Money-back Guarantee Research Articles

Does the uptake of wagering inducements predict impulse betting on sport?

Background and aimsMarketing inducements for addictive products, such as wagering, can prompt impulse purchasing by triggering consumption reminders, urges, and cravings. Wagering inducements incentivize betting by providing bonus bets, money-back guarantees, deposits into betting accounts, and discounts. Their promotion during sporting events, push marketing efforts directed at consumers, and ease of uptake at the point-of-sale, may trigger betting on impulse. This study examined whether the uptake of wagering inducements predicted impulse betting on sport.MethodsAustralian sports bettors (N = 1,813) completed an online survey measuring their proportion of planned bets, impulse bets before match commencement, and impulse bets during play; frequency of using wagering inducements; and several psychological, behavioral, and demographic variables.ResultsMore frequent users of wagering inducements had a greater tendency to place impulse in-play bets, which were also predicted by problem gambling, higher buying impulsiveness, higher frequency of watching sports, younger age, and higher educational status. Sports bettors with a greater tendency to place impulse bets before match commencement also tended to have higher buying impulsiveness and to be younger, but they used inducements less frequently, and tended to be female, less-educated and non-problem, moderate risk, or problem gamblers.Discussion and conclusionsUptake of wagering inducements appeared to be particularly effective in stimulating impulse in-play betting among problem gamblers and frequent sports viewers. These results suggest that a more cautious approach to the regulation of both in-play bets and wagering inducements may be required to better protect young adults from gambling problems and harm.

A holistic understanding of the prospects of financial loss to enhance shopper's trust to search, recommend, speak positive and frequently visit an online shop

While studying Internet-based consumer's perspective, there appears to be no direct research on the mediating role of trust in the relationship between perceived financial risk and purchase intention. The existing literature is limited to fewer items of construct to measure perceived financial risk, which means that a comprehensive study is required on this topic. In this regards, this study measured perceived financial risk using 12 different items such as loss of credit card information, error-based purchases, no money-back guarantee, hidden charges, monetary loss, sales fraud, over-charged for product delivery fees, product delivery loss, over-charged online payments, high prices in comparison to traditional stores, low discounts in comparison to traditional stores, and wrong purchases. The study's proposed model is to highlight the role of trust in web vendors in the relationship between online consumers’ perceived financial risk and their purchasing intention. To test that proposed model, an online survey based on empirical study was conducted on Malaysian online consumers. From the sample size of 400, the results of this study revealed that perceived financial risk of online consumers does influence their trust in web vendors and online purchase intention. A consumer's intention to purchase online is also influenced by their trust in the web vendor. And there exist a mediating role of trust in web vendors in the relationship between perceived financial risk and online purchase intention. Such results offer evidence that e-business managers should consider their consumer's perceived financial risk while establishing their trust and purchasing intentions.

Money-back guarantee warranty policy with preventive maintenance strategy for sensor-embedded remanufactured products

In today’s global environment, technology is constantly evolving. Being able to stay up-to-date with the very latest technological advances can be extremely hard to accomplish. As a result of these changes and developments in technology, which often come unexpectedly, consumers are frequently tempted to update their devices to the very latest model. The result is that the life cycle of a product is becoming shorter and shorter than before. Manufacturers attempt to respond to consumers’ concerns involving environmental issues as well as the more governmentally stringent environmental legislations by establishing facilities which include the minimization of the totality of waste relocated to landfills by recovering materials and components from returned, or End-Of-Life products and reuse them to build a remanufactured product, and/or novel components. With the rapid growth of interest in remanufactured products’ market, offering warranty for remanufactured products and components is becoming a necessity for remanufacturer in order to meet customers’ requirement and as a marketing mechanism. During that process, maintenance policies are of great importance in order to reduce the warranty cost on the remanufacturer. In this paper, an optimization simulation model for remanufactured items sold with one-dimensional non-renewing money-back guarantee (MBG) warranty policy is proposed from the view of remanufacturer, in which, an End-Of-Life product is subjected to upgrade action at the end of its past life and during the warranty period, preventive maintenance actions are carried out when the remaining life of the product reaches a pre-specified value so that the remanufacturer’s expected profit can be maximized. Finally, a numerical example and design of experiment analysis are provided to demonstrate the proposed approach.

