Optimal Return Freight Insurance Policies in a Competitive Environment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Abstract: please clearly write your problem in the abstract section.

Background: During the CVOID, the Insurance industry have positive growth based your data.

Based on your study". In addition, these studies have focused on the introduction of RFI and separately 95 analyzed its impact on retailers and dual-channel supply chain coordination, while failing 96 to address the impact of factors such as service effort and retail competition."  Can you explain the theoretical gap in detail that the previous studies did not focus on?

At the end of the background, clearly write the objective of your study.

And also explain the impact of COVID-19 on the insurance industry as well

Based on your research result must write some policy for the insurance company 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper analyzed the impact of retailers’ service efforts on returns, established a duopoly competition game model using three RFI markets, and determined the retailers’ optimal pricing decisions, optimal service effort level decisions, and optimal profits in each RFI market. It compares the retailers’ optimal pricing decisions, optimal service effort decisions, and optimal profits in each RFI market, and identify the relationship between the retailers’ optimal decisions and the degree of competition.

Overall, the authors have investigated an interesting research question. However, I’m concerned with the following issues in the study.

(1)  Abstract: The current version does not highlight the main conclusions or the counterintuitive insights. It only presents the research questions. 

(2)  Introduction

a.     In the latter part of the introduction, the conclusions of the paper are missing.

b.     In general, I personally think the presentation of the Introduction part is too practical. The statement of the motivation for this paper is a little far-fetched, and the logic of the writing needs to be strengthened.

(3)  Literature Review: The literature review section of this paper is missing. Some recent important papers about Return Freight Insurance and related implications are missing, such as Offering return-freight insurance or not: Strategic analysis of an e-seller’s decisions, Omega, 2021; Extracting values from consumer returns: The role of return-freight insurance for competing e-sellers, European Journal of Operational Research, 2022; Manufacturer’s online selling strategies under spillovers from online to offline sales, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2022; Who should pay for return freight in the online retailing? Retailers or consumers, Electronic Commerce Research, 2020, etc.

(4)  Assumptions: On Pages 3-4, the authors present five main model assumptions without any theoretical or practical support.

(5)  Theoretical Contribution: In the part of conclusion, the author spent a lot of time sorting out the research findings. I do not find the theoretical contributions of the research to the existing research field. I think it is necessary for the author to add and highlight the theoretical implications.

(6)  Management Implication: Add some management implications based on the computational results, and add a subsection in the Conclusion section to highlight your management insights.

(7)  Numerical Experiments: On Pages 10 and 13, the authors give some simulation parameters without any clarification. I don’t know whether those parameters within the parameter constraints. Moreover, the qualities of the figures need to be improved

(8)  References: More papers published in recent three years should be added.

(9)  Grammatical Problem: The level of English about this manuscript does not meet the journal’s desired standard. Therefore, language should be greatly improved. There are too many grammatical mistakes and typos. Please carefully revise and improve it.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting topic and I do not have specific comments.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf