3.3 Group Modeling
3.3.2 Model Building Meeting
This study conducted several times of interviews, including four major interviews for C2C e-commerce dispute events, C2C e-commerce quality and competition, C2C e-commerce platform management, the feasibility of the relevant policy discussion.
We gathered online auction participants to carry out group model building meeting and gradually build consensus in the discussion process and present the consensus in a causal loop diagram. By adding different policy scenarios, the causal loop diagram can be presented in a complete way what the plight of the auction platform.
Four times of meeting for group thinking was held, and the following is the content of the discussion:
The first meeting is mainly to explain the purpose and the background of this study to stakeholders, and we collated the contents of separate interviews with the stakeholders, and re-confirm the ideas of the stakeholders after the meeting. As employee and buyers are located in different regions, those meetings were carried out by web phone. The four major topics were defined at the meeting, and questions below were discussed for the topics, and they were summarized as the table 3-2.
Financial:
• How can a C2C-e-Commerce platform have financial soundness?
• What are the profit sources for a C2C e-Commerce platform?
• What are the costs for operating a C2C e-Commerce platform?
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Internal Processes:
• What are the operational strategies in current C2C e-Commerce?
Are they different in each C2C e-Commerce platform?
• What are the marketing strategies for each C2C e-Commerce platform? What are the differences?
• How C2C e-Commerce platforms have their functional innovation?
What are the differences between each platform?
Customer:
• What is the customer value that C2C e-Commerce platforms could give to customers?
• From past academic community, there are so many factors that can influence customer purchase behavior, such as perceived benefit, perceived risk, trust, perceived playfulness, and so on.
For over all, what factors can strongly affect customer purchase behavior?
• What are the dispute events of C2C e-Commerce in recent years?
What have those dispute events effect?
Mechanisms:
• What are existing mechanisms for user specifications? Are they effective?
• How is the competition in C2C e-Commerce industry? What is the entry difficulty?
• What are the difficulties faced by sellers in operating online stores?
TABLE 3-2: List of Issues
Issues Content 1 Content 2 Content 3
Financial Financial soundness Profit source Operating costs Internal
Processes
Operational strategy Marketing strategy Functional innovation
Customer Customer value Purchase behavior Dispute events
Mechanisms Existing mechanisms for user specifications
Industry competition and entry difficulty
Difficulties faced by sellers in operating online stores
By the first meeting, we built a preliminary causal loop diagram, as Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2: Preliminary causal loop diagram
In the second meeting, we discussed the variables related to the topics defined at the first meeting, found out key factors and modify the preliminary
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causal loop diagram in accordance with the outcome of the discussion, as table 3-3.
TABLE 3-3: Key Factors of Topics retrieved from the 2nd meeting
Factor Financial Internal Processes Customer Mechanisms
Factor 1 Auction goods
income Hardware updating Customer value
creation Intellectual assets Factor 2 Fee income Function
development
Customer Purchase
Behavior Intangible assets Factor 3 Platform net profit Marketing budget Customer
satisfaction Factor 4 Available funds Marketing budge
Factor 5 Operating expenses.
At the same time, we also discussed the existing dispute events in current C2C e-commerce as those questions below.
• Who are the accountability roles to those dispute events?
• How does the existing dispute events affect consumer perceived risk?
Are there any differences in each C2C e-Commerce platform?
• Why those dispute events existed?
Table 5 reveals the existing C2C e-commerce platform dispute events:
TABLE 3-4: The Dispute Events
Accountability
role Content 1 Content 2 Content 3 Content 4 Content 5
Buyers Not picking up Non-paying bid Malicious evaluation
Return Buyer fraud
Sellers Repeat posting Seller fraud Inflated price Adulterated goods
Private trading
Platform Management
too lenient Disconnect Fake reviews Charging policy change often
Information leakage
After second meeting, this study defined the events above and explained what kind of risk perceived by customers, refer to Table 3-5. We looked for the structure behind the problem based on those dispute events, as our discussion, we consider the lenient of member review system as the key factor of dispute event.
TABLE 3-5: Dispute Event of operationalize Definition by author
Dispute
Buyer did not picked up the goods after booking, and it led to logistics costs.
Economic risk and Time risk
Non-paying bid
Buyer did not make a payment after booking. Time risk
Malicious evaluation
After ordering, buyer deliberately damaged the seller reputation with destructive words.
Economic risk
Buyer fraud After the buyer booked the goods, disguised as the seller to cancel the logistics, and stole goods.
Economic risk
Repeat posting
Sellers shelve the same product for exposure. Time risk
Seller fraud Seller used fake goods to scramble buyers or buyer did not receive the goods after payment
Economic risk
Inflated price The true price of the goods did not match the marked price.
Economic risk
Adulterated goods
Sellers used pirated goods disguised as a genuine goods to trade
Economic risk and Personal risk Private
trading
It is a private ad exchange for a specific seller and where the contact through the platform, but did not leave trading records on the platform, or buyers and sellers customized the payment way for trading.
Economic risk and Seller performance risk
Management The platform was not fair enough or not actively Economic risk and
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too lenient dealing with user events. Seller performance
risk disconnect Users cannot contact the customer service of
platform or website.
Time risk
Fake reviews Transaction evaluation or comment is not true. Economic risk and Seller performance risk
Charging policy change often
The platform constantly change the charging policy (e.g. transaction fee), which made it difficult for sellers to set price.
Economic risk
Information leakage
The platform had been hacked or the
mechanism was incomplete to cause outflow of user information.
Economic risk and Privacy risk
In this discussion, the causal loop diagram was constructed, and we would discuss it in the next chapter.
In the third meeting, we first discussed the institution-based trust and mechanisms, according to existing mechanisms in domestic and foreign C2C e-Commerce platforms we chose the most important ones from the various resistant variables and listed the first few important resolve variables. During the meeting, this study draws the selected important resolve variables into the causal diagram, examining whether there is a conflict or offsetting. Verified the causal relationship once resolve variables added in the loop, and delete the extra variables with the views of the participants. Questions below were asked to our group members:
• After our discussion, according to existing mechanisms in C2C e-Commerce in domestic and abroad, which mechanisms are in line with the institution-based trust in your consideration? And which
mechanisms can indeed reduce the incidence of existing dispute events?
• Is there any place where we do not understand in our causal loop diagram? Is there any causal relationship not clear in our causal loop diagram? Is there any variable can be omitted in our causal loop diagram?
The fourth meeting was to confirm whether the selected variables were in line with everyone's expectations and find out a better decision-making with the given limitation. Questions below were asked to interviewee.
• From the following mechanisms, how do you think about the cost, the time required and their effectiveness? Pleat use the score 1 to 5, the 5 is the best while the 1 is the worst.
• What are the reasons that you give the score?
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Chapter Four Analysis and Discussion
In this chapter, this study constructed the causal loop diagram based on Chapter 3 and discussed the results followed the seven steps mentioned in 3.3
Firstly, the causal loop diagram is carried out, and the influence of each loop in the system was described in detail. Then, the discussion was carried out to find a better resolve variable. Finally, the results were discussed.