Often, the return of a product is merely one of a series of transactions that a consumer undertakes in search of a good. Recognizing this, whereas the extant literature views each product return transaction in isolation, we analyze returns as part of a search process: Upon returning a product, customers may immediately purchase an alternative one, which they may later replace with another product, and so on, until they either ultimately keep their last purchase (Keep outcome) or not (No-keep outcome). We call such a sequence of transactions a product return episode. Using data from a consumer electronics retailer, we show that episodic metrics of return behavior better explain managerially relevant measures, such as net customer spending, and offer a richer understanding of returns than commonly used transactional metrics. Our findings suggest that although higher price and larger store assortment both tend to increase the return probability, they also increase the probability of keeping a product at the end of an episode, which may point to profit-improving opportunities for retailers.

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零售中的产品退货情节

通常，产品的退货只是消费者为寻找商品而进行的一系列交易之一。认识到这一点，尽管现有文献孤立地查看了每个产品的退货交易，但我们将退货作为搜索过程的一部分进行了分析：退货后，客户可以立即购买替代产品，以后可以用另一种产品替换，等等。 ，直到他们最终保留上一次购买（保留结果）或不保留（不保留结果）。我们将这样的交易序列称为产品退货事件。使用来自消费类电子产品零售商的数据，我们证明了回报行为的情景指标可以更好地解释与管理相关的指标，例如净客户支出，并且与常用的交易指标相比，可以更好地了解收益。