Money-back guarantee and personalized pricing in a Stackelberg manufacturer's dual-channel supply chain

We examine customer returns and pricing strategies in a manufacturer's Stackelberg supply chain using game-theoretic models. In the supply chain, the manufacturer sells a high-quality product through an independent retailer, and considers whether or not to open a direct channel to sell a similar but lower-quality product. We discuss how the retailer and the manufacturer with a direct channel should choose their customer returns and pricing strategies. We show that when the retailer implements a personalized pricing strategy (PPS), the addition of the direct channel benefits the manufacturer but always makes the retailer worse off, and this differs from the case when the retailer adopts a uniform pricing strategy. We find that if its net salvage value of the product is positive, the retailer should offer a Money-Back Guarantee (MBG) and implement PPS. In the direct channel, however, the manufacturer may offer an MBG even if the net salvage value is negative, and may implement PPS only if customer satisfaction in the direct channel is low. Under certain conditions, a win-win may result from both the retailer's adoption of MBG and PPS and the manufacturer's adoption of MBG in its direct channel, while the adoption of PPS by the manufacturer in its direct channel may lead to lose-lose for the retailer and the manufacturer. The implications of customer returns and pricing strategies, as well as the impact of these two strategies on prices, demands, and profits, are discussed.

Performance-Based Risk-Sharing Arrangements for Pharmaceutical Products in the United States: A Systematic Review.

Value for money is a growing necessity in today's U.S. health care system in which drug spending is expected to increase by an average rate of 6.7% yearly through 2025. In response to uncertainty about real-world clinical and economic outcomes for many drugs, health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have implemented various contracts and arrangements with drug manufacturers that can collectively be described as performance-based risk-sharing arrangements (PBRSAs). Little is known about U.S.-specific PBRSAs for drugs. To conduct a systematic review of U.S.-specific PBRSAs for drugs to describe (a) trends over time and (b) key aspects including outcome measures and terms of arrangements between stakeholders. A systematic review was conducted in MEDLINE (January 1, 1946-April 1, 2017), Embase (January 1, 1988-April 1, 2017), and the grey literature (up to April 1, 2017) to identify publicly disclosed PBRSAs. Articles and conference abstracts were included if they were published in English and described a U.S.-specific PBRSA for a drug. Articles and conference abstracts were excluded if they only described a PBRSA similar to a money-back guarantee to patients. They were also excluded if they only described a PBRSA between a PBM and a health insurer in which the latter would receive a discount for patients nonadherent to a drug. Results were summarized as counts and percentages. From the literature review, 26 publicly disclosed PBRSAs were identified. Of these, 16 (62%) were announced or initiated from 2015 to 2017, and 10 (38%) were announced or initiated from 1997 to 2012. Thirteen (50%) PBRSAs involved cardiometabolic indications; 5 (19%) involved oncology indications; and 8 (31%) involved other indications. Categorized by health insurer or PBM, 10 (38%) PBRSAs involved large multistate insurers; 5 (19%) involved the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; 7 (27%) involved regional insurers; 3 (12%) involved PBMs; and 1 (4%) involved multiple unspecified insurers. Regarding the most active drug manufacturers, Amgen initiated 5 (19%) PBRSAs and Novartis initiated 4 (15%). Relative to the initial FDA approval of a treatment, 15 (58%) PBRSAs were announced or initiated within 5 years, and 11 (42%) were announced or initiated more than 5 years later. For data collection, electronic medical record (EMR) data would have been an appropriate source for 12 (46%) PBRSAs; claims data would have been an appropriate source for 11 (42%) PBRSAs; and EMR and claims data would have been appropriate sources for 2 (8%) PBRSAs; no description of the outcome measures was available for 1 (4%) PBRSA. The number of publicly disclosed U.S.-specific PBRSAs for drugs has increased over the years. This review's findings confirm the interest of stakeholders in such arrangements and their confidence in the use of the selected outcome measures. Each PBRSA represents a timely collaboration among stakeholders to provide access to a drug while generating evidence to better elucidate its clinical and economic value. No funding supported this systematic review. Yu is an employee and shareholder of Allergan. Chin reports personal fees from Formulary Resources. Oh and Farias have nothing to disclose. Study concept and design were primarily contributed by Yu, along with the other authors. All authors contributed to the collection and interpretation of the data. The manuscript was written by Yu, Chin, Oh, and Farias and revised by Yu and Chin, along with the other authors.

Briefing

Recruiting & Retaining Adult LearnersVolume 19, Issue 12 p. 2-2 Briefing Briefing First published: 14 August 2017 https://doi.org/10.1002/nsr.30275Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract Bill expands offerings at community colleges Program offers money-back guarantee Transitions: Take advising to incoming students Volume19, Issue12September 2017Pages 2-2 RelatedInformation

Who should be pricing leader in the presence of customer returns?

