Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper focuses on the resale channel choice of online recyclers based on the reverse logistics supply chain and provides useful insights into reverse logistics research and also provides a useful tool to assess different resale channel models in different scenarios. The methodology is clearly explained  and theoretically grounded but the option by the game theory wasn’t explained

 

Some corrections need to be done:

Line 45: eliminate “(www.58yiji.com)”

Line 46: eliminate “(www.aihuishou.com)”

Line 243: give na empty line after Figure 2

Line 248 to 252: reduce the space between lines

Line 264: give an empty line after figure 3

Line 275: eliminate “(www.gazelle.com)”

Line 276: eliminate “(www.58yipi.com)”

Line 303 to 305: reduce space between lines

Line 313 to 315: reduce space between lines

Line 319: give an empty line after figure and all other figures

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is interesting because the topic is novel and well written. In my humble opinion, the author or authors do not need to make important changes.

I only indicate one reflection and two minor changes.

Reflection: in the first lines of the article, the author refers to waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), but that category of product (waste) is not re-determined at any other time in the article. I ask myself a question: Does the author consider that the study is only valid for this type of product or is it applicable to other waste and recovered products? Shouldn't we know at some point?

Minor change: In the introduction, paragraph 5, the author writes “Further study revealed that all players can agree on the agency model in some cases. To obtain some implications to promote the development of online recycling, we also compared the consumer surplus in different models. The result showed that the lower retailing price in the self-run model results in the consumer surplus being always better than that in the agency model”. Author must indicate this study /research.

Minor change: in the "Model description" section. What does alpha mean in figure 1? It is only explained later in section 4.1. It may be appropriate to include its meaning in table 1.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

although your work is an important effort in the research field of recycled products' reselling, there are some concerns about its publication.

1. First of all, although the last paragraph of the conclusions tries to elaborate on the contribution of this paper, a clear statement is missing from the abstract and the conclusions. Which is the major contribution, which is the state of the art of your research?

2. The introduction totally lacks references, which is unacceptable for a research paper. 

3. My major concern is that this paper is too 'mathematical'. This fact alone is not a problem, but the discussion of the general sustainability topic based on the results is missing. Thus, it does not seem to fit with the scope of this journal.

4. In some parts of the text, the English language is rather simplistic. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic of this paper is interesting and worth publication. The aim has been formulated properly. The paper contains a lot of interesting and new information.

The paper is really interesing and worth to publicate in Sustainability journal.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

although some effort has been made for the improvement of the paper, I still have the same concerns. 

The paper is rather a description of a mathematical model, without providing any meaningful insights about sustainability issues. There is no proportion between sections 3 and 4. Section 3 is too long, while Section 4 that tries to describe some sustainability implications is rather still rather poor.

In addition, in the introduction, there is a detailed description of the paper's scope, but the unique contribution of this paper to the sustainability research community is still missing. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf