Does Omnichannel Selling with Pre-Order and Returns Benefit Consumers?

Firms begin to shift from multichannel to omnichan-nel. In this paper, we study the omnichannel selling with pre-orders and return policy from different consumers' perspective. We find that omnichannel selling can satisfy more consumers with demand updating. And this new selling strategy brings about a higher consumer welfare in most cases. We identify the thresholds for price discount, returns refund and demand uncertainty, above which omnichannel benefits consumers. In addition, in terms of return policy, omnichannel with returns policy brings about higher consumer welfare than that without returns in most cases unless the returns refund is relatively high and the demand uncertainty is not significant. More managerial insights are developed with numerical analysis.