You are a new player in a competitive e-commerce market. A customer has raised a request for return of a product which has crossed its return expiration date. What would you do?

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You are a new player in a competitive e-commerce market. A customer has raised a request for return of a product which has crossed its return expiration date. What would you do?

Asked at Amazon over a year ago

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Ram G. · Answer 1 · 2019-11-17T04:38:24+0000

Get clarity on the situation: 1st ask to clarify if this a commodity market or a speciality market. for this analysis I will assume it is a commodity market as also it was mentioned it was competitive. 2nd will who the customer was - if it was a high spender and a repeat spender or a normal. for now I assume it will be normal.

customer persona - i will further check about customer if there is a spend track record and if what was being ordered will trigger further orders.

customer need summary: customer wants to return a product and past expiration date.

cut thrrough prioritization: will calculate the cost to restock and any special terms with the vendor of product. Assume product cost is $100. Assume return/restock cost is $20 including shipping. assume customer to spend $500 and likely generate $50 in profit in 12 month period.

Possible solutions: 1. reject request as time has expired, 2. if customer wants exchange consider option, 3. accept and take hit of $20.

Tradeoffs: since the is new player, some flexibility is needed to enter a competitive market. at same time facing losses will not be right decision. Here assume there is good will generated and trend of $50 in 12 month exceeds the hit of $20, I would proceed and try to negotiate an exchange. if that does not work will give one time hit and allow return.

metrics: will put the customer on watch list to evaluate if there are any further sales and good will earned by this action and then will formulate future actions in similar situations based on this result over a 3 month period.

Harsh Jain · Answer 2 · 2019-11-18T17:24:48+0000

Starting with scoping down on the problem, understand the market on which we are launching, is it the US market or some other?

What is the current goal of the organization: considering the new player and a large number of competitor assuming, it should be to capture market share.

Moving on to understand the dynamics further:
list down important features of e-commerce market and ask What is the USP of the product of this e-commerce? Assuming features of the industry are service, product quality and time of delivery; service quality as the major point of growth for company.

What is the customer segmentation and who is the target audience? Assuming the given customer is from the target audience, but he is not a repeat/high value purchaser.

What were the reason for product return and the reason for delay if any provided; assuming the reason for return and delay was satisfactory.

Based on the above dynamics we provide the refund to the customer and provide a personalized apology given we are looking for a high LTV from customer of the target segment.

Follow up steps shall include metrics to flag the user to notice the future activities which show, whether the user is genuine, of high value or a fraud. If we see a repetition of the above behavior customer should be barred.