A Cross-Channel Return Policy in a Green Dual-Channel Supply Chain Considering Spillover Effect

With the advent of the era of “New Retail”, many manufacturers and retailers have begun to provide cross-channel return services to increase competitiveness. Our study takes return policy into a green dual-channel supply chain, wherein a manufacturer creates and sells green products simultaneously. We investigate the pricing and greening strategies for the supply chain players in the cases of providing and not providing cross-channel return service by employing the Stackelberg model under the hypothesis of a consistent pricing strategy. By comparing the equilibrium results of two cases, we find that the retailer will cooperate with the manufacturer to employ the cross-channel return policy when the spillover effect is greater than a threshold. Additionally, the green level of products is higher than before. The threshold decreases with consumers’ sensitivity to green products, which implies that the manufacturer is motivated to conduct marketing programs to enhance consumers’ willingness to buy green products. Moreover, we propose a contract to coordinate the supply chain. Finally, we discuss the scenarios if the supply chain implements a differential pricing strategy. Interestingly, the green level and the profits of the whole supply chain are greater than that under a consistent pricing strategy. However, the profits of the retailer are lower than profits in the other scenario, which is not beneficial to creating a stable green supply chain.