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Transshipments of cross-channel returned products

Author

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  • Dijkstra, Arjan S.
  • Van der Heide, Gerlach
  • Roodbergen, Kees Jan

Abstract

Companies increasingly employ dual-channeling strategies with online and offline channels to reach customers. The combination of high return rates in e-commerce and the possibility for customers to return products ordered online at any offline store may result in unbalanced inventories. Transshipments can be used to deal with these unbalanced inventories. In this paper we study dynamic policies for transshipment of products that are returned cross-channel from online to offline stores. At the end of each period in a finite sales season, cross-channel returned products can be transshipped back to the online store or kept on-hand at the offline store. Optimal transshipment policies are obtained using a Markov decision process. We introduce a well-performing heuristic based on the expected costs during the sales season, with a maximum deviation of 1.59% from the optimal costs in experiments. Furthermore, we show that in all instances our heuristic outperforms static policies in which products are either always or never shipped back to the online store. We observe that dynamic transshipment policies are more effective than static policies in dealing with imbalances in the initial stock. Dynamic transshipment of cross-channel returns seems to open up possibilities for more effective demand fulfillment of dual-channel companies.

Suggested Citation

  • Dijkstra, Arjan S. & Van der Heide, Gerlach & Roodbergen, Kees Jan, 2019. "Transshipments of cross-channel returned products," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 70-77.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:209:y:2019:i:c:p:70-77
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.09.001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Yan, Shuai & Archibald, Thomas Welsh & Han, Xiaohua & Bian, Yiwen, 2022. "Whether to adopt “buy online and return to store” strategy in a competitive market?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 301(3), pages 974-986.
    3. Jin, Delong & Caliskan-Demirag, Ozgun & Chen, Frank (Youhua) & Huang, Min, 2020. "Omnichannel retailers’ return policy strategies in the presence of competition," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    4. Goedhart, Joost & Haijema, René & Akkerman, Renzo, 2023. "Modelling the influence of returns for an omni-channel retailer," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(3), pages 1248-1263.
    5. Zhang, Peng & Xu, Xiaofeng & Shi, Victor & Zhu, Jing, 2020. "Simultaneous inventory competition and transshipment between retailers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    6. Yang, Guangyong & Ji, Guojun, 2022. "The impact of cross-selling on managing consumer returns in omnichannel operations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    7. Jian Liu & Xinyue Sun & Yanyan Liu, 2022. "Products pricing and return strategies for the dual channel retailers," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 3841-3867, September.

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