We examine how competing retailers should choose product returns strategies and leadership strategies, and how product returns strategies and leadership strategies impact the prices, market shares, and profits of each retailer in a duopoly. We find that if the transferring costs of a returned product can be offset by its salvage value, the retailer, whether of high or low quality, should offer a Money-Back Guarantee (MBG) returns policy. We also show that the leadership strategy in a duopoly setting depends on the retailer's efficiency in selling the product (quality and acquisition cost) and handling customer returns (if an MBG is offered), relative to the competing retailer. We find that both retailers will choose sequential games and we identify when a retailer will be a pricing leader or follower in a competitive market. We identify the globally optimal leadership strategy for the duopoly when a retailer's efficiency in selling the product and handling customer returns is comparable to that of the competing retailer. In addition, we show that a retailer's MBG returns policy has a significant effect on the leadership strategy in duopoly competition. Numerical examples are also included to illustrate the major results.

The Bobolink Project: Selling Public Goods From Ecosystem Services Using Provision Point Mechanisms

We report a two-year field experiment that solicited residents of Jamestown, Rhode Island, USA, to fund contracts with farmers willing to provide public goods associated with improving the nesting success of grassland birds, particularly the Bobolink. This experiment explores the potential to leverage valuation research for the purpose of enhancing charitable contributions in a manner consistent with developing markets for ecosystem-service public goods; we focus on individuals' willingness to contribute revenue. The direct-mail marketing experiment collected over $16,000 through four provision point, money-back guarantee mechanisms: a voluntary contribution mechanism with a proportional rebate; a pivotal mechanism based on the Clarke tax; and two novel uniform price mechanisms, each presented in discrete choice and open-ended response formats. We find that citizens do respond strategically: consistently lower offers in the open-ended format suggest a high incidence of cheap riding, but also a significant effect of higher suggested offer thresholds. These framing effects dominated differences among mechanisms, as revenue generated from the proportional rebate and one of the uniform price mechanisms approached the potential for revenue generation estimated under the incentive compatible pivotal mechanism.

Pareto Improving Supply Chain Coordination Under a Money-Back Guarantee Service Program

Money-back guarantee (MBG) is a well-known service offered by many retailers. Under the MBG policy, a purchased item by a consumer can be returned for a full refund. In this paper, we explore a supply chain (SC) system comprising of one retailer, which offers the money-back guarantee policy and faces a stochastic demand. With a given supply contract offered by the supplier, the retailer makes decisions on the order quantity and the market coverage of the money-back guarantee service. With reference to real-world practices, we examine three models, namely, (1) the traditional wholesale pricing model without the buyback contract, (2) the model with a buyback contract (between the supplier and the retailer) for unsold items, and (3) a dual-buyback (DB) contract model for both unsold and consumer returned items. We find that using the buyback contract alone for unsold items cannot achieve Pareto improving supply chain coordination, whereas the DB contract can. Numerical findings also indicate that the DB contract can lead to an expansion of the money-back guarantee service program to cover more customers. This paper’s findings support the implementation of the DB contract, which is commonly seen in the industry, for efficient supply chain management in the presence of the money-back guarantee service program.

Pareto Improving Supply Chain Coordination Under a Money-Back Guarantee Service Program

Money-back guarantee MBG is a well-known service offered by many retailers. Under the MBG policy, a purchased item by a consumer can be returned for a full refund. In this paper, we explore a suppl...

Effectiveness of product return-prevention instruments: Empirical evidence

The convenience and ease of online shopping reduce consumers’ risk perceptions, which encourages the continued growth of online retailing but also may force online retailers to deal with expensive and excessively high product return rates. Despite efforts by e-commerce management practitioners and scholars to identify determinants of customer product return behavior, scarce research investigates the effectiveness of instruments designed explicitly to reduce customers’ actual return rates. Drawing on risk theory, this article tests the influence of three important instruments on product return prevention. Three separate field experiments among customers of a well-known European online retailer reveal, unexpectedly, that the use of a money-back guarantee increases product returns, whereas product reviews decrease the product return rate. The provision of free return labels has no influence on customer product return behavior. This article concludes with some managerial and theoretical implications of these results.

