Marketing Management : Group 15 Section D

OBSERVATION
A leading e commerce company is facing declining revenues after updating its return policy. The return
policy had been recently changed from conditions applied to no questions asked return policy. The
decision was taken in order to provide better service to customers and have a competitive edge in the
market.

MANAGEMENT PROBLEM
The management was concerned about the declining top line due to increasing returns to the company.
Companys management decided to look up some statistics and found that on an average every 1 in 3
item is returned back, and 66% of the customers read Item Return Policy of the company. The cost
escalation due to higher returns were multifold:
a. Cost of shipping the product to its destination
b. Opportunity cost of not being able to sell the item
c. Administrative cost of returning the customers money
d. Cost of restocking the product with original vendor
The management identified the problem as How do we structure a return policy to reduce return
costs, meanwhile providing maximum value to customers

RESEARCH PROBLEM
The problem statement was forwarded to research team, which was tasked to breakdown the management
problem statement into a valid and cost efficient research problem. In order to effectively answer the
management problem, the research team decided to look into online buying/returning patterns of
customers.
The research problem posited was Why do customers return their products so frequently

OBJECTIVES
The objectives from the research to be conducted are
a. Customers awareness of return policy and return behaviour
b. Relation between return policy and customer loyalty
c. Relation between on call support service and returns
d. Major drivers of returning behaviour
e. Relation between no questions asked return policy and propensity to buy

TASKS TO BE UNDERTAKEN
The research team plans to achieve the research results by using following methods
a. Literature review of existing research on customer returns
b. Experience surveys
c. Focus Group Study
d. Sample Survey