Customer return policies for experience goods

被引:138
作者
Che, YK
机构
[1] Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
关键词
D O I
10.2307/2950557
中图分类号
F8 [财政、金融];
学科分类号
0202 ;
摘要
This paper studies the economic rationale for customer return policies, by focusing on the ''experience goods'' aspect of many products. Return policies allow consumers to defer their purchasing decisions until after they gain some experience with goods. In so doing, they insure consumers against ex post loss, which allows a monopoly seller to charge more than otherwise. It is shown that the seller adopts the return policy when consumers are highly risk averse or retail costs are high. Consumers are strictly better off under the return policy, but there is too little adoption of the policy in equilibrium.
引用
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页码:17 / 24
页数:8
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