Intermediary Customer Purchasing from the Product Producer

Return Steps: The Return steps include activities required to return defective product to the supplier. These activities include the work to deliver the product to the supplier and receive credit for the returned product.

B. Resources: Reduce resources required for the use of the product

2.
Time – Reduce the time the customer must spend with the product

NO.	SIC	YEAR	EXAMPLE
1	2840	1997	After years of following the industry practice of taking back damaged or discontinued products from stores, P&G is adopting a no-returns policy. P&G will pay retailers a lump sum to cover the cost of damaged shipments.
2	2389	1987	Benetton recently opened a new factory in North Carolina. Having a U.S. factory is a big advantage for the retailers because it ensures swifter processing of orders. Also, manufacturing in the U.S. will protect Benetton against the falling dollar.
3	2015	1997	In a country culturally predisposed to fresh poultry, Bachoco's ability to deliver product safely and consistently to just about every neighborhood is a key competitive advantage.
4	5999	2001	eBay carefully monitors its online auctions to pick up on trends and demand. Corporations use the site to sell off excess, unpackaged or returned merchandise and entire companies have been created to manage eBay selling. The United States Postal Service uses eBay to sell items that are undeliverable or not returnable. In response to these large scale options, eBay is developing software to help manage these businesses.
5	2300	2004	In 2004, Polo RL launched a pilot program in cooperation with Macy's to tighten inventory of Polo goods. This led to fewer markdowns. The two firms also worked to improve the shopping experience for customers. The result has been total sales increases and increased full-price selling. Polo plans to expand the program into half the department stores that sell its clothes.
6	6211	1977	Salomon Brothers and Bank of America Corp. developed the first private mortgage-backed securities – bonds that pooled thousands of mortgages and pass homeowners' payments through to investors – in 1977. A financial engineer at Salomon hired PhDs who developed the collateralized mortgage obligation, which turns pools of 30-year mortgages into collections of 2-, 5-, and 10-year bonds.
7	4200	2001	United Parcel Service Inc. announced an online return service designed to provide e-commerce customers on-screen labels that can be printed on standard paper directly from a personal computer. The service also prints out a list of nearby UPS drop-off locations or customers can give labeled returns directly to a UPS driver.

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