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Information Acquisition and the Excess Refund Puzzle

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  • Steven A. Matthews

    (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

  • Nicola Persico

    (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

A buyer can learn her value for a returnable experience good by trying it out, with the option of returning the good for whatever refund the seller offers. Sellers tend to offer a “no questions asked†refund for such returns, a money back guarantee. The refund is often too generous, generating inefficiently high levels of returns. We present two versions of a model of a returnable goods market. In the Information Acquisition Model, consumers are ex ante identical and uninformed of their private values for the good. The firm then offers a generous refund in order to induce the consumers to learn their values by purchasing and trying the good out, rather than by doing costly research prior to purchasing. In the Screening Model, some consumers have negligible costs of becoming informed about their values prior to purchasing, and always do so; other consumers have prohibitive costs of acquiring pre-purchase information and always stay uninformed. The firm’s optimal screening menu may then contain only a single contract, one that specifies a generous refund, and hence a high purchase price, in order to weaken the incentive constraint of the informed consumers.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven A. Matthews & Nicola Persico, 2005. "Information Acquisition and the Excess Refund Puzzle," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-015, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
  • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:05-015
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Heski Bar‐Isaac & Guillermo Caruana & Vicente Cuñat, 2010. "Information Gathering and Marketing," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 375-401, June.
    2. Leela Nageswaran & Soo-Haeng Cho & Alan Scheller-Wolf, 2020. "Consumer Return Policies in Omnichannel Operations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5558-5575, December.
    3. Heiman, Amir & Just, David R. & McWilliams, Bruce P. & Zilberman, David, 2015. "A prospect theory approach to assessing changes in parameters of insurance contracts with an application to money-back guarantees," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 105-117.
    4. Jeffrey D. Shulman & Anne T. Coughlan & R. Canan Savaskan, 2010. "Optimal Reverse Channel Structure for Consumer Product Returns," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1071-1085, 11-12.
    5. Heiman, Amir & Ofir, Chezy, 2010. "The effects of imbalanced competition on demonstration strategies," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 175-187.
    6. Jeffrey D. Shulman & Anne T. Coughlan & R. Canan Savaskan, 2011. "Managing Consumer Returns in a Competitive Environment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(2), pages 347-362, February.
    7. Omri Ben-Shahar & Eric A. Posner, 2011. "The Right to Withdraw in Contract Law," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 115-148.
    8. Ringbom, Staffan & Shy, Oz, 2008. "Refunds and collusion in service industries," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 502-516.
    9. Zhang, Jun, 2013. "Revenue maximizing with return policy when buyers have uncertain valuations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 452-461.
    10. Mandal, Prasenjit & Basu, Preetam & Saha, Kushal, 2021. "Forays into omnichannel: An online retailer’s strategies for managing product returns," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(2), pages 633-651.
    11. Hui Xiong & Ying-Ju Chen, 2014. "Product Line Design with Seller-Induced Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 784-795, March.
    12. Steven A. Matthews & Nicola Persico, 2007. "Information Acquisition and Refunds for Returns," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 54, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    13. Tridib Sharma & Levent Ülkü, 2015. "Money-Back Guarantees," Working Papers 1502, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    information acquisition; refunds; money back guarantees; returnable experience goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

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