Return Strategy of E-Commerce Platform Based on Green and Sustainable Development
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper “Return Strategy of E-commerce Platform Based on Green and Sustainable Development” investigates the return strategy of the e-commerce platform and its impact on environment and consumer utility. To achieve this aim, it adopts the Stackelberg game model. I have the following suggestions for the authors to improve the quality of their study. First, in the introduction, before presenting the study’s aim and the research questions, the authors should explain the research gaps. In addition, the authors present an introduction section, in which the integration of social, managerial, and environmental issues should be better analysed. In fact, in this present version this section neglects some valuable recent contributions in the body of knowledge, and therefore the authors should work more to update the literature background (e.g. DOI: 10.3390/su132111756). It may be interesting to highlight in that regard that while costs are immediate, their returns may be on the longer term (different scope in terms of time) and refer to issues considered as externalities for the single organisation (different scope in terms of actors involved in intra-organisational management process). I suggest improving the discussion of findings: the authors should describe more in details if and how their application converges or diverges from other approaches. Policy implications are missing. I suggest straightening the practical contribution of the research. Moreover, the authors should explain the limitations of the study and the future research directions. Notably, as for the future contributions and implications, I suggest highlighting the potential role of sustainability and digital transition issues as a future research direction for the topic investigated (e.g. DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122222; DOI: 10.3390/su12198112). Finally, proofreading in different sections is needed.
Proofreading in different sections is needed.
Author Response
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Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The study discusses the product return strategy for green and sustainable development. But, the study does not have novelty to publish. The major drawbacks of the study are as follows:
1. The demand of the model is linear. Also, objective functions in Equations (3) and (4) are linear (except for one decision variable). I could not find any novelty in the model.
2. Then, the authors find results by simulation. What is necessary to use simulation in the simplest objective functions, which do not have any merit?
3. What is the complexity of the model?
4. What is the novelty of the model?
Minor comments:
1. All notation is not mentioned in the Notation table.
2. Write all optimum values in a table.
3. Establish the convergence and stability analysis of the result.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review this research paper. Although the topic of this research study is interesting but, I think authors should apply the comments indicated below to increase the quality of research justification, contributions, and findings.
First of all, the similarity report indicates a high level of similarity (31% https://www.turnitin.com) so I suggest reducing the similarity first of all.
Abstract
A better presentation of the aim of the paper and what is new and original for this paper. Add please review the similarity of the abstract:
Abstract: The product secondary packaging and transportation caused by online returns, lead to a 8 large amount of resources waste and environmental damage, which are not conducive to the green 9 and sustainable development of enterprises. As consumers become more aware of environmental 10 protection, their purchasing and returning behaviors will also change, prompting e-commerce plat-11 forms to adjust their return strategies. In this context, the Stackelberg game model is constructed 12 based on the two behaviors: environmental protection publicity of the e-commerce platform and 13 consumer return. And the return strategy of the e-commerce platform and its impact on environ-14 ment and consumer utility are investigated. The results show that the return rate increases when 15 the e-commerce platform increases the retail price, but decreases with the environmental protection 16 publicity increases. Consumers with higher environmental awareness are more willing to pay for 17 environmentally friendly products at higher prices, and these consumers rarely participate in prod-18 uct returns. When the reduction coefficient of environmental impact is large, the return freight in-19 surance introduced by the e-commerce platform is the most beneficial to environmental protection, 20 and the consumer utility is the highest at this time; when the coefficient is small, the return freight 21 borne by the consumer is more conducive to environmental protection, and the consumer utility is 22 the lowest.
Introduction
Pleas argument why is this study necessary? Explain what the originality and value of the proposed research. Paper research gap and originality should be better presented at the end of introduction section. This should be stated in the final paragraphs of introduction and conclusion sections.
Literature Review
Please review the next paragraphs for similarity:
With the gradual improvement of consumers' environmental protection preferences, 105 consumers are more inclined to green consumption, which makes enterprises pay more 106 attention to improving the greenness of products, that is, consumers' environmental pro-107 tection preferences affect the decision-making behavior of enterprises. In recent years, 108 many scholars have done more in-depth research on consumer environmental protection 109 awareness. Ghosh et al.[10] studied the green subsidy scheme across the supply chain struc-110 ture and found that the green level of products and supply chain profits were positively 111 correlated with consumers' environmental protection preferences.
The introduction of return freight insurance has helped boost sales for online retail-149 ers. Many scholars have studied the return freight insurance. Zhao et al.[19] studied the 150 online shopping situation under the background of uncertain demand and uncertain con-151 sumer valuation, and compared the return freight strategies of consumers and retailers. 152 The research shows that the return freight strategy is related to the amount of returned 153 goods and the proportion of non-destructive returned goods. Liang et al.[20] studied the 154 fraudulent claims involved in return freight insurance and developed an automated fraud 155 detection solution based on graph learning algorithm. Li et al.[21] studied the impact of 156 return freight insurance (RFI) on online platforms, studied the situation of two competing 157 third-party retailers providing RFI to consumers, and found that RFI usually raises the 158 price level of the platform. Geng et al.[22] constructed a profit model according to product 159 fitting uncertainty, and gave the optimal pricing strategy including insurance premium 160 and compensation. Zhao et al.[23] studied the impact of return freight insurance on the 161 development of e-commerce of agricultural products and conducted an empirical study 162 from the perspective of sellers. The study concludes that the impact of return freight in-163 surance on online retailers is significantly positive, regardless of their solvency, opera-164 tional ability or profitability.
