumers may choose to buy the products at a discounted price.This strategic behavior increases the uncertainty of demand.In the meanwhile,product durabilityis among the most important factors for retailers to consider,which affects the intertemporal choice of consumers.With non-defective returns being common,creating a good return experience is treated by some retailers as an effective way to compete in consumer service,such as money-back guarantee,which allows consumers to return unsatisfactory products for a full refund.Money-back guarantee may enhance consumers’purchase intentions and ultimately willingness to pay,but whether money-back guarantee can reduce consumer strategic behavior needs to be studied.Two kinds of uncertainty are considered:the uncertainty of product utility(consumers get the utility only when they buy products),as well as the uncertainty of availability(consumers who choose to wait may face the risk of out of stock).Behavioral models with rational expectations(RE)equilibrium are presented to describe the behavior of strategic consumers,which is widely used in related research.First,the benchmark without money-back guarantee is established and the retailer’s reference pricing range and optimal ordering decisions are obtained,and the influence of durability on the retail price is analyzed.Then the situation is analyzed that retailerprovidesmoney-back guarantee in the first stage,some new conclusions are reached.It is demonstrated that:The weaker the durability of the product,the higher the price that the retailer can set.The more consumers ofhigh type,the higher the retailer’s pricing.The lower the discount rate of the product,the more consumers will buy in the second stage.In the case with money-back guarantee,the lower the cost of consumer’s return,the higher the retailer’s pricing.In the two modes,the product pricing is negatively related to its durability.When the product is very fashionable,it is not allowed to return,which is more advantageous.With the improvement of product durability,the advantage of allowing return is gradually obvious,and the lower the return cost is,the stronger the advantage of allowing return is.Furthermore the profits under the two cases are compared,when ordering the equal quantity,the behavior of strategic consumers will reduce the retailer’s expected profit in some circumstances.In the face of the myopic consumers or strategic consumers,money-back guarantee can improve the retailer’s profit,and can alleviate the negative impact of strategic consumers.The behavior of strategic consumers is described reasonably,considering the influence of product durability parameters,the widely existing consumer return behavior and the retailer’s different subsidy policies,trying to provide guidance for the retailer’s pricing and ordering decisions on the basis of complex consumer behavior.