91看片

鈥淗urry! Buy now! Only three left in stock at this low price!鈥�

What type of message does this send to online shoppers? They might be gripped with panic and hurriedly make a purchase. After all, that super-cool pair of shoes was offered at a remarkably low price and only a few remained. This online retailers鈥� 鈥�Hurry! Buy now!鈥� marketing strategy might boost sales, but research shows it鈥檚 costing the company in the long run.

91看片 College supply chain faculty members Rafay Ishfaq and Shashank Rao co-authored research that reveals customers who engage in purchasing products when inventories are advertised as low have a greater chance of returning those products. Shipping is free to customers, but not to retailers.

鈥淲hen retailers are drawing up their marketing strategies for sales, they will try to lower prices to boost the demand and use the inventory availability signal to say, 鈥�We鈥檙e going to run out of this. If you want it, buy it now,鈥欌�� said Ishfaq, an associate professor. 鈥淚f you disconnect that strategy from the operational side of it then what we have shown is you will see more items returned. They might be making sales, but those sales don鈥檛 stick.鈥�

For their efforts, 鈥淪eller-induced scarcity and price leadership: Impact on product returns in the internet supply chain,鈥� was not only published in the elite International Journal of Logistics Management, but was chosen by the journal鈥檚 editorial team as outstanding paper for the 2017 Emerald Literati Award for Excellence. The award will be presented at a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, in July.

鈥淚 am very pleased to receive this recognition for our work,鈥� said Rao, the Jim W. Thompson Associate Professor in Supply Chain Management. 鈥淚t is my hope that our work on this paper, along with our other research, will be of value for online retailers that struggle with managing stock levels especially on their faster moving items.鈥�

Ishfaq and Rao co-authored the paper with University of Alabama professor Uzma Raja.

鈥淲hat might have caught the editorial board鈥檚 attention is that the topic of this paper is unique and applicable to practice,鈥� said Ishfaq. 鈥淲e have identified a phenomenon that people did not know before. Plus, we used a novel data analytics technique in the paper that allowed us to identify the interaction between pricing decisions and limited product availability, and its effect on product returns.鈥�

The team gathered data over a 12-month period from a 鈥渉igh-end fashion鈥� online retailer, which offers free shipping (as most do) and a 30-day return policy for a refund. 鈥淲e found that when products are scarce and you see that there are one or two left, sales jump 鈥� but so do returns,鈥� Ishfaq said regarding these hastily-made purchases. 鈥淎fter you have made a purchase, you re-evaluate that purchase. We call that buyer鈥檚 remorse.

鈥淧roduct returns in e-commerce have been a big issue. From a customer鈥檚 standpoint, everybody wants that flexibility to return items that they don鈥檛 like. But on the retailer side, it鈥檚 an expense.鈥