Channel coordination with manufacturer’s return policies within a newsvendor framework

The saliency of returns in today’s business world is unquestionable, in such items as toys, Christmas decorations, books, seasonal/fashion items and the like. This is largely due to the high economic benefits prevalent in some industries today and to the increasing opportunities for resale in secondary and global markets. This paper attempts to model the profitability of returns policy in presence of a secondary market, to a profit-maximizing manufacturer in a newsvendor framework. The returns policy applies both for the unsold merchandise left at the end of the selling season and the items returned by the unsatisfied customers within the specified time period. With a returns policy, the manufacturer shares the risks of demand uncertainty, in turn assuaged by the availability of secondary market. The manufacturer’s decision is to arrive at an optimal wholesale price and the returns policy, based on the retailer’s reaction on that offer. The retailer in turn optimizes the retail price and the order quantity to meet a price-dependent uncertain demand. This set of optimal policies has then been contrasted to that obtained from maximizing the combined profit of the manufacturer and of the retailer. The key question in the comparison has been clearly answered. The total combined profit that coordinates the policies of both channels exceeds that of the sum of the profits obtained independently.