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Managing Product Returns

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Data-driven Retailing

Part of the book series: Management for Professionals ((MANAGPROF))

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Abstract

The advent of online shopping brought convenience to customers and bigger markets to retailers. It did however create a backwash of negative environmental effects, and inflated transaction costs. A big part of this is overpackaging and fast shipping. Customer is king however, and the trend toward more and more online buying is unlikely to reverse. This chapter discusses a data-driven way in which both the environmental impact and the costs associated with online retail can be reduced: preventing product returns.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Sect. 5.5.1 for a brief discussion of bootstrapping methods that can be used for this purpose.

  2. 2.

    See Sect. 3.5 for more on the topic of differential pricing.

References

  1. Calma, J. Free returns come with an environmental cost - the verge. Accessed 22 Jan 2021.

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  2. Khusainova, G. There is no such thing as a free return. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gulnazkhusainova/2019/03/28/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-free-return/. Accessed 22 Jan 2021.

  3. Schiffer, J. The unsustainable cost of free returns — vogue business. https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/returns-rising-costs-retail-environmental. Accessed 22 Jan 2021.

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Kerkhove, LP. (2022). Managing Product Returns. In: Data-driven Retailing. Management for Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12962-9_6

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