时间不一致下零售商的退货政策

Retailers’ Return Policies in the Event of Time-Inconsistent

摘要: 本文从时间不一致偏好的视角出发，探讨商家的退货政策对消费者包围式购买行为的影响及其利润优化策略。随着电子商务的快速发展，消费者因产品匹配不确定性而采取的包围式购买行为显著增加，导致商家面临高昂的退货成本与库存管理压力。本文通过引入行为经济学中的时间不一致偏好理论，构建动态博弈模型，分析消费者在产品质量不确定性和时间不一致性下的购买决策(单一购买或包围式购买)，并研究商家在不同退款策略(全额退款与部分退款)下的利润函数。研究发现，消费者的时间不一致偏好会显著影响其对退货政策的敏感度，进而改变购买行为模式；商家通过调整退款策略可有效平衡退货成本与销售收益，其中部分退款策略在特定条件下能够抑制过度退货并实现利润最大化。本文为商家应对包围式购买挑战提供了理论依据与管理启示。

Abstract: This paper explores the impact of merchants’ return policies on consumers’ bracketing purchase behavior and their profit optimization strategies from the perspective of time-inconsistent preferences. With the rapid development of e-commerce, consumers’ bracketing purchase behavior due to product matching uncertainty has increased significantly, resulting in merchants facing high return costs and inventory management pressure. In this paper, we introduce the time-inconsistent preferences theory in bracketing purchasing behavior, construct a dynamic game model to analyze consumers’ purchasing decisions (single purchase or bracketing purchase) under product quality uncertainty and time inconsistency, and study merchants’ profit functions under different refund strategies (full refund vs. partial refund). It is found that consumers’ time-inconsistent preferences significantly affect their sensitivity to return policies, which in turn changes their purchasing behaviors. Merchants can effectively balance the cost of returns and sales revenue by adjusting their refund strategies, with partial refund strategies being able to curb over-returns and maximize profits under certain conditions. This paper provides a theoretical basis and management insights for merchants to deal with the challenge of enveloped purchasing.