Study On Return Policy Of Cross-border E-commerce Platform Under The Concern Of Consumer Fairness

With the widespread popularity of the Internet and the continuous improvement of the logistics system,consumers are becoming increasingly skilled in purchasing overseas products through cross-border e-commerce platforms.In cross-border e-commerce transactions,consumers are at a relative disadvantage in terms of information and lack of trust,which will affect consumers’ shopping experience and eventually lead to the decision to return goods.With the deepening of consumers’ understanding of cross-border e-commerce platforms,they can more clearly measure whether the transaction is fair.When consumers think that cross-border e-commerce platforms gain too much profit from the sale of goods,they will feel that the transaction is unfair and make the decision to return the goods.For cross-border e-commerce platforms,providing return service can reduce the risk of consumers buying unsatisfactory products and increase their purchase intention,but it may also be accompanied by more returns,resulting in loss of revenue for cross-border e-commerce platforms.Therefore,are cross-border e-commerce platforms more willing to provide return guarantees in the face of consumers pursuing fair transactions?This paper first summarizes the status quo of return policies of cross-border e-commerce platforms in China.Then,based on the consumer utility function,the decision models of cross-border e-commerce platforms under different return policies are constructed considering the two situations of fairness neutrality and fairness concerns of consumers,and the optimal pricing,market demand and profit of cross-border e-commerce platforms under different circumstances are obtained.Numerical examples are used to verify the validity of the mathematical derivation results.Through numerical simulation,the impact of whether consumers are concerned about fairness on the pricing,order quantity and profit of cross-border e-commerce platforms is respectively compared when cross-border e-commerce platforms do not provide return policy and when cross-border e-commerce platforms do provide return policy.Finally,the influence of fairness concern coefficient and consumer satisfaction on the decision-making of cross-border e-commerce platforms is discussed,so as to obtain the decision of whether cross-border e-commerce platforms provide return policies under the influence of different factors.The main research conclusions are as follows:(1)When the cross-border e-commerce platform does not provide return service,the behavior of consumers concerned about fairness will reduce the platform’s earnings.When consumers pursue fair trading,they will compare their net utility and marginal profit of cross-border e-commerce platform when buying imported products.If cross-border e-commerce platform prices imported products too high,consumers will choose not to buy them.Therefore,cross-border e-commerce platform has to lower the price of imported products and transfer part of profits to consumers in the face of consumers concerned about fairness.Make up for the transaction risk brought by no return service to consumers,to avoid a large loss of consumers.(2)When cross-border e-commerce platforms provide return service,consumers’ fair concern behavior can improve the pricing of imported products and increase the profits of cross-border e-commerce platforms.The cross-border e-commerce platform provides return service,which greatly reduces the discomfort and transaction risk of consumers receiving unsatisfactory products.For the consideration of equal transaction,consumers increase the expected price of imported products.At the same time,the returned product still has a residual value.The larger the residual value of the product,the smaller the return cost of the cross-border e-commerce platform.The cross-border e-commerce platform will naturally increase the purchase amount of the imported product,and the platform profits will increase accordingly.(3)The greater the consumers’ concern coefficient for fairness,the more sensitive they are to the equality of the transaction.In order to attract consumers to buy,the pricing,purchase volume and profit of imported products on the platform also decrease with the increase of the consumers’ concern for fairness.In the face of consumers’ pursuit of fair transactions,cross-border e-commerce platforms can set higher product prices and obtain higher profits when providing return services due to the increase of return costs and good after-sales service.Therefore,cross-border e-commerce platforms can provide return services for consumers who are concerned about fairness.(4)The improvement of consumer satisfaction will lead to the increase in the pricing of imported products on cross-border e-commerce platforms,the increase in the amount of platform procurement and the increase in the profits of cross-border e-commerce platforms.As consumers are more and more satisfied with imported products,they are willing to pay a higher price for the products and recommend the imported products to other consumers to attract more potential customers and expand the market demand for the products,thus increasing profits.In the face of consumers who pursue transaction equality,the improvement of satisfaction means fewer returns,and the cost of processing returned products for cross-border e-commerce platforms is reduced.Therefore,both sides are concerned about fair behavior.After considering the satisfaction of consumers,the profit of cross-border e-commerce platforms when they provide return service is still higher than that without return service.Based on the above research results,relevant suggestions are put forward from four aspects: consumer fairness concerns,consumer product satisfaction,accelerating logistics cooperation and development,and establishing and perfecting credit system,aiming at providing reference and guidance for cross-border e-commerce platforms to formulate return policies.