Download or read book Impact of Returns Policies and Group-buying on Channel Coordination written by Thanh Van Tran and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It focuses on the behavior of consumers and explores the role of heterogeneity in their valuation for the product and cost of purchasing via group-buying in the functioning of group-buying services as a price-discrimination device. Finally, the role of group-buying services in improving channel coordination under asymmetric information is studied in Chapter Four. This analysis shows that the availability of group-buying services provides an opportunity for the manufacturer to reduce the informational rents of the retailer arising from its private information about the market condition. Interestingly, the manufacturer can avoid paying these rents and regains the first-best profitability when asymmetry in information exists regarding the relative sizes of consumer segments. In other settings (e.g., when asymmetric information exists regarding consumers' price sensitivity), leveraging the group-buying mechanism nevertheless allows the manufacturer to design a contract that requires lower rents and improves channel coordination to some extent.