Compete in Price or Service?—A Study of Personalized Pricing and Money Back Guarantees

Retailers use both pricing and service strategies to respond to intensified competition. Here we develop a duopoly model to investigate the impact of the increasingly popular personalized pricing strategy (PPS) and the widely used Money Back Guarantee (MBG) customer returns policy. We consider two retailers who differ in customer satisfaction rates. Each retailer chooses a pricing strategy, PPS or uniform pricing, and a product return strategy, MBG or ‘no returns.’ We show that both PPS and MBG are dominant strategies, but their impact on retailers’ prices and profits are different; while PPS intensifies price competition and may lead to a prisoner’s dilemma in which both retailers may lose profit, MBG mitigates price competition and may result in a Pareto improvement in both retailers’ profits. Both PPS and MBG increase the size of the overall market, but not the total duopoly profit. The total customer surplus and social welfare may increase under either strategy. In addition, we obtain some interesting observations as to how our results may change if the product quality/customer satisfaction rate is endogenously chosen in the duopoly. Some of our findings are in contrast to related results reported in the literature.

Learning Through Crowdfunding

This paper examines the role of reward-based crowdfunding in learning about demand and improving investment decisions. The information gathered while raising funds from consumers provides firms with a real option to invest if demand is sufficiently high. Despite moral hazard problems stemming from the firms' ability to divert the funds raised, all-or-nothing schemes are nearly as efficient as frictionless surveys and full money-back guarantees. Dominant platforms adopt features such as limited campaign length and transparency between backers, which are essential to overcome moral hazard. Our results are consistent with stylized facts and provide new testable implications.

Airline switching revenue with price-guarantees

Many airlines permit ticket holders to change the time of their flight by paying a switching fee. For an airline, selecting a switching fee is an important strategic decision for two reasons. First, it is a supplementary but considerable revenue item for firms with a narrow profit margin. Second, the fee impacts their demand and consequently their capacity planning. Knowing that a low or high fee could cause operational challenges, such as unsold capacity or lost sales, the question that arises is what fee should be set for switching. We model a single firm which delivers two sequential homogeneous services that are priced differently; a high-priced service followed by a low-priced one. The price difference triggers a demand leakage across the two services. Switching customers pay a switching fee but get reimbursed the price difference. This reimbursement is an extension of airlines’ current switching practice and money-back guarantees that are common in retail industries (such as consumer electronics). We analyze the firm’s revenue function and derive the optimal switching fee. We show that the variability in switching behavior of customers drives the firm’s ideal switching policy. When this uncertainty increases, the firm should impose a higher switching fee. Furthermore, the optimal switching fee is rising in the resources’ prices. Finally, through numerical analysis, we investigate the joint decisions of the service price and the switching fee. This analysis shows that the optimal fee is increasing in the size of the low-price service.

Success and Failure in Using the Bully Pulpit: Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Taft and the Importance of Press Relations

Lincoln and the Power of the Press. By Harold Holzer. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2014. 733 pp. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. By Doris Kearns Goodwin. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. 910 pp. In 1854 Abraham Lincoln posed for a photograph holding a copy of the Chicago Daily Democrat. In those days, was common for people to hold something that represented their trade: blacksmiths, for example, posed with anvils. That Lincoln, a politician, posed with a newspaper, indicates was a tool of his trade. Harold Holzer writes in Lincoln and the Power of the Press that the photograph showed how important the press was to politicians. According to Holzer, journalists and politicians in Lincoln's time often worked together closely that was impossible to determine where one organization ended its work and the other began it (p. xvi). But some 30 years later, the press was just as important to Teddy Roosevelt and his unfortunate successor, William Howard Taft. Doris Kearns Goodwin argues in The Bully Pulpit that Roosevelt succeeded, in large part, because he was good at using the press: Taft failed because he was not. Holzer's Lincoln was just as successful if not more so than Roosevelt. From his earliest experiences as a politician, Lincoln crafted his speeches with an eye for the press. While rival congressmen would gesticulate wildly and pontificate for the galleries, Lincoln would casually stroll the aisles and speak with a sense of humor and in the vernacular that would appeal to the home folks. During his debates with Douglas, Lincoln made sure that a reporter for one of the Republican papers was available to transcribe his words. At the debate in Freeport, Illinois, the reporter was late. Lincoln noticed he was missing and tried to delay his opening speech until he arrived. Ain't Hitt here? Where is he? Lincoln was overheard to say, referring to Robert Hitt of the Chicago Press and Tribune (pp. 179-80). The debates made Lincoln nationally famous, but Holzer relates that Lincoln had the foresight to collect coverage of the speeches from both Democratic and Republican newspapers and create a scrapbook that was published and became a bestseller. The book was an effective way to communicate Lincoln's views in the 1860 election, when presidential candidates did not usually give campaign speeches. Lincoln was also a big believer in campaign newspapers, which were publications created during elections to promote specific candidates or parties. Using professional sales techniques, Lincoln would persuade people to buy a subscription and then get them to sell subscriptions to others. To one fellow attorney, he offered a money-back guarantee: have put you down for one copy, the subscription for which I will pay myself, if you are not satisfied with it (p. 101). Lincoln used the touch when he visited newsrooms, putting his feet on a desk and chatting about current events. One editor said of Lincoln, Few men can make an hour pass away more agreeably (p. 202). As president, Lincoln recognized he had the power to control the news agenda, marking a significant turning point in the history of White House press relations. Lincoln abandoned the standard practice of a particular newspaper serving as the voice of the president and his party, preferring to dole out stories to various journalists as suited his purpose. Lincoln's famous response to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley's Prayer of Twenty Millions, an editorial demanding immediate emancipation early in the war, is often quoted as an example of the president's eloquent writing and determination to win the war. But Holzer argues that Lincoln's widely published reply, in which he stated his paramount objection was to save the Union, showed Lincoln that he could turn newspapers into his personal sounding boards, much like modern presidents try to avoid the filter of the news media with speeches, social media, and interviews with nonjournalists. …