Most of the previous literature focused on how enterprises adjust the optimal prod-175 uct price and return freight strategy to maximize profits, however, they rarely considered 176 the environmental impact caused by consumer return behavior. In our study, we added 177 environmental factors into our model, analyzed the impact of return behavior on the en-178 vironment, and studied how e-commerce platforms should make decisions to maximize 179 their own benefits while minimizing the environmental impact. 180
With the increasingly serious environmental problems, the research scope of green 182 supply chain keeps expanding, involving product pricing, contract coordination and 183 other aspects. Among them, Dey et al.[27] considered three procurement scenarios in the 184 vertical game of manufacturer-led Stackelberg game model, and studied the optimal retail 185 pricing and procurement decision of retailers under the framework of two-phase supply 186 chain. As well as manufacturer's wholesale pricing and product greening level decision. 187 Su et al.[28] took the low-carbon preference of consumers as the background, studied the 188 relationship between the green preference of consumers and the pricing of supply chain 189 members in the case of different government subsidies, and discussed the relationship 190 between the government subsidy coefficient and the optimal decision based on different 191 power structures. Meng et al.[29] proposed a green supply chain model with dual-channel 192 structure considering consumers' green preference and channel preference. In addition, it 193 also considered whether there were government subsidies or not, and discussed the prod-194 uct collaborative pricing strategy in dual-channel green supply chain and the influence of 195 government subsidies and consumers' dual preferences on product price and demand. 196 Zhang et al.[30] studied the channel coordination problem of a simplified single-channel 197 supply chain consisting of refiners and retailers, taking into account government inter-198 vention, green investment, and consumer green preferences in constructing the model, 199
and demonstrated that the proposed TPT contract could achieve global supply chain op-200 timization and contribute to green improvements. Basiri et al.[31] studied the channel co-201 ordination problem of green supply chain with substitutable products, built three models 202 of decentralized decision making, centralized decision making and collaborative decision 203 making, and showed that the decentralized decision making model had the worst results, 204 while the collaborative model could create a greener channel and ensure higher profits for 205 the members of the channel. Heydari et al.[32] proposed a hybrid contract of "green cost 206 sharing" and "benefit sharing" (HGRS) to solve the problem of channel coordination and 207 pricing of green supply chain, in which manufacturers have the ability to improve the 208 green quality of products through investment under the consumers' environmental pro-209 tection awareness. Studies show that the proposed HGRS contract can achieve channel 210 coordination. Moreover, both parties can obtain more profits compared to decentralized 211 decision making. Monda et al.[33] built a two-stage closed-loop green supply chain model 212 and studied the impact of green innovation, marketing efforts and second-hand product 213 collection rate on supply chain decision-making. The study found that when manufactur-214 ers and retailers collect second-hand products at the same time, the supply chain will give 215 a better response. And supply chain performance can be improved by encouraging green 216 innovation or marketing efforts or both. Jin et al.[34] studied the pricing and coordination 217 of reverse supply chain with competitive online and offline recycling channels, estab-218 lished centralized and decentralized game models based on different power structures, 219 and proposed a coordination mechanism. Finally, by analyzing the relationship between 220 channel power structure and recycling channel competition, the basis for strategic deci-221 sion-making of supply chain was provided. 222
The above studies on green and sustainable supply chain mainly focus on product 223 pricing and contract selection, while few articles focus on the impact of product returns 224 on green and sustainable supply chain. This paper considers the impact of return behav-225 iors on the environment when consumers are environmentally friendly, and introduces 226 repurchase contract to study the pricing decisions of manufacturers and e-commerce plat-227 forms. 228
Also, pleas add some information about the GAAP in the literature? Why do you study this subject?
Also additional literature:
Fülöp, M. T., Topor, D. I., Căpușneanu, S., Ionescu, C. A., & Akram, U. (2023). Utilitarian and Hedonic Motivation in E-Commerce Online Purchasing Intentions. Eastern European Economics, 1-23.
Lee, J. Y., Yang, Y. S., & Ghauri, P. N. (2023). E-commerce Policy Environment, Digital Platform, and Internationalization of Chinese New Ventures: The Moderating Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic. Management International Review, 63(1), 57-90.
Taherdoost, H., & Madanchian, M. (2023). Blockchain-Based E-Commerce: A Review on Applications and Challenges. Electronics, 12(8), 1889.
Results and Discussions
Are well!
Conclusion and policy recommendations
I suggest a separate part of policy recommendations and a separate part of conclusions. Also I suggest to highlight also the: Managerial Implication; Practical/Social Implications and Future Research. And also to highlight what practical/professional and academic consequences will this study have for the future of scientific literature?
Good Luck!
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate the hard work made by authors to improve the paper according to reviewers' suggestions. I accept the paper in the current form.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments are not resolved yet. Solve the following comments:
The study discusses the product return strategy for green and sustainable development. But, the study does not have novelty to publish. The major drawbacks of the study are as follows:
1. The demand of the model is linear. Also, objective functions in Equations (3) and (4) are linear (except for one decision variable). I could not find any novelty in the model.
2. Then, the authors find results by simulation. What is necessary to use simulation in the simplest objective functions, which do not have any merit?
3. What is the complexity of the model?
4. What is the novelty of the model?
5. Make another title, named Decision variables, in the notation table and write all decision variables.
6. Write all optimum numerical values of decision variables and total profits in a table.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Previously, the model was correct.
Now the model is wrong. A fuzzy function cannot be differentiated like a continuous function!!!
Thus, I reject the paper.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 4
Reviewer 2 Report
Now, the authors remove the uncertainty (previous version) and use a uniform probability distribution function.
Again, the model is wrong. Equations 3 & 4 are wrong.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
