Return freight insurance strategies for the online retailer and insurance company
Return freight insurance strategies for the online retailer and insurance company
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DOI：
10.1016/j.ijpe.2022.108752
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发表时间：
2022-12
影响因子：
12
通讯作者：
Xiaoxiao Li;Jie Gao;Yiwen Bian
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Xiaoxiao Li;Jie Gao;Yiwen Bian
在网上购物中，由于质量不确定和退货运费，顾客经常表现出相当大的犹豫。作为回应，在线零售商可能会从保险公司购买退货运费保险（RFI）服务，该服务在客户退货时对其进行补偿。通过RFI服务，保险公司通常会核实零售商发布的质量信息，以避免过多的客户退货。因此，RFI服务不仅减少了客户的退货运费，而且为客户提供了一个不完美的质量信号，以减轻质量的不确定性。本文用信号效率来表征RFI的不完全信号效应，并建立了一个博弈论模型来研究保险公司和零售商的RFI策略。我们的研究结果揭示了信号效率和回程运费如何驱动他们的RFI策略。保险公司对销售高质量产品的零售商收取极低的RFI保费；对于销售低质量产品的零售商，对于退货运费中等或信号效率较低的零售商，RFI溢价较大。销售高质量产品的零售商通常采用RFI服务。销售低质量产品的零售商在退货运费较大的情况下不采用RFI服务。在退货运费中等的情况下，低质量产品的零售商在信号效率中等时更倾向于RFI服务。在退货运费较小的情况下，只有当信号效率较大时，低质量产品的零售商才会采用RFI服务。我们的研究结果为零售商销售不同质量产品的RFI服务的流行提供了新的解释，并为保险公司的RFI保费策略提供了启示。
In online purchases, customers often exhibit considerable hesitations due to quality uncertainty and return freight fees. In response, online retailers may buy the return freight insurance (RFI) service from insurance companies that compensate the customers when they return the purchased item. With the RFI service, insurance companies generally verify the quality information posted by the retailer to avoid excessive customer returns. Thus, the RFI service not only reduces the customer’s return freight but also acts as an imperfect quality signal for customers to mitigate quality uncertainty. We characterize the RFI’s imperfect signaling effect by signal efficiency, and develop a game-theoretic model to investigate the RFI strategies of insurance companies and the retailer. Our results shed light on how signal efficiency and return freight fees drive their RFI strategies. The insurance companies charge an extremely small RFI premium for the retailer selling high-quality products; for the retailer selling low-quality products, the RFI premium becomes large for those with a medium return freight fee, or with a small signal efficiency. The retailer selling high-quality products always adopts the RFI service. The retailer selling low-quality products does not adopt the RFI service when the return freight fee is large. Given a medium return freight fee, the retailer with low-quality products prefers the RFI service when the signal efficiency is medium. Given a small return freight fee, only when the signal efficiency is large does the retailer with low-quality products adopt the RFI service. Our results provide new explanations for the prevalence of the RFI service for retailers selling products of different quality, and shed light on the RFI premium strategy for insurance companies.