Consumer perceptions of prescription and over-the-counter drug advertisements with promotional offers

ABSTRACTInformation on the effects of promotional offers in direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads is limited. In two studies, we examined the effect of promotional offers (e.g., money-back guarantee) and ad type (creating prescription and over-the-counter drug ads by varying the presence of benefit and risk information). We found little effect of promotional offers. Adding benefit (risk) information to the ad increased consumers’ knowledge of the benefit (risk) information and their efficacy (risk) perceptions. In most cases, adding risk information to an ad with benefit information increased risk knowledge and perceptions without decreasing benefit knowledge or perceptions.

Everyday Advocacy: 30 Ways in 30 Days: A Month of Entry Points for Living and Loving Advocacy

Thirty days. They’re a pretty good measuring stick for whether or not something works for us, right? At least that’s what all those infomercials would have us believe.I mean, think about it: Everywhere you look there’s a thirty-day risk-free trial or money-back guarantee. If you’re not completely satisfied, simply return your purchase for a full refund (less shipping and handling). There’s no commitment, and you can cancel at any time.

Gene-therapy cure to be offered with money-back guarantee

Gene-therapy cure to be offered with money-back guarantee

When to introduce an online channel, and offer money back guarantees and personalized pricing?

Sales through an online channel are increasingly popular in the retailing industry. Customers, however, cannot touch or feel a product before they purchase online. This leads to much higher rates of customer returns in the online channel, which in turn leads to significant costs to retailers. In this paper, we develop a model of a dual-channel structure with online and brick-and-mortar channels, in order to determine when a retailer should introduce an online channel and how it should define returns policies for the two channels. We identify the conditions under which a retailer should choose a dual-channel structure, and show that the retailer should offer a Money-Back Guarantee (MBG) in a channel as long as the net salvage value of the returned product is positive in that channel. In addition, if uniform pricing is used in both channels, it is optimal for the retailer to simply set the prices for each channel as if the two channels were operated separately. Our analysis leads to a simple three-step process to help the retailer make a channel selection, choose a product returns policy, and decide on price. We also examine the implications of personalized pricing (PP) in the online channel for the retailer's channel selection and choice of returns policy. We show that PP makes the online channel more attractive and makes the retailer more likely to adopt MBGs. The impact of PP on pricing for both channels is also discussed.

Offering Money-Back Guarantees in the Presence of Strategic Consumers

This paper studies the benefits of money-back guarantees (MBGs) on the seller under the presence of strategic consumers. The seller initially can offer the MBGs or no-MBGs in the selling season but may sell the leftover inventory at a salvage price without the MBGs at the end of the season. The strategic consumers choose the purchasing timing based on their expected surplus. The authors compare the models of the MBGs offer to no-MBGs in the selling season. By characterizing the rational expectation equilibrium, they find that the seller can charge a higher price in the case of the MBGs offer compared to no-MBGs. Accordingly, the seller's stocking level is higher and thus the seller's profit has the corresponding result. This result explains why MBGs is ubiquitous in the retailing world. The effects of the parameters in the model on the profit benefit are shown in the numerical analysis.