International Business Machines Corporation
OPTIMIZING RETURN LOCATIONS IN A NETWORK

Abstract:

The embodiments herein provide techniques for selecting an optimal return location from a plurality of candidate return locations for returning an item based on an expected recovery associated with each location. As discussed above, using predesignated return location(s) ignores many factors that can increase costs that affect returning items such as shipping costs, inventory, handling costs, operational transfer costs, as well as several predicted costs. Further, these techniques do not consider expected future revenue (which can offset these costs). In one embodiment, a net expected recovery is determined for each location using the costs and future revenues discussed above. By comparing the net expected recovery associated with each candidate return location, the optimal return location can be identified.