供应链的顾客退货政策研究

As e-commerce prevails in the marketplace, product returns have become a major challenge in the retail industry, as they are both significant and costly. Customer returns policies influence customers’ purchase and returns decisions, as well as retailers’ pricing and order decisions, and thus impact the performance and profitability of supply chains. Customer returns have recently attracted much attention in both academia and practice. The rapid advances in data analytics, as well as enhancement of customers’ learning and searching abilities lead to increasing demand in the new research on customer returns policies. Based on this, the proposed research will fill up the gaps by elucidating three new problems: 1) the mechanism of sharing customer returns related information and its impacts in the supply chain; 2) customized and dynamic returns policies, offering different policies to different customers and in different time periods; 3) customer returns policies and coordination mechanism in the multiple-channel supply chain with competition, and impacts on the supply chain. Built upon previous explorations, the proposed research will be done through tools, such as optimization, game theory, and revenue management, as well as methods, such as mathematical deduction, numerical simulation, and empirical study. This research is significant to both academia and practice in revealing new mechanisms of customer returns policies which provide new managerial strategies and implications in the supply chain management.

在电子商务主导的新的市场环境下，国内外零售业普遍面临商品退货量大、退货成本高的严峻挑战。退货政策不但影响顾客的购买和退货决策，同时也影响零售商的定价和库存决策，从而影响供应链的相关决策和绩效。目前顾客退货及退货政策已引起学术界和工业界的密切关注，迫切需要在数据分析技术以及顾客学习能力、信息搜索能力快速增长的时代特征下开展新的研究。基于此背景，本项目将系统地研究该领域尚未解决的三个新问题：1）供应链中顾客退货信息的分享机制及对供应链的影响；2）动态和定制化退货政策的研究；3）顾客退货政策在多渠道供应链中的协调机制及对供应链绩效的影响。本项目将在前期工作积累的基础上，借助优化理论、博弈理论、收益管理等理论工具，采用数理推演、数值计算与实证研究相结合的方法手段进行研究，其研究结果对于揭示新的退货政策机制并据此获取新的供应链优化管理策略具有重要的学术价值和现实意义。

在四年项目执行期内，我们本着立项目的、预期目标和国家自然科学基金委提倡的原则开展工作，按预定计划完成了研究任务。本项目全面系统地研究了供应链中与顾客退货相关的决策问题，在以下三个方面做出了学术贡献。第一，系统研究了多种供应链结构下的顾客退货政策，及考虑顾客退货的供应链协调和共赢机制；第二，系统研究了定价主导、期权订货合同、搭便车、平台代销等多种商业情境下的顾客退货政策及其对供应链相关决策的影响机理；第三，研究了供应链中零售商对顾客退货信息的分享机制、制造商对退货信息的获取机制以及退货信息分享对供应链绩效的影响。项目成果对供应链管理领域和顾客退货领域的研究有着积极的贡献。在理论成果上，项目组在EJOR、IJPE、IJPR、TRE、OMEGA、Electronic Markets、JORS、ANOR等国际权威和主流期刊上发表20篇英文论文，其中SSCI收录11篇，SCI收录20篇。另外，项目负责人还参与出版案例1本。在应用价值上，本项目的研究成果能够为零售业（线上、线下）的商业实施提供直接指导和决策支持。在学术交流方面，项目组协助举办国际学术会议1次，参加学术会议13人次，邀请海外专家5人次做报告。在人才培养方面，依托本项目联合培养4名博士生（已授学位）、接收3位国内访问学者进行合作研究。